Ship customization, a major focus of the tech tree, is an impenetrable wall of confusing icons and numbers with barely any reason to engage. Other missteps are definitely design flaws, and could’ve been avoided or mitigated. This problem isn’t limited to Endless Space 2 though.

You’ll spend way too much time hovering over different technologies, trying to figure out what exactly you should be prioritizing. But in Endless Space 2, what does “Xenobiology” mean for your fledgling empire? Or “Inter-Species HR”? Yeah, I don’t know either. Playing Civilization, you know exactly what you’re in for when you research “Artillery” or whatever. The tech tree is the worst of the lot, owing in part to the same problems as any future-centric game: You know what you want to do, but not what the tech is called.

The United Empire has an incredible USSR propaganda aesthetic for instance, while the new Lumeris faction is essentially the space mafia. Endless Space 2Įach is equally unique, though-differences driven home by the stylized intro and outro videos that accompany each campaign.

The best remains the Horatio faction, a race of clones named Horatio created to bring beauty to the galaxy-beauty, of course, meaning more Horatios. Groundbreaking? Not necessarily, and most are ported over from the original Endless Space, but they’re all memorable in their own archetypal way. Every faction has a “storyline” of sorts to guide players through the game, and you’ll also randomly trigger other events by, for instance, exploring certain star systems.įactions are excellent. That’s surprising for a turn-based strategy game, but Amplitude’s factions and quest system continue to be its best assets. Like Endless Legend before it, the best part of Endless Space 2 is its writing.

Over colonization endless space 2