Endless Legend has taken one step closer towards release with a significant new update to its early access version taking it officially into beta status. If you are under the impression that this means all planned factions and features are now implemented, well, not quite. At least two factions are still to be added. While not quite feature complete yet, this update does bring a significant amount of new content into this fantasy 4X game.
The new beta content covers nearly all aspects of the game. The most notable additions include two new factions, an enhanced battle system, diplomatic improvements, trade routes, ships and harbors, and a fully functional multiplayer mode. Also added are privateers, mercenaries you can hire to perform anonymous attacks against your rivals, if you’re the devious type. This is just the short list of enhancements, so for an exhaustive list of the beta additions and fixes, you should check out the beta release notes.
With two new factions added to the game, Endless Legend’s beta now includes 6 of the eventual 8 factions. One of the new factions being introduced is the Roving Clans, a race of nomadic traders and explorers who seem to be obsessed with dust, the game’s currency and magic source. The other new faction is the Ardent Mages, a rather interesting group of sorcerers with a strong desire to bring pain and punishment down upon… themselves. Evidently embracing agony makes them more powerful, or at least they think so.
An enhanced battle system, or at least a more transparent system with less hidden information, was certainly high on my wish list based on the alpha. New additions include a battle pacing setting, which allows control over additional rounds of battle, as well as improved city defense and deployment options.
As part of the beta release, the early access discount has been reduced from 25% down to 10% off. I suspect release is not far away at this point, so my advice would be to wait until the official release and reviews are available before purchasing unless you’re the adventurous type. While my time spent with the alpha was enjoyable, and I have no reason to believe the beta won’t be even better, purchasing early access titles is always a risk. Of course, if you’ve already purchased the game and hopped into the early access waters, please let us know your thoughts thus far in the comments.
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Still have two factions, eight minor factions, two research tiers and one major gameplay feature left to implement, BUT GOOD GOD IS IT GOOD EVEN NOW!!!!!
Beats out Legendary Heroes for me…which was my favorite fantasy 4X before.
5 Factions now. 3 Tier Tech and a lot more stuff with the latest big patch.
This game is surprisingly good. ( and i didn´t like Endless Space at all )
What is that major gameplay feature?
This is an EA game i can really recommend. It´s very good and polished in this state. I´m not talking about potential, it IS already a lot of fun and i didn´t like Endless Space at all.
They have since decided against it, but it WAS espionage. They’re going to add it after release.
But yeah, the game is already much better than Endless Space and I’m already having fun with it.
It can only get better.
I’m waiting for full release.
I need to know 2 things (which Endless Space suffered from for over a year of checking to see if it was fixed yet)
1. Is the multiplayer plagued with desynch. issues.
2. Is the AI cheating to extreme levels to create a challenge.
Endless Space was an immense disappointment for me because of the non functional multiplayer and ridiculous AI fleet spam.
To have a good AI, a LOT of sacrifices must be made elsewhere.
With all the features in EL, it doesn’t seem likely that much focus is going to be put on the AI (which is normal, it’s a video game, not an AI research project).
Hint : if the AI fleet spam bothers you, try playing on a lower difficulty level, but impose yourself speific restrictions (or you could make a custom empire with negative traits and lots of remaining points not spent).
I’d rather have those sacrifices. Good AI makes or breaks the game.
Remember, only a small percentage of players ever go online <5% at times. So I'd rather they had no multiplayer for example and awesome AI.
What an excellent surprise!! I started a new game yesterday with the Wild Walkers, as I had played with the Broken Lords my first go around with the Alpha. They did quite a bit with the Beta update and it’s quickly becoming a fantastic game.
Its a good game as it is now, just a few things that aren’t in this build that will come with time. The combat hasn’t been changed yet, but supposedly you will be able to control your units in battle instead of pre-picking your targets. That’s my main thing right now, that and the information not present on certain things. That will come with time though.
Did you try messing with the game setting that sets how detailed your control of units is in combat?
combat settings have changed with that patch.
you can control your units every round now, if you want to. but they didn´t change automatic unit movement ( while performing your attack orders )
Awesome! I didn’t know that. I’ll have to mess with it. Thanks Guys!
With Amplitude Studio, it’s definitely a wait-for-full-release situation.
This French studio creates gorgeous looking games, interesting mechanics and rather unique settings but when you put them all together, the things that you DON’T see in trailers rears their ugly heads and turn everything into a mediocre ‘meh’ sort of game.
Be careful when reading praises from Alpha/Beta players – a lot of their praises are given based on the assumption that Amplitude will eventually implement the rest of missing mechanics to the same level of quality as the initial offering.
Amplitude does NOT have that reputation.
Spot on there.
Your only reference is ONE game. I realize that Endless Space could have been SO MUCH MORE, but the lessons learned from their first endeavor are obvious to any player.
