ENDLESS Legend™ 2

Endless Legend 2 shows why Amplitude is among the best 4X developers in the industry. Even though they had a bit of a tumble with Humankind, they've come roaring back with this sequel. It’s a fantastic follow-up to the original Endless Legend, bringing back their masterclass design in highly asymmetric, memorable factions and deeply addictive, robust city-building. The city-building is surprisingly fun. Carefully placing your districts to reap maximum adjacency bonuses gives a feeling almost akin to completing a jigsaw puzzle. Plus, by bringing over the unique population mechanics from Endless Space 2, you can specialize your cities even further. The combat is also massively improved from the first game. It adopts the style from Humankind—fast and intense, with just enough tactical depth for genuine outplay moments to turn the tide of a battle. For me, the Tidefall mechanic is easily one of the best innovations in the genre. It perfectly alleviates that classic mid-game 4X slog where all the land is already discovered and you're just staring at border gore. The moment new land emerges from the seas, it triggers an absolute gold rush to explore and lock down highly valuable resources. The game has amazing bones, and with a bit of DLC support, it could easily be one of the all-time best. Right now, diplomacy feels pretty barebones, and while the current factions are immensely enjoyable, there just aren’t quite enough of them yet. It could also use a wider variety of quests to avoid feeling repetitive, though those can be skipped anyway if you just want to focus on the sandbox.