DLCENDLESS Legend™ - Monstrous TalesLoading store offers
ENDLESS Legend™
For players drawn to Auriga’s harsh seasons, growing cities and tactical battles, ENDLESS Legend offers a substantial turn-based strategy experience. At $2.04 from 
Eneba, it is at this site's tracked low; that suits a purchase when you want to spend time exploring, managing resources and pursuing different paths to victory. At $2.99 from Eneba, ENDLESS Legend is at this site's tracked low, making it a timely fit for strategy players drawn to exploration, empire management and turn-based battles.
All-time low ~ $2.99across Steam & third-party storesat the recorded all-time low
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Price History
Past 36 months · Updated dailyHistorical Low~ $0.002024-05Current Low Across Stores~ $2.04Eneba
Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.
DLC
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - Original SoundtrackLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - SymbiosisLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - InfernoLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - TempestLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - ShiftersLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - The Lost TalesLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - Echoes of AurigaLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - ShadowsLoading store offers
DLCENDLESS Legend™ - GuardiansLoading store offers
01About ENDLESS Legend™
Guide one of eight civilizations through Auriga’s cold seasons: explore a randomly generated world, develop cities, research technologies, and negotiate or fight with rival peoples. Manage resources and adapt your strategy to different victory conditions. Steam player reviews: 83% positive from 14,425 reviews. Release date: September 18, 2014.
Credits
Developer
AMPLITUDE Studios
Publisher
AMPLITUDE Studios
Lowest recorded in 36 months
$0.002024-05-16 · SteamBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.Language support
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| Simplified Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| Traditional Chinese | Yes | Yes | — |
| English | Yes | Yes | Yes |
Show 6 more languages
| Language | Interface | Subtitles | Audio |
|---|---|---|---|
| French | Yes | Yes | — |
| German | Yes | Yes | — |
| Polish | Yes | Yes | — |
| Russian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Italian | Yes | Yes | — |
| Spanish | Yes | Yes | — |
Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-19
02Before you buy
Play modes
The Steam PC version includes single-player and multiplayer. The description specifies dynamic simultaneous turn-based battles.
Languages
Interface languages include English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, Polish, Japanese, Simplified Chinese and Traditional Chinese. Full audio is listed for English only; the other listed languages have subtitles.
03Frequently asked questions
What is the game about?
Lead one of eight civilizations on Auriga, managing cities, resources, research and diplomacy.
How does it vary between games?
Worlds and quests are randomly generated, and you can set world size, shape and topography.
Can I create custom civilizations?
Yes. The description includes creating custom civilizations and confronting civilizations made by friends.
Popular Steam reviews
Native-language selection · 10 reviewsSelected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.
RecommendedSteam player
So, you see your classmates play 4X games while awaiting the teacher to arrive, these classmates of yours with pallid, pale skin and suffer from being nasal, socially-awkward virgins writing terrible stories about nuclear weapons and Shadowmen. Enter the hot Goth chick who walks in with her cherry red laptop and her confident stride, above the lowly peons where she sits and broods out of the window as she awaits her laptop to boot up. The teacher calls in sick, and it has become a free period of relaxation. Your nerdy classmates revel in their hollow victory. The girl simply groans. Everyone is seen on Steam on their laptops, playing Civilization V and Civilization: Beyond Earth. You wade through the list of classmates online when something catches your eye. _Summer-Rain_ is now logged in, playing a strange game that you've never even heard of before this day. Endless Legend. You glance at your Gothic princess, whom you catch looking at you from behind her cherry red laptop. She averts her eyes, _Summer-Rain_ having been exposed stealing glances at you. Your heart flutters, and you gulp down, thinking this may be your chance for _Summer-Rain_... You are soon $35.00 poorer as you hope and pray to whatever dark deity your Gothic princess worships that the school's pathetic internet connection will download the game in time before class ends, and it is as if the demonic forces grant you a full installation. You enter Endless Legend and quickly scan through the factions, eight in total: Wild Walkers (Elves) Broken Lords (Cool-looking ghost-mummies) Necrophages (Undead insects) Ardent Mages (Goths obsessed with