Gameplay
''Humankind'' is a 4X game comparable to the '' Civilization'' series. Players lead their civilization across six major eras of human civilization, starting from the nomadic age, directing how the civilization should expand, developing cities, controlling military and other types of units as they interact with other civilizations on the virtual planet, randomly generated at the start of a new game. A distinguishing feature of ''Humankind'' is that within each of the eras, the player selects one of ten civilization types based on historical societies; this selection offers both bonuses and penalties to how the player can build out the civilization. Because a player can select different civilizations as templates to build upon, there exist potentially one million different civilization patterns that a player can ultimately develop. Building out cities follows a similar model from Amplitude's '' Endless Legend'' game, a continent in ''Humankind'' will have multiple territories on it, and the player will only be able to build one city in that territory. Over time, they can expand that city, adding farms and other outlying resources as well as more dense urban areas closer to the city center. This allows the creation of large metropolises within each territory. Players may also need to engage in combat with enemy forces. When this occurs, the game uses a tactical role playing game approach for detailed resolution of these battles, giving the player a chance to take advantage of terrain and special abilities of their units. Within these skirmishes, battles can only last for three combat turns before the game returns to the overworld, so that drawn-out wars can occur across multiple years at the overworld scale. During the game, the players gain resources for their civilization, similar to ''Endless Legend'', which includes food, industry, gold, science, and influence; each of these can be spent to speed up production, advance technology, or as trade goods with other cultures. ''Humankind'' also includes Fame, which is earned by feats within the game, for example, accumulating influence or gold, destroying units, being the first civilization to discover certain technologies or build world wonders. Fame is a persistent measure of the civilization's relative success compared to other civilizations, and can have impacts on later decisions in the game. Unlike games like ''Civilization'' where there can be multiple victory conditions, victory in ''Humankind'' is based solely on the Fame score after a pre-determined number of turns. or other events that trigger end-game. ''Humankind'' will include certain persons and events based on historical records that the player will interact with.Development
Amplitude Studios has had a history of prior 4X games based on its ''Endless'' science fiction setting, including '' Endless Space'' and '' Endless Legend''. The studio considers ''Humankind'' to be their magnum opus of their previous titles, and something that they have wanted to produce from the start, with their recent acquisition byReception
''Humankind'' received "generally favorable reviews", according to review aggregator Metacritic, scoring a weighted average of 78/100. Leana Hafer of '' IGN'' awarded the game 7/10, stating "Humankind is an interesting but fairly safe riff on historical 4X that doesn't always rise to meet its potential." Fraser Brown of '' PC Gamer'' gave it a score of 71 out of 100. He wrote that he enjoyed the process of watching his civilization grow, but that he felt the gameplay was too numbers-focused and lacked the personality and narrative weirdness of Amplitude's earlier works.Awards and accolades
''Humankind'' was nominated for Best Sim/Strategy Game at The Game Awards 2021.Sales
''Humankind'' was the fourth best-selling video game in August 2021 in the US.References
External links
* {{Amplitude Studios 2021 video games 4X video games Video games developed in France PlayStation 4 games PlayStation 5 games Xbox One games Xbox Series X and Series S games Windows games macOS games Stadia games Sega video games Multiplayer and single-player video games Video games postponed due to the COVID-19 pandemic Amplitude Studios games