Dungeon of the Endless is very good, too, although not really my type of game.
Are you saying you should ignore our experience of this studio’s previous game and wait for release reviews only because it is a sample set of 1? Wow what a strange line of argument.
I have played Endless Legend already as much as I have played Endless Space (~14 hours) and I’m just saying that they have obviously learned their lesson.
EL is the far better game and I’m saying that your concern appears to be, while perhaps warranted, inaccurate.
I don’t mean to cause offence but I remember you being one of the people highly promoting Stardrive while in beta and that was a horrible waste of money also. I would suggest that you either have very different tastes related to quality or your excitement for something going purely on potential isn’t something I should base a pre purchase decision on.
I admit that my excitement for Stardrive was a little preemptive. You have to admit that it had a great deal of potential, and I saw that, but unfortunately it didn’t meet the expectations of everyone. Maybe even myself.
I would be happy to provide examples of how and why Endless Legend is a much better game than Endless Space. In the end, though, you’re probably better off waiting for it to finish. Especially since it’s only 10% off now. But, having learned from previous hype mistakes, I’m telling you that EL is shaping up to be a fantastic game.
Just wait and see!
IMHO 14 hours for a 4X game is barely enough to get a first impression.
Check out this write up from the same guy who has the SpaceGameJunkie website: http://www.neuralgameshake.com/endless-legend-preview-a-fantasy-4x-full-of-fun/
Dungeon of the Endless isn’t finished. The only finished game we have is Endless Space. So people are basing this off of 100% of Amplitude Studio’s history. That’s the only reasonable path.
That’s ridiculous. 14 hours is plenty of time to get a first impression.
It’s not enough to review it, but first impression? Absolutely. And that first impression is that it’s already fun. It’s not “potentially fun”. It already IS fun.
And I borderline HATED Endless Space. I was seriously disappointed by how it didn’t meet the potential it had.
Endless Legend isn’t *potentially* a fun game, it IS one. It needs some balance, but if they can’t get that part, it will still have not been a poor purchase.
So, yeah, 14 hours is definitely enough time to see that it’s fun. I just wouldn’t write a full review just yet, if that was my job.
About the new factions most defining features :
Roving Clans seem to be able to pack up and move their cities, are masters of the marketplace, but cannot declare war.
Ardent Mages seem to be able to use “spells” (strategic, tactical or both?)
From what I can tell, the Mages only have tactical spells as of now.
In addition to balance and stability testing, Amplitude announced today that the following major features are what remain prior to release:
“Two last Eras
Two last major Factions
Two last minor factions
The tutorial
Custom factions”
In addition, they have mentioned future post release-content such as the community created faction “The Cultists”, and other free add-ons or paid expansions as we saw with Endless Space.
So, not too much more to go, and as I suspected, they are pushing for release before the end of summer. The wait won’t be long for those who don’t enjoy early access/beta products. While I will hop in and play a bit here and there to see how it is progressing, I plan to really start diving in closer to release and will then review the game based on the release and post-release code, as always. I find playing these games a lot early on will burn me out on the final product, and I am careful to avoid that situation.
I can’t stop playing this game.. they have a potential gem on their hands.
After watching a lot of the LP on youtube, I have to agree Endless Legend has addressed a lot of issues in Endless Space – namely the utter bland races and the tech tree.
However, 4X games are notoriously difficult to critic without a ton of hours put into it. I couldn’t stop playing Endless Space during beta either but couldn’t stomach more than 10 hrs of it after full release. Let’s hope the final product this time is greater and not less than the sum of its parts.
Oh I agree with you with respect to ES. EL just seems much more polished as well as it should be as the devs continue to learn since the release of ES.
I read on the forum Amplitude intend to only make 3 units available to each race with variety coming from the equipment and conquered minor races. Customization aren’t shown on the units either so that could be a potential step in the wrong direction since people will find a fav design and largely stick to it.
Shallowness of design was what really killed Endless Space for me; not bland races, boring tech or the combat. I sincerely hope the dev learned enough to overcome this.
I just couldn’t get into ES.. as much as I tried.. Endless Legend is different for me though. I figure after playing a game with each faction, that will give me plenty of hours of fun and well worth my money. Re-playability seems fairly high.
Endless Legend just released beta update 0.5.18. I’m going to be putting some time in with it and see how things are progressing. Assuming all goes to plan, I hope to have an update for everyone in the not too distant future.
I gave it a good workout tonight.. pretty good patch I’d say.
Any thoughts on the new update?
Some threads on the Amplitude forum seem to reflect a general concern that the current build is far from ready despite the closing release date. The initial builds were very solid, for alpha/beta, but it seems people are worried that the final version wouldn’t measure up.
As an ex-Endless Space beta supporter, I’m having a deja vu moment here.