self-harm) Drakken (Dragons) Cultists (Overzealous, religious cyborgs) Roving Clans (Arab-Jew Hybrids) and the Vaulters (The only sane-looking people) You play it safe and pick the Vaulters. Even the game tells you they're the best faction to learn. You have your faction and you join the open game that _Summer-Rain_ is currently in. The hexagon tiles rise up and the world loads before your eyes. You are bombarded with a never-ending series of information windows and funny-looking symbols which denote what you will learn later are the resources of the game, which are: Dust (Gold or money of Endless Legend) Science (Used for research purposes) Industry (To make your units and upgrade cities) Food (pretty self-explanatory) along with a slew of Luxury Resources which are used for advanced weapons and technologies. Endless Legend is turn-based, meaning everything done on a player's turn is crucial. Researching the wrong technology over a period of turns and not paying attention to the one you needed would be disastrous, in addition to not being able to manage one's economy effectively would lead to the player's empire to implode upon itself. After the first 10 turns _Summer-Rain_ appears, using the Ardent Mages, to no one's surprise. She hammers upon your fledgling city with an army using combined-arms tactics, but you are wise to have fielded a smaller second army and crush her would-be invasion force. As you divide and conquer your forces to have one army go after _Summer-Rain_'s Capital and another army complete the randomly-generated, scripted quests which inhabit the world to pursue your Quest Victory condition, _Summer-Rain_ was hard at work throwing everything she had into research and began the construction of a Wonder. The tides turned with her on the defensive but having an advantage in building a Wonder this early, you howl and wail with a succession of armies you continue to field, even diverting your Questing army to break through _Summer-Rain_'s territory and assail the city where her Wonder is being built. But you are unsure of the exact location and which city the Wonder is being built at, and before long your defeat is heralded when your screen is replaced with the beautifully-illustrated image of an Ardent Mage standing proudly with the Wonder in the distance. You slam your fist into your table and your nerdy classmates glance worriedly before going back to their futile game of colonizing a small moon as you hang your head down in shame. The free period over, everyone packs up and wants to leave for the next class. You are about to fold away your laptop when _Summer-Rain_ approaches you, looking radiant and beautiful. She smiles and tells you that for a beginner you weren’t all that bad and that she was going easy on you. You manage a smile in response, fighting back your nerves as you tell her that you were intrigued by Endless Legend and that you swear you didn't read the on-the-fly descriptions of how to play the game. _Summer-Rain_ walks past you toward the door and tells you that she would love to talk to you all about Endless Legend and the newly-released Guardians expansion for the game over lunch after school. Her scent interrupts your logic, her eyes tease you and her lips smile sincerely. "You coming?" _Summer-Rain_ calls out. You nearly stumble over your own words. "Only if I get to play Endless Legend with you." She smiles again, nodding. "I was hoping you'd say that. It's a date then." You would go on to date her, and ultimately, marry her. The girl of your dreams. The love of your life. username _Summer-Rain_ Indeed, love is truly endless. Endless Legend.Show moreShow less
55.4 hours at review1,072 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
Everyone throws massive showers of praise on this game, they love the factions, they love the rpg elements, they especiallly love all it's new twists on the 4X stategy genre. And I enjoy these things, the RPG elements with regiments and heroes is really cool, the battles are an interesting twist from the norm, the quests are cool and the factions are all very disinct in look, play and lore. However, I must stress caution with this game, don't expect a masterpice, becasue it isn't, the increadible amount of praise on this doesn't take into account all of this games problems, which is what i'm going to stress here. I first played this game when my friend brought it over on his laptop, I would play a few quick, short games and they where so much fun, and indeed the start of the game is a lot of fun. But once I had the game and started longer playthroughs, I began to get bored really quickly. The game is great when you start it up, but as you get further in, it becomes a drag. This is largely the fault of a terrible AI, which isn't a good thing to have in a game for a genre that is heavily reliant on single player. The Ai just doesn't know how to play this game, it will always build the same armies over and over again, in one playthrough it will build full stacks of Dragonlings, and only that, then next playthrough it will build 6 wyverns and two ancients per army, and thats it, it will take a stack and