PC gaming fanatics might remember Microids’ Empire of the Ants (2000), a real-time strategy and simulation game in which players led an ant colony with many enemies of all colors and sizes. It was loosely based on French sci-fi writer Bernard Werber’s best-selling novel of the same name (originally Les Fourmis), but its critical reception wasn’t the best, so it became a bit of a niche title. Now, 24 years later, Microids is giving the property another go, but Tower Five is handling the development this time.
We’ve been lucky enough to have some of our burning questions answered by Tower Five’s Renaud Charpentier, a Creative Assembly and Ubisoft veteran who’s serving as the creative director on the anticipated game, which is targeting both a PC and console launch on November 7, 2024.
Even though Tower Five is a French studio and it wouldn’t have surprised us to hear it first approached Microids to take on a new Empire of the Ants, Charpentier told us it was the other way around: “Microids approached us to work on a game based on Bernard Werber’s book: Empire of the Ants. This book is about skirmishes and wars between ants and has a lot of references to other insects that have been at war with ants. On top of that, the previous game in the same franchise, published by Microids, was also an RTS. So it was very natural for us to make an RTS game.”
Tower Five’s previous game, Lornsword Winter Chronicle, might’ve flown a bit under the radar, yet it offered a perfect example of how a traditional RTS could work well on consoles by having “a main character you control who acts like a mouse cursor in the 3D environment.” After Microids contacted the studio about the project, the team thought the world of insects was a perfect fit for the control scheme and approach they had already tinkered with in Lornsword. “This was established from the very first prototype which already had 3rd person movement and camera as well as the capacity to move groups of units. While we think this will help make the game more approachable, we designed it this way to make it more immersive first,” he added.
Several RTS classics have tried over the years to make a direct adaptation of the mouse plus keyboard control scheme for consoles, and titles such as Age of Empires IV have come close to nailing it, yet we can’t shake the feeling that gamepads simply aren’t enough for such games. Microids was well aware of that and never considered going traditional for a large project envisioned as a multiplatform release: “We have seen a lot of other games trying to adapt the RTS genre to consoles and always thought they didn’t work as well as their PC counterparts because they were using the same formula trying to map a keyboard and mouse to a controller.” The scale of Empire of the Ants as a strategy game is far larger, but the ‘closer’ third-person view and many of the systems and mechanics that have been presented so far remind us of the reasonably successful and genre-bending Overlord series.
Despite all the crystal-clear visions for the RTS and how it handles, we still have our doubts about how more casual players will approach the game, as they might believe it’s a fast-paced affair instead of a heavier, more methodical experience with a robust narrative. Charpentier suggests the mid and end-game are more open-ended, but the earlier missions will give us “all the tools to know how to do each type of mission.” Later, the player assumes “a general’s position” and can choose what type of mission to tackle next. According to the creative director, not all of them will be mandatory, and the campaign will be divided into ‘hubs’ that contain several activities each. Like in more traditional RTS titles, the missions will be strategic – with the package of economy, battles, and conquest all mixed together – tactical (far leaner and more peaceful), or linear exploration missions that put the focus on interacting with the world, other insects, and plants. Moreover, the latter quests will even switch to a “platformer gameplay style,” which honestly sounds really unique.
As for the look of that world and the goal of making it more beautiful than disgusting, Charpentier cites the documentary movie Microcosmos as a key reference: “The film showed you the incredible world of insects as if we were of the same size. This also helped make the insect world less creepy and on the contrary pretty beautiful.” It’s abundantly clear, judging from the trailers alone, that a lot of work went into making Empire of the Ants look both as natural as possible and cutting-edge. “We did a lot of research based on articles and other resources we could find while reading and analyzing the book as much as possible. In the meantime, because the action was set in the Fontainebleau forest, we had a one-week trip there to record materials and samples to be as close as possible to reality. We are lucky to live in a day and age where technology has greatly advanced. Photogrammetry has been a huge help in speeding up the process of recreating parts of the forest,” he explained.
Of course, the field trip and extensive research work also helped shape the acoustic landscape of Empire of the Ants: “Our sound design being part of that trip was also able to record this forest’s real sounds.” As a cheeky little tease, Charpentier also told us we’ll even hear an Easter egg of sorts in one of the levels: an airplane that was flying over the forest during their recording sessions, which adds to the authenticity crucial to getting us into the tiny but giant world controlled by ants and other insects.
All the talk about the game’s striking presentation also raises the question of how the UE5-powered photorealism will perform on consoles. Charpentier gave us an answer that teases a reasonable approach to keeping the vision intact: “Without going into the technicalities, we have optimized our game to ensure a stable 30 FPS on PS5 and Xbox Series with the same graphics quality as seen in our trailers.” Any RTS that isn’t fast-paced has worked well at 30 FPS, so this sounds like a good choice over an unstable 60 FPS target enabled by heavy visual cutbacks.
To wrap things up, we tried to extract some nuggets of information regarding the online player-versus-player modes, which include 1v1, 3FFA, and custom games, but we could only confirm we’ll be able to select maps and mission types. It just seems that Microids and Tower Five are saving the juicy details on that side of the game for now. Likewise, the much-desired crossplay support isn’t confirmed yet, but again, we were told to stay tuned for news on the multiplayer front.
Empire of the Ants will be released for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC via Steam, GOG, and the Epic Games Store. A digital price tag hasn’t been shared yet, but the physical release appears to be circling $50 in most online shops and retailers.
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