Following the release of Myst, however, and the rise of other genres in the West, its appeal began to die out. As more games incorporated the same elements – Valve’s Half-Life, for one – dedicated point-and-click adventures that focused purely on narrative, characterization, and puzzle-solving were in decline.

However, just like their contemporary resurgence, there were a few notable releases in the late 90s and early 2000s that managed to shine. The Longest Journey is one, and 2002’s Syberia from Microïds, directed by the late Benoît Sokal, is another. The latter stood out for its absolutely gorgeous art style and unorthodox narrative, even as its gameplay mechanics felt like a throwback. Whether one enjoyed it or not at the time, it made its mark and would carry on over the years, including with 2022’s Syberia: The World Before.

"Unfortunately, the overall appeal can be hit or miss when it comes to the dialogue. The voice performances are a product of their time, both in cadence and quality, and they’ve seemingly remained untouched, so take that as you will."

Time is a flat circle, and as is often the case in an industry that’s driven by remasters and remakes as much as new IPs, we return to the beginning with Syberia Remastered. But does going back really mean returning home? It’s a complicated question, and time isn’t the most forgiving.

From the outset, the narrative core remains the same. You play as Kate Walker, an American attorney sent to Valadilèn to facilitate the sale of a factory owned by the Voralbergs. Her arrival amid a funeral procession, carried out by automatons no less, is the first hint that things won’t go as smoothly as planned.

Once a bustling town, at least according to its citizens, Valadilèn has fallen by the wayside following the death of Anna Voralberg, the last remaining member of the family. Or so it would seem, as Kate discovers that her brother Hans, previously reported to be deceased, is actually alive, which means getting his approval for the sale. After investigating the factory and assisting the automaton, Oscar, the unlikely duo begin their journey to locate him.

The set-up is delightfully mid-90s. A harried member of the corporate world, Kate finds herself out of her element in this seemingly cold, standoffish world. But her boss is demanding and disrespectful; her husband cares more about social obligations; her mom is in her own world; and so on. So while this task blindsides her beyond belief, it’s also an escape in many ways. A chance to see the world, such as it is, in a greater light and maybe grow in the process.

Unfortunately, the overall appeal can be hit or miss when it comes to the dialogue. The voice performances are a product of their time, both in cadence and quality, and they’ve seemingly remained untouched, so take that as you will. However, the dialogue means that some interactions come off as unnatural and, at times, awkward. That being said, the camaraderie between Kate and Oscar still comes across well, transitioning naturally from curiosity to annoyance in a manner that feels naturally comedic and endearing.

"Speaking of which, while Microïds Paris and Virtuallyz Gaming streamline the UI and revamped the puzzles, you’ll still need to operate on adventure gaming logic to make your way through (at least without a guide)."

Of course, the biggest change with Syberia Remastered is the visuals. Are they competing with today’s fidelity-driven triple-A masterpieces? Well, no, and they don’t have to. The aesthetic is mostly faithful to the original’s vision, but with fully 3D environments instead of pre-rendered backgrounds with baked shadows and the like. Real-time reflections are nearly everywhere, especially when running down the streets, and settings like the factory and the cave where you discover the Mammoth doll are simply brimming with astounding details. That being said, even while the atmosphere feels much in line, some things are seemingly lost in the translation – as bizarre as it sounds, the buildings looking more detailed and natural takes away much of the surrealism of the surroundings and overall set-up.

It honestly boils down to preference, but it’s also interesting how much Syberia Remastered changes the original’s cinematography. Cutscenes with more dramatic angles and cuts are notable, making certain exchanges feel more lively (like Kate checking into the hotel or encountering Oscar for the first time). However, with its emphasis on fixed camera angles during gameplay, it’s surprising to see some sections feel outright different as a result.

It doesn’t cause much gameplay hindrance, though the angle and lighting in the factory when venturing up the stairs and catwalk feel bizarre compared to the original’s clean look. Long story short, I like it in some places but can’t see the reason for doing it in others, outside of making these sequences “look” different despite presenting the same gameplay.