only build that stack, and this makes battles in one playthrough increadibly repetitie and boring. It's play style will never suit the scenario, andf it will almost never declare war on you. It's increadibly easy to beat as well, and this means that games become a drag to play through till the end. The quest system, while initially pretty cool, has multiple problems, for one it won't often make sense what it demands of you, for instance it may tell you to conquer a city from someone you've signed an alliance with when there is someone else much closer who isn't your ally. Biggest problem however is that they can become uncompletable very easily. You can get a quest asking you to do something that you've alrady done, and as a result the quest becomes incompletable. I remember with horror when in one of my campaigns I got a quest to increase the population of one of my cities to a certain level, and found that the population was already at that level, and then the quest became incompletable! And this was a faction quest, the kind nessisairy to continue the storyline! The winter system too, while initially cool (no pun intended), helps this drag as it bcomes more and more frequent the further you go into the game, and this helps add to the drag that you start to feel the further in you go. There are some other problems, but most of them are really negligable, the biggest dissapointment is that these issues could all be fixed with a better AI, and so it is with a heavy heart that must say i can't recomend this game, despite all the effort in the art style, the lore and all the unique mechanics, the poor AI just makes this game soo boring. So I say don't buy this game, at least not yet, if they fix the AI then it'll have my full recomendation, but until that stage, I just have to say no.Show moreShow less
23.4 hours at review579 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
This is less of a review and more of a preview of what you can expect from this game. I know that steam says I barely played EL - that's because I've been playtesting this game for several months before release. As such, I'm also inherently biased so take that into account. Why should you buy this game? The short answer is - if you have any doubts, don't buy it. Wait for the full release and then do your research and see if it's the kind of game that you will enjoy :) Personally though, I think that EL stands strong among other 4X games. It feels fresh and unique in many areas where 4X were starting to get stale. There's a lot to talk about so I'll just go over some of the bigger features: Firstly, the city management aspect. Like in most 4Xs once you make a city you can grow it, make improvements, train troops, gather food, industry, science, dust/gold and influence (FIDSI in short). But population works differently - you assign your workers (you population) to specific areas like food generation or influence generation. The amount of population working on that is multiplied by various bonuses (but it's at least *3) and then other various other bonuses are also added to the amount of FIDSI you can generate. This gives you a lot of control over what your city does (more so then in civ where you're much more dependent on the tiles around your city). Secondly, empire management. Every 20 turns you (and all other players) choose your "empire plan" which will define how you play for the next 20 turns. You need influence to invest into your empire plan - the more influence you invest, the better. You also have more options in empire plan as you enter new eras. Another use for influence is in diplomacy - all diplomatic actions (closing borders, declaring war, etc) require some influence. You can also spend influence to improve your influence with AIs. Right now however, this aspect of the game only has basic functionality because there's no multi (yet) and the AI is fairly dumb (for now). Additionally, the tech is non-linear, meaning that you have free control over which tech you want to go for next. There are no prerequisites to anything. However, you have to choose what you research wisely as technology gets progressively more expensive. The only limitation are the eras. Basically, in order to unlock tech from next era, you need at least 10 tech from previous era. Thirdly, army management. There are 5 main unit types in the game: infantry, ranged units, support units, cavalry and flying units. Each faction has access to 3 unit templates (+the settlers) which you can then customize to decent extend. For example, you can equip your infantry with weapons that will help you fight cavalry - which normally is a good counter to infantry. Because each race can only use 3 basic templates (in as many versions as they want of course, I'm just talking about the infantry/support/etc kind of templates), you also have to rely on assimilating minor factions into your empire. Minor factions will grant you an empire bonus and give access to their unique unit templates. This allows you to make up for the fact that you don't natively have access to certain unit type. For example, the Wild Walkers faction has no access to