Ara History Untold Review (Steam)

by Jim Smale · Published October 1, 2024 · Updated October 2, 2024

Ara History Untold Review, Build a nation and lead your people throughout history to the pinnacles of human achievement as you explore new lands, develop arts and culture, conduct diplomacy, and go head-to-head with your rivals to prove you are the greatest ruler ever known. It’s Your World Now…

Ara History Untold Review Pros:

Excellent graphics.
32.61GB Download size.
Steam Achievements.
Xbox network integration for things like a friends list.
Steam trading card drops.
Graphics settings – overall preset settings, 3D resolution scale, MSAA, living world detail, shading quality, model detail, textures, shadows, terrain overlay quality, and leader quality.
Video settings – screen mode, resolution, graphics card, primary monitor, v-sync, frame rate limit, brightness slider, and contrast slider.
Accessibility options – text scale slider, screen magnification slider, panning speed, UI scale slider, disable screen shake, and high contrast text.
Mouse and keyboard support.
4X Strategy gameplay.
Game settings – silence tutorial, attract mode camera, number of local saves, turns per autosave, set how cloud saves work and how often, clear map data, and block notifications.
Is in the same genre and style as games like Civilisation.
Tutorial pop-ups constantly throughout the game.
Handy tutorial tips that let you click them and they take you or show you what it wants.
Full camera control including zoom in and out.
Glorious 3D game world.
Fog of war is always in play, in simple terms the map is covered in clouds and uncovers as you move over the tiles in the world.
Many keyboard and menu shortcuts to use.
The turn times are quick, this is makes the game a lot more engaging by eliminating downtime.
Mouse and keyboard settings – remap bindings, and then you can tweak all elements of scrolling speed individually like map scroll, map zoom, and cursor speed, etc.
Two ways to play – single-player and multiplayer.
42 world leaders to choose from each have unique traits and bonuses.
You can change the appearance of your leader.
Game setup – difficulty, map type (generate or preset), how many nations in your world, set turn limit, randomize tech draws, human player culling, vegetation, wildlife, and ore types.
Ten game difficulties.
Four turn limit choices – brief (100), short (300), medium (750), and long (1250).
Every nation in a game can be individually edited from the nation to each nation’s difficulty.
Seven preset maps to choose from, each having a description.
Decent loading times.
Highly addictive.
It’s funny how quickly you can take so much in and get going.
It feels like a Civ lite in terms of streamlining so much and leaving you to make powerful decisions rather than just building huge armies. I’ve won games by just keeping my people happy and expanding sensibly.
Fully voiced characters.
Tutorials will not all appear in one game, when starting a new game you can choose to continue learning or start again, or just not have any.
Projects are unlocked and you build these in your town, it’s things like farms, dwellings watch towers, etc and you choose where to place them and they all take a set amount of turns to build.
You start a game with a scout who can go around and pick up loot, uncover the map, etc.
Play how you want.
I like that you have an order list so you can see everything you have queued up and can turn them off if needed.
A button will show if you have anyone or anything that still has actions available, you see it before pressing the next turn.
Everything in the game is done by turns.
You can find resources from caches on the map, resources like food will show as well as wildlife that you can hunt for food and materials.
Engage with other leaders and create trade routes, or maybe start a war.
As you expand you can build and use boats, and get a fishing empire going.
Technologies are earned after getting research. Once you hit the threshold you can pick a new technology like pottery, animal husbandry, herbalism, etc.
Encarta is the central book you use for reference and clicking keywords will take you to their entry.
Build roads and connect locations, you can even connect with other leaders.
You can build and train soldiers and weapons of war.
Train people to go out and create new towns.
Like other games in the genre, you are working your way through the ages and different periods in time which in itself unlocks new technologies and advancements.
As you expand you get to choose the next region to take on, before choosing you see what the region offers and other stats like resources available, etc.
You need resources, materials, and gold to craft and build things.
It all looks daunting but honestly, it’s a game you can pick up rather quickly.
When your nation hits the Golden Age you get bonuses like prestige and more resources for a limited time.
You can zoom in and watch your people work and live.
Has systems like you can craft tools amd that for your buildings like a farm to increase productivity.
Hire and assign experts for bonuses.
Save, quick save, and load whenever you want.
Has a lot of content straight away with none of it locked off.

Ara History Untold Review Cons:

Does heat up your computer quite a bit no matter the settings.
No controller support, this is more of an FYI.
A lot to take in and it feels like you are always learning something new.
Had a slowdown and stuttered a fair bit especially near the end game.
Doesn’t have options like win requirement which could help add variation and longevity.
The UI is very overwhelming and doesn’t feel that great to navigate.
Had text overlapping other text making it harder to read.
Digging down into buildings, production and that is not as straightforward and easy to manage as you would like.
The other ways of playing like war etc are not as fleshed out and deep as they can and should be.
The menus can clutter up the screen easily and quickly.
No benchmark test for graphics and performance.

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