Speaking of which, while Microïds Paris and Virtuallyz Gaming streamline the UI and revamped the puzzles, you’ll still need to operate on adventure gaming logic to make your way through (at least without a guide). Those cogwheels needed to enable the elevator in the cemetery? Why, of course, you need to go back to the hotel and pick them up from the table that Momo was sitting at before he stormed off (or picked them up in the beginning). The release papers required to operate the train? Of course you need to go to the Notary Office to get them stamped with the ink obtained from the attic obtained from the Varlberg family’s attic.

And as inviting as the UI feels now, it was baffling that details like the model number of Oscar’s legs weren’t noted down in Kate’s journal or even reiterated when speaking to him again. Granted, the solutions aren’t too off-kilter like the most devious adventure games could be, but there’s more than a bit of backtracking and re-examination required.

"It feels like the truest experience remains with the original, as unwieldy and archaic as it can be in places. Take Syberia Remastered as an introduction to the series’ world, if not a reminder about everything that makes it compelling, and then revisit the classic."

The controls are noted to be more fluid, “tailored to today’s standards” as the blurb goes, but it’s strange to jog at a moderate pace in the open while being completely restricted to walking in some places, even those lacking people. It also felt awkward trying to perfectly position Kate to interact with certain objects. That console near the train? Turn around to line up with the prompt, which is more bizarre than all the goings-on in the story.

It’s also worth noting some technical nags. On PS5, Performance Mode didn’t really seem to offer any real bump in performance while resulting in worse reflections, so I stuck with Quality Mode. It runs at a solid 30 FPS (barring one strange moment where it clearly dropped) with pretty good image quality. However, there’s some noticeable pop-in and a strange outline around Kate. None of this is really a deal-breaker, and it should be emphasized – when Syberia Remastered looks good, it looks very good – but you’ll struggle to ignore that outline when first noticing it.

The timeliness of Syberia’s narrative and characterisation shines through. Despite some misgivings about certain changes, the overall presentation is a nice bump over the original. Yet it feels like the truest experience remains with the original, as unwieldy and archaic as it can be in places. Take Syberia Remastered as an introduction to the series’ world, if not a reminder about everything that makes it compelling, and then revisit the classic.

This game was reviewed on PlayStation 5.

The game closely follows the first 12 episodes of the 1982 anime. Direct clips from the show routinely integrate through the game. I love how the anime clips aren’t overtly cleaned up or filtered to match the more modern in-game art style; all of the show’s graininess and color scoring remains intact here.

And there’s a surprising amount of cutscenes interspersed throughout the adventure. We’re talking a tad less than an hours-worth of classic cutscenes from the show’s first 12 episodes, contributing to the feeling of playing through the show yourself, if just a tad bit. I especially appreciate how organic the cutscenes feel when played. You can be in the middle of stage when you come upon a gravesite. The screen then transitions to a grainy cutscene of Cobra reminiscing about the grave’s connection to him, and then back to the run and gun gameplay. These transitions never felt too abrupt or intrusive to the gameplay since they usually occur in-between the action or, more common, before and after the stage.

"I love how the anime clips aren’t overtly cleaned up or filtered to match the more modern in-game art style."

If you’re not a fan of classic anime, and are especially averse to the campy pulp action tone, the option to skip cutscenes is always available. Space Cobra is unabashedly campy, and very 80s. With the English dub, I couldn’t help but be reminded of the old Legend of Zelda cartoon. Cobra’s one-liners never hit the full cringe of Link’s infamous “Well, excuuuse me!” but sometimes edges close to that over-the-top tone. I personally find this tone to be a breath of fresh air among all the seriousness in media. It doesn’t take itself too seriously and isn’t afraid to wear well-worn tropes on its sleeve with pride. And all of that pulp action finds itself perfectly at home in video game format. You’re a galactic bounty hunter with a brief bout of amnesia and a debt to settle. The story arcs won’t blow anyone’s minds, but they are a fun glimpse at a bygone era.