flyers so they can assimilate Khazanji minor faction to gain access to Demons - a new flying unit template. There are of course limitations to how many races you can assimilate. Fourthly, the battles. They're quite unique since they're played on world map (like in civ) but are little skirmishes by themselves (like in AoW3 but you have less control). Each battle starts with a deployment phase and planning phase (during which you give your units orders). Then, the battle kicks in and you watch how your units duke it out. After a while you get the opportunity to change your orders around if you so choose. You also have to remember that there's elevation in this game - attacking from high ground will give you a decisive advantage while using cliffs can lead to some Hot Gates scenarios. The battles still have ways to go, true, but they're quite enjoyable already, even in alpha state. Lastly, the world. Auriga (the planet you play on) looks gorgeous and I wouldn't hesitate saying that it's one of the best looking 4X games (if not the best). Aside from great visuals, there are numerous things to discover on Auriga - there are many anomalies (special tiles that are usually very good), ruins to explore (they are persistent btw), minor faciton villages, and a huge amount of various biomes. Plus the standard - resource deposits and so on. Also, let's not forget about quests. Each faction has a storyline expressed via a quest system. Every player is given a set of quests that they can complete for rewards (completing all of them will win you the game but that's not implemented yet). Aside from these main quests, you can also gain various side quests from minor factions, ruins and so on. The quests are quite interesting and make the game feel more alive, they also let you discover the lore of the game. In general, I do recommend this game but encourage you to do some more research first. Especially if you plan buying it in its alpha state. Also, this review is mostly a quote from a wall of text I wrote on the forums once. Just FYI ;)Show moreShow less
10.3 hours at review839 people found this helpful
Written during Early Access
Not recommendedSteam player
Review Updated 6-15-2015 Reason: To address comments, and remove negative feedback that has been addressed since the original post. I have mixed feelings on this game. From a more short term point of view, the game is awesome. What i mean by this is someone who wants to get the game, and play a couple matches, there is enough new and exciting content to make it worth it. But if you are looking for that game to match or rival Sid Meiers Alpha Centauri (that you still play after years), then this isnt it. In my opinion this game could be awesome. But the amount of bugs, glitches, broken and missing systems outweigh the positives, and that is why im giving it a negative review. Its like a computers game version of a 'tease'. "Here is all this awesome stuff...that i will fail to deliver." The AI makes single-player play only a short term option. Breakdown: Positives: + Each Faction has unique technologies and unique playstyle + Each Faction has unique units (changing factions forces you to change combat style) + Each Faction actually feels distinct and plays differently + Beautiful world design with unique concepts + Detailed Civilization Statistics easily accessed during the game. + Customizable Races and Units + Customizable Maps Neutral: +- Unique map system that is cool but doesnt allow you to see the whole world at any one time +- Quest system, while a positive at first glance, is poorly done and alot of quests 'break' easily, quest count is low which leads to lots of repitition +- Unique 'Winter' system, while a positive at first glance, effects everyone the same and only slows the game down +- No naval system for people that like water maps. I just turn water levels way down. Negatives: - No Key Rebinding and limited shortcuts - Lack of documentation. Tutorial/Wiki only give the broad information on how to play the game. Indepth game mechanics are not explained. There is no internal game library (like Civ) to explain these details either. - Bugs are addressed each patch. However there are still a few annoying ones that havnt been addressed since January. - The diplomacy system is better. Flavor text makes sense most of the time. Trade values are still iffy which leads to easy exploitation. - While each faction has a backstory, it is harder to work through some factions then others. Others can ruin your play if you try to follow them (as Drakken, try to take that one city all the way across the map, of the Ally you have been friends with since the start of the game) - The battle system IS unique. But in a negative way. Lack of unit control and poor programing lead to frustration. You give commands at the start of each battle round. Issues occur when your units cant follow your orders (which is often). The AI takes control of your units and sends them places which dont make tactical sense. (HINT: Make all of your units "Stand Ground" to avoid the crappy AI moves) - A full unit stack (6-9 units) can kill (literally hundreds) of weaker