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In the first developer interview from Amplitude Studios, creative director Romain de Waubert and narrative director Jeff Spock explained how their new civilisation sim Humankind came to be.
Humankind is Sega’s surprise AAA announcement, and is a 4X civilisation game with a twist. Beginning in the Neolithic era and progressing to present day, the player’s civilisation will pick and choose from over 60 different cultures as each time period passes. The game’s central mechanic is about ‘rebuilding the history of humankind’, and with almost a million possible cultural combinations, this is certainly an impressive feat.
‘It’s a game which we have always been dreaming to do,’ de Waubert explained, ‘It’s the whole reason for creating Amplitude.’ But, given the extensive and intricate requirements of a successful 4X game, the studio couldn’t leap before they looked. ‘We knew we didn’t have the development chops to do it right off the block, so we did games that were different, a little bit easier to develop first,’ Spock stated, referring to the Endless Space series and Endless Legend.
These games taught Amplitude Studios the ropes on how to create successful, accessible, detailed, and aesthetically recognisable strategy simulation titles. ‘The players were teaching us, in a way, how to make better 4X [games],’ de Waubert said, crediting the previous games’ dedicated fan base that implicitly supported the ambition to create Humankind.
Humankind’s central mechanic is something that the developer holds close to its heart. ‘You always add up, you always bring something new to an existing culture, and that’s how we look at our games,’ the creative director added. However, with a totally new IP comes new challenges and new opportunities.
‘I think that the advantage that we have with Humankind is that there is zero legacy,’ Spock said, ‘If you have a game on the market already, and you change something, half of your fans are gonna say “Yay”, the other half are gonna say, “I’m gonna be at your house tonight with torches.” We don’t have any of that. We have a completely clean slate.’
Amplitude Studios hopes that the new game is a breath of fresh air for civilisation games, and with a kooky trailer and a unique melting-pot mechanic, it seems that it is well on its way to achieve that. Humankind will release for PC in 2020.