And you didn’t think a modern adaptation of a classic show wouldn’t have some secrets and nostalgia bonuses, did you? About three chapters in, you unlock Cobra’s base of operations and personal starship, the ‘Turtle’. While you can’t manually fly it around like Starfield or anything, you can peruse some concept art through a series of rooms aboard the ship. It’s a very simple yet effective way to showcase a media gallery besides the old ‘main menu’ option, which I appreciate. Of course, unlocking these goodies first requires getting through stages, so it is there we turn to next.

"Stages are separate from each other with no interconnected map."

Space Adventure Cobra’s stage design is a careful balance of pure run-and-gun action and puzzle-platforming. Locked doors often require the player to hit a series of targets situated cleverly around a room. These targets are typically hit in a sequence using Cobra’s Guided Shot, which can be slowed down and tracked with ultimate precision. There are a variety of puzzles like this that spruce up stage variety nicely.

But to be clear, stages are separate from each other with no interconnected map. Heck, there’s not a map to speak of in the game. But while each stage isn’t interconnected in a holistic, seamless manner, branching paths within them tease the player to return with a future upgrade or piece of equipment. I like the spirit behind this kind of design; after all, who can complain about added replayability?

"A variety of puzzles spruce up run and gun gameplay nicely."

But without stage checkpoints or a proper map, this design is undercut. Some checkpoints are painfully spaced apart, making it an ordeal and a half to return to the spot you died at. The lack of a map further discourages me from exploring these “upgrade” paths further. I can see value in it if the campaign were playable with a friend. But alas, the game’s meager co-op mode only consists of a couple independent episodes. This discussion of replayability brings me to the core meat and potatoes: the gameplay.

Fans of Mega Man will feel right at home with this game. While the controls aren’t quite as tight or fluid, the Psychogun bears a strong resemblance to the Blue Bomber’s iconic Buster Cannon. At its core, Space Cobra is a run-and-gun platformer. Enemies come at you fierce and fast, with your kill count reaching into the hundreds for each stage. Given how often the Psychogun is used, an auto-fire option would have been nice. But alas, you must rapidly press the Psychogun button to shoot, since holding the button down is reserved for a charged shot. Hope you enjoy button mashing!

But at least the general movement is quick and slick for the most part. Running speed feels reminiscent of the Contra games, with a variable walk when the stick is gently nudged. You can change direction midair on a dime, which helps when getting stung by an unnoticed turret or two on the ceiling. In general, the controls are passable. What stops this from reaching the highs of other action platformers is the stilted wooden animations and ability restrictions. While you can’t make ultra-precise jumps à la Mega Man or Celeste, the movement is serviceable, if not a tad above.

"The inability to properly aim and move simultaneously can cause issues."

The Psychogun, your main weapon, can rotate a full 360 degrees—but only when stationary. Oh, you can certainly aim the ol’ arm cannon while running, but aiming is locked to your directional movement unless stationary. This inability to properly aim and move simultaneously resulted in many pitfalls and enemy ambushes. I’m fine with a properly difficult platformer that limits the player’s offensive capabilities, but with a game so fast-paced and combat-focused, this restriction just seems counterintuitive.

That’s not the only case of restrictive controls, however. The Cigar Explosive cannot be aimed, only thrown in the imprecise vicinity Cobra is facing. What’s more, hanging on ledges restricts you to just your Psychogun and Guided Shot, but puts you in a tight spot if enemies have shields that require your pistol or explosive to blast through. Speaking of the traditional pistol, it cannot be aimed or directed at all; it merely points horizontally. Overall, Cobra’s various abilities and tools, which can be upgraded and improved of course, fulfill the action equation of this action-platformer quite well. It’s just a bit of a shame the controls for most of your tools are somewhat limited and rigid in their application.

Lastly, let’s talk about a mainstay in these kinds of games: boss fights. Space Cobra has ample amounts of boss encounters, sometimes three or more in a single stage. A typical boss attacks you with three to four different patterns, which increase in rapidity and intensity as you deplete the health bar. I think this game pretty much nails what an action-platformer boss should be. All of your resources and tools are tested, and often required. Bosses keep the player jumping and dodging across platforms to avoid damage and aim at weak spots. Some boss designs reappear throughout the game, like the Drone Robot variations, but there’s generally good variety between them.