units and take tons of cities without taking major damage. There is no 'fighting your way back' in this game. - Taking cities is waaaayy to easy. You can easily take a close neighbors city within the first 20 turns. Major Negatives: ***AI is still pretty terrible. - It cant fight in battles. Once you get the hang of the battle system its easy to trick. - Makes no diplomatic sense. Never fights empires that are threats. Easily bribed. - It cant build 'strong' armies. It doesnt upgrade units early/often enough. - AI technology selection doesnt make sense (Dust based civilization skips 3 dust boosting techs). They also routinely skip "unskippable" techs. - Kinda stops playing if they lose majority of empire. Never see more armies from them or any switch from horizontal to vertical gameplay. - Doesnt play to victory type. Playing conquest victory? Every AI empire is fine playing an economy based game as one empire slowly takes out empires one by one. Final Statement: The game is in much better shape then when i started playing in November. I last played during th beta release of the expansion pack. AI still needs work.Show moreShow less
143.6 hours at review398 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
"...an excellent game in a sea of mediocrity..." Are you looking for a Civ-a-like to play? Don't buy this. Go buy GalCiv 3 instead. Are you looking for a fresh, new look at 4X entirely? You just found it. Before I get into my personal thoughts [the review, essentially] I want to explain why I say this and why I feel how I do about my review, found further below the following four paragraphs. To say Endless Legend is like Civ just because its a 4X game is like saying a cheesecake is a cake simply because it has the word 'cake' in it, or a pie because its formed like one. Endless Legend may be labeled as a 4X, but neither does it fit into the traditional mold of a 4X nor does it conform to those of its predecessors, the most notable being Civ. One of the key principal differences, for instance, is that the land is divided into regions. In each region, there may only be one city. That's it. Choose wisely where you place it; finding out later on there are better resources to be had from founding elsewhere will hurt you in the long run. This is particularly notable just starting out. Rush placement for the early settlement lead, or explore a bit for a chance at longer term returns on prosperity in your capital? Another key notable feature that I like is that each of the major factions not only has a different play style, but has their own major quest as well. Completion of said quest before the final turn results in an automatic win for that faction. [AI opponents do not pursue quests, major or minor] Is it easy? NO. Do you get rewards along the way? Certainly. Are the rewards worthwhile? Most definitely. One of the final overhauls I want to mention is the combat system. Rather than Civ's straight out 'this is my unit strength, this is yours, let's do this' system, your units are grouped [as you see fit] into armies. When you engage another army, a small battle map opens and each unit is controlled manually by you, via a directive of three basic commands; attack, defend, hold. Pretty self explanatory. On top of that, there are faction specific and unit based abilities you can use in battle which greatly diversify the depth of combat, instead of just 'surround city with siege units, bombard, invade with one unit when done' as in Civ. Review: A/V: First off this game is gorgeous. I don't generally place stock on judging a game based on graphics, but it *really* adds to the atmosphere here. The level of detail is incredible. To supplement that, the ambient sound effects and music are just as amazing and deserve an equal amount of praise. The graphics get a small demarkation for having to re-draw everytime you tab out of the fullscreen interface, however. I am hoping this is addressed, but if not its not a major detractor. Mechanics: As stated above, this game is a fresh look at a genre that, in my opinion, deperately needed new life. Endless Legend is that life, I feel. This game has introduced things in a way no one would likely have ever thought, and the best part is that the community continues to remain a large part of the process the entire way. If you do purchase this [or are on the fence] head over to the Amplitude forums and check out what we have all accomplished. Several dozen features and additions to this and their other two games have been ones suggested by or designed almost completely by the community. I digress, though. All of these mechanics may sound like a steep learning curve, and the first game through it is. After that one game, however, it flows much more logically and you'll likely end up asking yourself how such an amalgalm of crazy ideas never happened before this. Miscallenous: There are still some bugs and flaws being ironed out, but Amplitude is very studious and responsive about addressing these issues promptly and responding to user feedback on how to resolve these problems until patches are released. There's even a feature in the game to