Endless Space 2: First Impressions

I’ve had an itch for a space strategy game for the last few years, but nothing that came along quite ticked all my boxes. I don’t think I’ve played a 4X game since Sword of the Stars in 2006, which was a little like ‘Total War in Space’, with a turn based campaign and real-time tactical battles. But then Endless Space 2 was ‘released’ out of Early Access and after watching a few videos, I decided to give it a try. I figured I could always refund the title if it wasn’t to my taste. 15 hours later . . .

I’m liking Endless Space 2. I’m liking it a lot. I began with a ‘Beginner’ campaign option so I could learn the ropes. I expected it to be a heavily scripted tutorial, which would lead me through the gameplay mechanics step by step. It initially seemed that way, with multiple tutorial prompts explaining various screens and systems.

But as I progressed, it became clear there really wasn’t any ‘scripted’ tutorial as such. It was simply a restricted, pre-set campaign presumably set to an easy difficulty. The idea, I suppose, is that you’d learn on the fly thanks to the extensive tutorial pop-ups. But that’s not quite how it works in practice.

Not everything is adequately explained, and some things don’t seem to be explained at all. For example – building ships. When I still thought I was playing a scripted tutorial campaign, I expected an event in which my home system would come under threat and the game would walk me through the steps of designing and building a fleet.

I kept waiting for some kind of trigger that would explain the ship building system but it never came. I eventually just figured it out myself. The ‘Beginner’ mode isn’t terrible. It does teach you the basics, but I do feel that Endless Space 2 would have benefited from a dedicated, scripted tutorial campaign.

Once I felt confident, I abandoned that campaign and began another, but fifty or so turns in, I quit. It became clear as I played that there was still a lot I’d missed or the game hadn’t properly explained. So I spent some time just trying out various things to see what worked and what didn’t. And after a few more hours, I began playing a full campaign.

And that’s the campaign I’m currently playing. I’m nearly at 100 turns and entering what I suppose you’d call the ‘mid-game’. Even now, I’m discovering and learning new things about Endless Space 2. There’s a lot of different systems, many of which inter-connect – in particular the population and political systems.

I could probably spend all day breaking down the mechanics and how these pieces fit together, but I’ll save that for my review, and for when I have more experience with the game. All I’m going to say now is that, despite the somewhat poor tutorials, I’m having a real blast with the title. I’m going to go play some more.