"Bosses keep the player jumping and dodging across platforms to avoid damage and aim at weak spots."

Platformers of every variety have been my bread and butter for as long as I can remember, and Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening delivered an impressive and fun time. I’ll probably return to this game in a couple years to grab the secret stuff that I can’t be bothered to backtrack for now. It’s certainly enjoyable and challenging enough for speed run challenges too, if you’re into that. Space Adventure Cobra is a fun action-platformer with a nostalgic 80s wrapper that comes recommended. And if you’re a big fan of the show, it’s an absolute must-play.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

Update: We had mistakenly published the review with a score of 7. This has now been promptly corrected to an 8.

Along with coming to PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, Microids has also confirmed that a VR version of the title is also coming out this year. Available exclusively on the Meta Quest 3, Syberia Remastered will be coming to the VR headset on November 13.

The original Syberia, created by Benoît Sokal, was released all the way back in 2002 and saw a great critical response. The title puts players in the shoes of New York lawyer Kate Walker who has to set out on a journey in search of Hans Voralberg. The remastered release will feature new visuals, revamped animations, and a more modern interface that will feel more intuitive to players. At the same time, the remaster does not bring any changes to the game’s story.

Syberia Remastered was first announced earlier this year with a host of screenshots. In its announcements, the developers had stated that, while the game’s story will remain unchanged, some gameplay elements, including the environmental puzzles, will be changed in an effort to offer “a smoother and more intuitive experience” to players.

The remaster got its first official trailer back in May, showcasing its classic-styled point-and-click adventure gameplay. The trailer confirmed that, like the original Syberia, Syberia Remastered will also make use of high-resolution pre-rendered backgrounds where players can then move their character around and interact with various objects.

While Syberia Remastered will take players all the way back to where the series first began, the last major game in the franchise was 2022’s Syberia: The World Before. The game puts players in the shoes of two distinct protagonists, with a story spanning almost an entire century. It features two distinct time periods: 1937 and 2004. In the parts of the game taking place in 1937, players will experience the story of Dana Roze. The 2004 parts, on the other hand, see players returning to pick up the story of Kate Walker as she investigates a salt mine while also discovering her connections with Roze.

Syberia: The World Before is available on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch. For more details about the game, you can check out the trailer released to celebrate its PS5 launch that showcased both Roze and Walker as they dealt with intense circumstances around them.

For a quick history lesson, you can also check out our review of Syberia 3, which was released all the way back in 2017. In our review, we gave the adventure game a score of 6 out of 10, praising its world and characters, while criticising its bad lip-sync, stilted dialogue, and overall lacklustre voice acting.

Like several point-and-click adventure titles before it, the original Syberia featured pre-rendered environments for players to explore. Syberia Remastered’s environments are fully real-time, allowing for dynamic lighting and shadows.

Light fog is also visible in places alongside reflective surfaces (though it’s unknown if ray tracing is supported). The remade textures also look delightfully detailed, benefitting characters like Oscar, the automaton, who looks as dapper as ever. Of course, the animations for protagonist Kate Walker look fluid as well.

The remaster also offers many gameplay-focused changes, like improved controls, UI updates, and more intuitive puzzles. Though more extensive footage is required to see the difference, it’s looking like a faithful reimagining of Benoît Sokal’s classic.

Syberia Remastered launches in Q4 2025 for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. Stay tuned for more details en route to release.

Created by Benoît Sokal, Syberia released in May 2002 and received critical praise. It stars Kate Walker, who teams with Oscar, an automaton, on a point-and-click adventure to discover the titular island. The remaster modernizes the visuals with fully redesigned characters and rebuilt environments.

The puzzles have also been revamped to offer “a smoother and more intuitive experience.” Other notable changes include an updated UI and improved controls and navigation. Of course, Microids says that the game’s “contemplative and narrative soul” remains untouched.