create your own faction with your own selectable traits, including a couple that aren't assigned to a preset faction by default. Amplitude wants this game to be something for *you*, so if none of what I've written grabs you by all means don't feel pressured. If, however, you feel like Civ used to be enjoyable but has seen its days and you need something new, or if you just love fantasy and deep lore based worlds; this is your game. Overall: I'm not a fan of numbered/aggregate ratings, so I'll just close with this; if you're on the fence after having read what I wrote, buy it. It will not disappoint. Its an excellent game in a sea of mediocrity that more than deserves a chance to shine. Editors note: Updating this to reflect that at the time of review, the expansions were not yet released. I am going to leave the review as is, as the review was not intended to be an in depth guide on the mechanics of the game/expansions. The purpose is to cover the base mechanics as a means for comparison. Thank you! [Updated 11-24-2016] Edit: As of 11-21-2018, I still hold firm to this review in the sense that the game has aged well so far, and continues to stand out among the 4X games I own. I still highly recommend giving this a shot if you are growing tired of the standard Civ releases.Show moreShow less
56.1 hours at review736 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
fun game so far but why on earth is the game developer asking for permissions to record my keystrokes across all applications?? 🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔🤔 sketched out, had to uninstallShow moreShow less
1.3 hours at review375 people found this helpful
Received for free
RecommendedSteam player
There are many things to like about this game, including the extensive customisability in (i) factions (ii) random world generation and (iii) victory conditions. Essentially, everything that makes a game replayable. All the factions are playable as-is, and appropriate customisation allows one to grind through even the toughest settings - I've completed the game on all levels. Lots of different ways to skin the cat! I played most of my hours with the Morgawr expansion disabled, and unless you're playing an ocean race I would leave them off - fortresses, etc. alter the dynamics of the game too substantially. My biggest complaint is that the victory animations are lacking - if you blink you might not notice that you won... lol. Most games have at a minimum some pre-canned movie to watch, you don't even get that here - just a static image. Oh well, everything else is what one needs in a freshly conceived 4X game that I can forgive them that.Show moreShow less
786.8 hours at review611 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
I wanted so badly for this to be good. I'm dying for a good 4x that provides a real challenge in the form of good AI rather than simply giving a dumb AI more resources. Heres my take: The Good: -Graphics are great (Subjective) -Most files are in XML form so many facets of the game can be modded/edited to your delight. -Expansive tech tree varied by race/faction -Each race has specialized roles and perks The Bad: -Poor conveyance. Meaning you will have to do some forum hunting to figure out certain elements of the game. -Having good FIDSA where you place your capital can make/break your game. -Painfully easy (subjective) -The AI is SHARED by different factions. This means that what one race will say to you, and the tactics they use against you, are the same as any other AI race. The only difference in tactics are their use (albeit poor use) of the given faction's unique abilities. There are TWO AI paths: Minor Faction and Major Faction, thats it! -The AI is dumb. They will lay seige to undefended cities instead of taking them. They will STAND STILL while being fired upon if they cannot reach you within 1 turn (sometimes but still). In a scenario where I set every faction to be aggressive and incapable of diplomacy, the AI simply wanders about aimlessly in a semi-confused manner while you build up to a point where you're already unstoppable. I really like the concept of it all but the ability to faceroll "impossible" enemies simply isn't fun for me. I don't like the feeling of "holding back" just to give the AI a chance. Thus I regretfully give this a thumbs down.Show moreShow less
36.4 hours at review216 people found this helpful
RecommendedSteam player
