Unleashing the Tiny Titans: Exploring Empire of the Ants on Next-Gen Consoles

To live in an age that transports us, week in and week out, to vast urban jungles, unforgiving alien worlds and the grandest of fantastic universes is to be fairly accustomed to being taken to the environs of the grand. Consider then what a rarity of perspective it must be for you to embark on a journey that, to borrow the parlance of nuclear deterrence, quite literally zooms in. Here we are, talking about a series of stories that invite you to shrink your short-sighted self down to the ground. Here we are, talking about an ant revolution. Here we are, talking about a real-time strategy video game that gives you the reigns of an anthill with ambitions as lofty as any skyscraper. Empire of the Ants is the name and, as a video game drawing on the 1991 novel by Bernard Werber, anticipation is growing for its November 7 release on PC, PlayStation and Xbox consoles. Here is the nitt...

A Novel Approach to Strategy Gaming

From Pages to Pixels: The Ant's Journey

Empire of the Ants should not, however, be mistaken for a run-of-the-mill real-time strategy game. Tower Five has excavated Werber’s story and crafted a vibrant, first-person, interactive adventure. Players can explore the life of an ant tasked with finding a way to ensure the survival of the colony in the Fontainebleau forest.

A Photorealistic Antscape

Every blade of grass, every pebble and every predator will appear in glorious detail as a result of Unreal Engine 5.4. This is not a game. It is a dive into a living ecosystem of photorealistic detail, where the sheer scale of everything will leave you unsure whether this is really a game you are playing.

Consoles Get a Tiny Titan

XBOX and PLAYSTATION Welcome the Colony

Enthusiasts await Empire of the Ants as the next important game to play on the Xbox Series X|S and PlayStation 5 consoles, where it will finally achieve its full visual fidelity in immersive moments of anticipation, exploration and encounter.

Strategy Meets Survival

Building the Empire, One Ant at a Time

For fans of strategy gaming looking to mix it up, Empire of the Ants’s fascination over real life ants comes in the form of procreation goals: protect the colony, expand the territory and build alliances with the forest fauna – anything but the same old build-and-conquer.

A Dance with Darwinism

Players’ worlds are filled with enemies as well as allies, and strategies emerge out of the same mix of unpredictable events that drives natural selection. Players must improvise, manoeuvre and sometimes retreat, in order to promote the survival and success of their little kingdom.

For Newcomers and Veterans Alike

A Tutorial That Teaches Without Tedium

Afraid of getting lost in the undergrowth? The tutorial built around Empire of the Ants is unobtrusively instructive. It aims to make under-versed RTS players feel welcome, while not shortchanging veteran strategists. This is colony-growing, ecosystem-apprehending, resource-allocating, all-power-to-the-oligarchi...

The Console Chronicles: A Glimpse into Empire Building on Modern Platforms

Just days before Empire of the Ants is to launch, it’s clear that Tower Five and Microids are selling more than a game. They’re selling a chance to live life at its lowest level, shrouded in the form of an RTS, beckoning the strategist and the storyteller in each one of us. Consoles, once the repositories of action-adventures and swords-and-sorcery RPGs, are becoming the new cultural enclaves for deep, rich strategy games. Next-gen power gives the possibility for games such as Empire of the Ants to unfold in detailed, dynamic worlds where players are compelled to think, react and plan as ants would. And this shift says as much about the increasing versatility of modern consoles as it does about the changing sensibilities of console gamers, for while strategy games have always demanded patience and perseverance, they’ve also proved the perfect fit for a...