Stay tuned for more details and updates on Syberia Remastered, including its first gameplay, in the coming months. In the meantime, check out Syberia: The World Before, the latest title in the series. Launched in 2022, it spans two periods and features a new protagonist, Dana Roze, alongside a returning Kate Walker.

You play the role of an ant known only as 103,683, and over the course of the game’s surprisingly meaty and compelling campaign, you are going to be saving the life of the ants in your colony, as well as other colonies, by making alliances with other local bugs and critters.

"Simple sounds of the outside that we possibly take for granted – including the sound of the grass rustling in the wind, the sound of water flowing, the birds chirping, the cries of animals – all of that is in this game with a shockingly high degree of authenticity."

Mechanically, the game is best compared to Nintendo’s Pikmin series, which Empire of the Ants shares a surprising amount with. A lot of this is simply because both are real-time strategy titles following small creatures in nature collecting resources and defending their bases – the similarities are immediate and obvious. It’s a flattering comparison too, because the Pikmin games remain arguably the only ones that have convincingly translated the RTS genre to consoles, and Empire of the Ants ends up working similarly well.

If you are a veteran of the RTS genre, you surely know of the “console problem”. Real time strategy games work very well on a PC with a keyboard and mouse setup, which not only allows rapid control of multiple characters across multiple objectives strewn throughout the screen, but also lets player expedite complex actions by assigning them to pretty much every possible key on the keyboard. Basically, translating even basic RTS controls to a console game pad ends up slowing the game down and making it tedious or fiddly.

A thoughtfully laid out interface and sensibly mapped control bindings allow even players on PS5 (the console we played on for this review) to start commanding literal legions of ants to attack, defend, and scavenge across multiple bases and objectives on the map.

"What ends up being deceptively great is the part of the game where you’re not really engaging in any battles or base building, but just exploring the world or the hubs by yourself."

The game is possibly aware of the fact that it may well end up being the first game in this genre for many players, because it comes with a pretty comprehensive tutorial that walks players through the basics of not just the game’s controls and interface, but also real time strategy basics, including setting up bases, developing them, collecting resources, and fighting (and winning) large scale battles. It starts players out with fairly basic missions, but over time the objectives become more hectic, and definitely challenge your understanding and mastery of the game’s mechanics.

The real-time strategy side of the game is honestly surprisingly great. The various scenarios in the single player campaign keep things varied and interesting, supplementing the intriguing story with compelling gameplay as well, the game ends up layering more mechanics and systems over time to give players even more to manage  (such as weather), players can research and unlock new powers to assist their legions in battle, and the inclusion of a fairly full-featured online multiplayer suite, including leaderboards, can certainly add longevity to the game beyond its campaign for those who end up jiving with the game’s mechanics.

What ends up being deceptively great is the part of the game where you’re not really engaging in any battles or base building, but just exploring the world or the hubs by yourself. There’s something very zen and almost meditative about just going across maps, finding and cataloging points of interest, and just climbing up and down pretty much every surface the game allows for to get a closer, or more unusual, look at things. It helps that the game looks really, really good. Embracing a photorealistic aesthetic, the thrill of seeing a familiar object – like a pinecone, or an old tire – blown up to being dozens of times bigger than how we see them in real life from a scale and from angles that we usually don’t get, never really grows old.

"There are other times when the camera, unable to keep up with the player character still, ends up zooming uncomfortably close to some texture or surface, exposing the seams or shortcomings in the rendering techniques and adding unnecessary blemishes to how immaculate the game’s aesthetic otherwise is."

It is, however, here that a lot of problems also rear their head. The photorealistic aesthetic is amazing and leads to many moments of serendipitous beauty and gorgeous views. However, it can also contribute to readability and legibility issues, with it becoming surprisingly easy to lose track of your character on screen against the earthy or wooden surfaces, or against clusters of other ants and bugs. An option to highlight or outline the main character so you can’t lose track of them would have been greatly appreciated. Bafflingly, the game does include such an option in the settings menu, but it only works for objectives on the map, or NPCs you are interacting with. Hopefully this is something they can add in via an update, if only to avoid the few seconds of confusion or frustration that this issue can often lead to.