Pros: 1. Beautiful, intriguing world. Not generic fantasy. Tons of inventive lore infused throughout the game. Even descriptions of the odd map "anomalies" are interesting. 2. Emphasis on effective empire management (vs. constant warfare, as in AOW, Warlock, etc.). City-building, economy balancing, and researching the tech-circles are immensely satisfying. 3. Combat is done nicely and wars aren't a slog. Tactical battles can be fun to play out, or you can auto-resolve without worrying too much. Unit upgrading is fun but not too time-consuming. 4. Different races that actually play quite differently. Choose the Vaulters to race for a scientific victory, or the Necrophage to dominant your enemies. 5. Some innovative features that haven't been seen in 4x genre. For example: race-specific quest lines that actually serve as a unique victory condition, seasonal effects (summer/winter), the concept of regions limiting city placement, reinforcements, how heroes are handled (as generals or governors), etc., etc. Cons: 1. Still crashes periodically, esp. after I've been playing for a while (UPDATE: this was fixed in later patches). 2. A.I. is deficient. This is the game's greatest threat to long-term success. But it is possibly improving with each patch, and I wonder how the modding community's efforts will help. (UPDATE: this is still the game's major flaw - you need to play on higher difficulty to experience a challenge, and then you're just giving the AI huge bonuses). 3. Some of the more nuanced aspects of the game are not obvious and require digging for info on forums, etc. Summary: I love turn-based strategy games, and I love this game. Absolutely gorgeous and relaxing to play. Nothing better than coming home from a long day at work and watching toddler, locking myself in my office, and playing Endless Legend till 1AM. Plays quicker and smoother than Civ V. Yes, the AI needs improvement, but that's every strategy game since the beginning of time. If the developers support it like they did Endless Space, I think this is going to stay installed on my HD for a long time.Show moreShow less
113.7 hours at review606 people found this helpful
Not recommendedSteam player
This is one of those games that I saw a huge amount of potential in, but falls short in ways that make it difficult for me to recommend. The designer had some creative approaches to the issues that come up in 4X games - quest victory, minor factions, 1-city-per-region, and the Influence system. The amount of care that went into designing each factions' quest lines, unit art, and the overall story is quite impressive, and it brought me into the game with some level of excitement. But in a game of this scope, the weakest link stands out like a sore thumb - or in this case, sore thumbs. The battle system starts off promising, with a small section of the actual world map playing host to the somewhat small-scale battles that constitute army-on-army warfare. In practice, the battles are honestly a nightmare. They usually play out like this: the two highest-initiative units get to act as they please. If these two are on opposing sides, they'll form sort of a central conflict, around which the rest of the battle swirls. Except swirling makes it sound intense & interesting - the swirling comes from the out-of-date unit orders, trying in vain to get to an available side of the single enemy they were allowed to target in this round. It can actually be a relief at times for one of your obstinate, lackwit units dies, because it opens up room for a fresh unit, which had been flailing about at the outskirts of your battlefield, to charge over to the site of that unit's corpse and actually accomplish something. I don't know how much time was spent working on the battlefield AI, but it seems to consist of simple pathfinding, and quite possibly nothing else. The tech tier system is an interesting system, but I kind of have to scratch my head at some of the decisions. For example, there's a tech available in tier 1 that unlocks the Heroes & Mercenaries section of the Marketplace, allowing you to spend Dust/currency on hiring either of these kinds of units. If you don't unlock this tech, you will have 1 hero for the duration of the game (barring any that might come from your faction of choice's quest line). What's odd is that some of the hero skills unlock incredibly valuable upgrades - for the Broken Lords faction, which is extremely reliant on Dust income, you might unlock a 15% increase in the Dust income of a city, if the hero in question is set to govern it. What this means is that the Heroes & Mercenaries tech is absurdly valuable. There are techs each for the tier 1 strategic resource extractors, and the tier 1 luxury resource extractors, as well. If you don't unlock those, you may be missing out on an enormous set of features of the game. Compare that to the Aquapulvistics tech, which unlocks a couple of city improvements that generate 2 or 3 dust per turn on a tile that has a river, or a lake respectively. And only in summer (something like 3/4 of a game's turns, by my rough guesstimate). Anyways, the idea is that the balance between tech decisions is pretty lacking. So those are my complaints #1 and #2, out of what is a much longer list (of which I'll spare you the rest). Really, the reason why I bother to write this isn't because I hate the game! But rather that it's promising enough that I wanted/want to like it, but the flaws are so irritating that it drives me to put it away. I hope that another game can come in and take the effective and interesting gameplay elements & features, and make a better game. Or at least one I can tolerate playing a whole game through without wanting to claw my eyes out in frustration.Show moreShow less
36.3 hours at review168 people found this helpful
Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.