Empire of the Ants

Developer: Tower Five
Publisher: Microids
Platforms: PC, Playstation 5 (Reviewed), Xbox Series X|S
Release Date: Available Now
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here

Overview

To someone like myself, Empire of the Ants kind of came out of left field. I feel the game just kind of popped up during the last year, and it immediately caught my eye with its photo-realistic visuals and interesting take on strategic gameplay. Truth is, Microids released a game with the same name over two decades ago, which like this one, was based on Bernard Werber’s novel. There is history here, and an important story to tell. Can this studio make such a niche subject accessible to all and still manage to create a hit for consoles, or is this one story best left to the pages? Let’s find out.

Story

I’m going to be careful with detailing the story too much here as if you are unfamiliar, the element of surprise is what really sets this title apart. Players take control of a young female ant by the name of 103,683rd, who is tasked with several objectives to protect and ensure the continuation of her colony Bel-o-kan through all means possible. It’s a simple enough plot with a deeper meaning, but for this game – the story goes so much further just the well-written dialogue.

This narrative is told through moments. Moments of grief, triumph, and wonder. As you explore, the world just continues to open up around you, where the player has the freedom to feel out the environment at their will or head back to the story which usually leads to battle. There is no human dialogue here, but I remained completely immersed and captivated during my playthrough. Maybe I a just a sucker for nature documentaries and this feels like it’s just missing the commentary of Sir David Attenborough. Truthfully, it’s the intensity that comes due to the importance of the missions you are tasked with, and how difficult they may seem to achieve. This isn’t a “hard” game to play or understand, but you can empathize with the characters here due to how gripping those little story moments become.

Gameplay

There is a bit of everything when it comes to genre in Empire of the Ants. The combat acts as a real-time strategy experience, where your player commands entire legions at the press of a button. It has platforming elements, where you must cross plants, rocks, and leaves in order to progress further. The simulation comes in with everything feeling so realistic, right down to the flutter of a butterfly wing or the flick of an antenna.  Somehow, the game is able to pace itself to put together an amazing campaign, where the player never just sits and waits, but is tasked to explore this world and learn the means of survival.

The combat is kind of the centrepiece here. Think a bit of Pikmin, where you control your little colonies to attack. No, you don’t play as an attacker, but you command hundreds at once. Utilizing the controller that is pretty well mapped with commands, players point and select, and watch their colony go attack enemies that may be at large. Colonies are broken up into several different sub-species that can be upgraded by collecting food and materials that keep each nest thriving. To simplify it, you basically go to the next with open chambers, summon your legion (or upgrade them), add specific elements to strengthen by using a dial command based on your stock, and watch battles unfold. It takes a moment to get used to it all at first, but it expands greatly with options as you progress.

All ants (or other bugs that ally with you) have weaknesses and strengths, and the player must understand the paper/scissors/rock-styled card system to correctly coordinate their legions correctly in order to pull off a successful victory. There are spitters that fire projectiles, workers, standard soldiers, beetles with heavy defence, and so on. There are very detailed mechanics in place but made accessible by simply following the formula and ensuring all your nests remain protected while in battle. If a nest goes down, so do its chambers that may have pivotal upgrades, as well as legions associated. Lose your home base and the battle is lost. These moments are intense and satisfying, as constantly upgrading makes things interesting and never gets stale due to how expansive and engaging the combat is when it truly comes together. The player can also launch abilities to cause legions to swarm in rage, boost speed and even heal, which keeps everything very hands-on and engaging.

Combat isn’t the only element by a long shot, however. Exploration makes up a good chunk of gameplay as well. Finding items and “scanning” them through scent makes you want to explore as that leads to finding materials and food for battle. The missions also include having to find missing ants with ant pheromones, which is like an internal radar of sorts that leads you to find a small creature in such a vast place. It sounds easy, but these missions can be tougher than the battles as there is usually a looming danger such as rising water or predators that can quickly make you start the mission over, so you always have a looming sense of urgency during even the easiest hunts.

The controls luckily are tight and responsive. This is a lot of simulation, and the shift to being a platformer can be something else when you are an ant. You can jump, but the jump is charged and only launches one way. This means you have to crawl, aim, jump, and continue to move through dangling leaves and fauna. The camera can be a bit annoying, but honestly – it wasn’t too much of an issue here. Sure, I had moments where I missed jumps due to the camera, but I just retried and was fine to continue whatever I was doing. It’s odd how well that still works and it shows that this team really tried to perfect camera angles, which I am sure was difficult due to the giant sizes of literally every piece of environment in the game. The nature of the gameplay is so accurate you will find yourself looping on a twig – as that’s how ants walk. Because you’re an ant, these minor flaws are forgivable.

Audio

When I first started playing, the soundtrack really didn’t reel me in a lot. Sure, the gentle melodies were sweet in tone, but it wasn’t anything to stand out. This list of tunes however really starts to come together as you get to more intense moments, creating a rich, warm atmosphere that feels super realistic, yet calming and profound. The little sound effects do amazing things as well to pull together the world around you. The small crunches of leaves under your little ant feet, the sounds of winds whistling through trees, and so on really make it feel like you’re immersed in this vast trekked landscape. It’s truly special.

Visuals

I have played a lot of games on my PlayStation 5, and I always kind of look for those visual blockbusters that you can show someone to impress them with how realistic they look. Empire of the Ants is one of those games and may be one of the most graphically stunning games to release to date. The colours, the models, and the heavy amounts of detail where you can see almost every seed of soil just create visual candy for the eyes. I’m no myrmecologist, but Tower Five absolutely did their homework to study these creatures, and their hard work can be seen in almost every frame and polygon within. The animations are also fantastic. Sure, there are some wonky kills at times where a bug will fly up after being hit, but it looks so realistic that it’s hard to really find anything here to complain about.

Overall

Empire of the Ants is a technical masterpiece. The gameplay is rich with strategic elements that feel engaging and fluid while the world is enchanting and a joy to explore. Some games hit you by surprise, as you may have not expected there to be something so complex with a subject so small, but Tower Five really went out of their way to make this tale come off as epic. It isn’t the concept execution that was done so well here that makes it such a marvel. It functions on a console with such ease and creative optimization, making it accessible to anyone with a genuine curiosity. I spend a lot of time flipping through sales and shops, trying to find something that stands out or just feels different, as so many studios just seem to constantly try to point everything in the same direction. Empire of the Ants is one of the stand-outs as it dares to take risks, and pulls them off with such effortless finesse. Big things do come in small packages.

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