Another problem is that neither the game’s camera, nor the game’s controls, can really keep up with the total 360º freedom of movement you have. It is far too common for you to rapidly be going up a steep or curved surface, and for the camera to completely fail to follow along; or, if it does manage to follow along, for the controls to not adjust relative to the camera, and for you to end up literally going around in circles for a bit before you reorient yourself. Or, even if none of that happens, for the main character to end up latching on to a twig or step or leaf and then just end up walking on or around it without getting off it, before you realize this has happened a second or two later. None of these are big problems, to be clear. They’re minute micro-aggravations, if even that, and are largely the product of the game’s immense ambition. But they do disrupt the player, and they do get in the way.

There are other times when the camera, unable to keep up with the player character still, ends up zooming uncomfortably close to some texture or surface, exposing the seams or shortcomings in the rendering techniques and adding unnecessary blemishes to how immaculate the game’s aesthetic otherwise is. From low resolution textures to very sharp edges on some foliage, from flickering shadows to minor pop-in. These issues barely register and are worth noting more to reinforce just how incredibly good the rest of the game looks – but again, players who are obsessed with the visual fidelity of the games they play may want to know about about this ahead of time.

"There are few games that commit to their central conceit and framing as much as Empire of the Ants does."

On the whole, however, given the small team and obviously lower budget this game had compared to most contemporary major releases, it is surprising just how high budget the presentation is. The game obviously looks great, but the sound design shouldn’t be overlooked either.

Simple sounds of the outside that we possibly take for granted – including the sound of the grass rustling in the wind, the sound of water flowing, the birds chirping, the cries of animals – all of that is in this game with a shockingly high degree of authenticity. The impressive part is not only the depth of texture to these sounds, but also how appropriate they feel for the scale. You are, after all, a literal mite-sized ant. Not only will all of this sound louder to you, but also different. Throw in a surprisingly ambient soundtrack and the game sounds almost as good as it looks – which is some incredibly high praise.

A lot of the problems the game runs into arise directly from that commitment, but that same commitment allows Empire of the Ants to deliver an extremely unique experience that stands out not just because of the premise, but also because of how well it executes on it. Those fumbles and foibles are few, and largely, Empire of the Ants is firing on all cylinders to deliver a uniquely compelling game that fans of real time strategy games, or simply players looking for relaxing and meditative gameplay or a surprisingly thought-provoking story, will appreciate.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 5.

One of them is Renaud Charpentier, game director on Empire of the Ants at Tower Five. Speaking in a recent interview with GamingBolt, when asked if the upcoming real-time strategy title is going to get a Switch 2 version down the line, Charpentier said that though Tower Five is currently unaware of the console’s specs, the dev team would be “very happy” to potentially see the game on the platform, especially since, as he says, the game’s Steam Deck version proves it works very well on a portable device.

“We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it,” Charpentier told GamingBolt. “What is for sure is that the Switch format and controls will suit Empire very well, as the experience on a Steam Deck proves; now it is mostly a question of visual fidelity.”

In the same interview, Charpentier also confirmed the game’s performance and frame rate targets across all platforms. Read more on that through here.

Empire of the Ants is due out on November 7 for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.

As per Charpentier, on both PS5 and Xbox Series X, Empire of the Ants will run at “a stable 30 FPS”, while targeting a native resolution between 1400p and 1600; that will then be upscaled to 4K. On Xbox Series S, meanwhile, the game will run at 1080p and 30 FPS (upscaled from a native 972p), while on the PS5 PRo, it will run at 60 FPS and 4K (upscaled from a native 1440p target resolution).

Speaking specifically about the Xbox Series S, Charpentier stated that though the weaker console would have been capable of running the game at 60 FPS, Tower Five decided to limit it to 30 FPS in order to reach the desired render quality.

“The S is close to the X in many aspects, apart from raw GPU power and RAM space,” Charpentier said. “RAM space potentially limits texture quality but not framerate, so it is really a question of native resolution. On the S the strategy is obviously to lower the base render resolution and then to ask the upscaler to interpolate more. Reaching 1440p in 60 FPS is possible but it depends how much trade off you are willing to make on individual pixel quality. For us, 30 FPS was the limit on this gen to reach the render quality we wanted, but other games can have different priorities.”

In the same interview, Charpentier also stated that Tower Five would love to put Empire of the Ants on the unannounced Switch 2, depending on what the console’s specs turn out to be. Read more on that through here.

Empire of the Ants will release for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC on November 7.

"The game starts at the first page of the first novel with Bel-o-kan waking up from winter and it ends a few weeks after the end of the original story as Autumn fades back into the next winter. So story wise it is a very faithful adaptation and we made sure of it working with the author from day one."

I imagine one of the games’ biggest draws will be playing in microscopic environments that have been recontextualized as these large battlefields. What can you tell us about how you approached designing these environments and effectively capturing that juxtaposition?

We treated all our environments as huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in. The objects are all photographically realistic, some have been scanned in the actual Forest de Fontainebleau, near Paris. But the trick is the scale of course, the scale of 103, the ant you play all along the game, and it is a 1 centimeter war machine of chitin and pheromones. Adapting the camera to that, the sound design, the controls, you get to feel that this small deadwood branch is in fact a giant arch bridge over a raging river; out of the microscopic, you evoke the gigantic and the contrast is pretty strong.

How many different wildlife species will players be able to encounter? How crucial will they be to strategies for ensuring the survival of your ant colony?

Without spoiling the explorations, you will discover dozens of them, some crawling, some running, some flying… But the most important ones are those composing your armies and they go far beyond ants. From legions of small aphids to huge elephants that are in fact snails, many other insects will fight for you or against you, including some exotic (and ecologically invading) species like the Asian hornets.

Empire of the Ants’ story will supposedly follow the flow of seasons, which is going to have an impact on the gameplay as well. Can you elaborate on what that will entail? Similarly, how will the day/night cycle affect gameplay?

Insects and especially ants are extremely influenced in their behaviors by the climatic conditions they operate in. Temperature for example directly dictates their state of activity: too cold and they go to rest, even colder and they enter hibernation. We wanted to embrace that fully at a gameplay level so we considered three separated climatic characteristics: luminosity, temperature, and humidity. They each directly influence the simulation. Luminosity influences your economy, temperature influences your legions and humidity influences your pheromones, the “powers” you can use on the battlefield to influence your legions. Night and day as cycles didn’t really fit with our heroes: most insects are either active during the day or more rarely, during the night. So instead of a full cycle which would not have made much sense, or forced to interrupt battles during the night, we went for specific missions set during the night or in extreme light conditions. Including missions that are not during the night or the day as they are fully underground where no daylight is ever present.

"We treated all our environments as huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in."

How will Empire of the Ants’ scalable difficulty work? Will the game also feature fixed difficulty options for those who want them?

We treated the difficulty question another way: by allowing a non linear path through the game. In each hub, which are actually ant colonies, you have the choice of several missions to progress the situation and those missions are of very different types and difficulty. So you can progress by playing the ones you like or find right for you in terms of challenge and bypass the others. So it is the player which adapts his path through the story according to its skills and tastes rather than having a rather abstract choice of difficulty at the start of the game.

Empire of the Ants is touting photorealistic visuals, courtesy of Unreal Engine 5. How much of a factor was the engine in being able to achieve the game’s visual ambitions?

Unreal 5 was instrumental in reaching the visual look we were aiming for from the start. In fact, we experimented with a very early version of Unreal 5 to prototype the documentary look we were gunning for. So the new techs the engine offered, like Lumen, Nanite shaped the way we produced our graphics and allowed us to reach what we wanted with a fairly minimal art team. In the process, with our publisher, we took the decision to focus on the PS5 gen of hardware and not support the previous generation, that allowed us to make technical choices which are not backward compatible but allowed us to effectively reach the look and feel we wanted.

Roughly how long will an average playthrough of the story campaign be?

It really depends on your skill level and which missions you decide to play to progress forward as you always have the choice on that. Probably something around 20 hours. Maybe 15 if you really rush through it, probably above 30 if you take the time to explore and search for the many secrets this world has hidden to the hurried eyes.

What can you tell us about Empire of the Ants’ multiplayer offerings? 

We wanted to offer a focused and competitive multiplayer experience; so we went for 3 game modes, 2 of them through competitive ladders and one as a private games you can set exactly as you want. The competitive modes are 1 versus 1 and 3 FFA, so indeed, 1 vs 1 vs 1. There you enter a global, cross platform matchmaking which will match you against an opponent close to your ranking. The private game mode allows you to create your own server and invite friends to play in it by sharing a code across any platforms. In this mode you can choose the map, the climatic conditions and even to play against an AI, choosing its personality and level of intelligence. At the end of every multiplayer game you have the possibility to watch a complete replay of what happened: legion movements, power used, evolution of each player’s economy over time.

"We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it."

Given the game’s technical ambitions, I imagine a Switch port is unlikely, but could we perhaps see the game release for the Switch’s successor down the line?

We are waiting to see the final specs of the Switch successor and would be very happy to be able to propose Empire on it. What is for sure is that the switch format and controls will suit Empire very well, as the experience on a Steam deck proves; now it is mostly a question of visual fidelity.

Given that you have experience working with all the current-gen consoles, I was hoping to pick your brain on some of the differences between them. For instance, where their GPUs are concerned, the PS5 clocks in at 10.28 teraflops, behind the Xbox Series X’s 12 teraflops. In real terms, however, how much of an impact does that difference have during development?

To be honest, not much, the PS5 and Series X versions render with the exact same graphical parameters and both of them in very stable 30 FPS. The challenge was more to get the best visual parity possible on the Series S which is noticeably less capable, especially in terms of GPU. But here Unreal tech helped us a lot and we are pretty happy with the final result. We mostly traded on native rendering resolution and the upscaler does a great job behind the scene.

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth. How can developers take advantage of this, and how does this compare to the Xbox Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth?

Again, not a massive practical difference in the end, loading times are extremely short on both, counting in just a few seconds and the virtual texturing works very well on both. Having these consoles with fast MVMe disks was the real game changer for a game like Empire, it means your mass storage disk is almost a slow, but huge, chunk of additional RAM where you can read massive amounts of data with almost zero seek time. Compared to the hard drives found in the previous generation it is night and day and probably what changes the experience the most.

Both the PS5 and Xbox Series X boast Zen 2 CPUs, but there is a difference in the processors of both consoles. The Xbox Series X features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.8GHz, whereas the PS5 features 8x Zen 2 Cores at 3.5GHz. Your thoughts on this difference?

Here too the difference is not big enough to noticeably impact what you can do and can’t do on each platform. Also, in this gen, many games are in fact GPU bound, not CPU bound, in many of them you have entire CPU cores that are sleeping or not doing much while most of them submerge the GPU capacities. That’s why modern engines use variable resolution to cope with the GPU overload and lowering the native rendering resolution usually doesn’t help the CPU much or at all, the game thread, the physics, the audio, the animations, all the work that the CPU typically handles doesn’t diminish when you compute less pixels in a frame.

"On both PS5 and Xbox Series X, we mostly target between 1400p and 1600p native, upscaled to 4K, and that is at a stable 30 FPS."

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60 FPS console. Do you think it will be able to hold up for the more graphically intensive games as this generation progresses?

The S is close to the X in many aspects, apart from raw GPU power and RAM space. RAM space potentially limits texture quality but not framerate, so it is really a question of native resolution. On the S the strategy is obviously to lower the base render resolution and then to ask the upscaler to interpolate more. Reaching 1440p in 60 FPS is possible but it depends how much trade off you are willing to make on individual pixel quality. For us, 30 FPS was the limit on this gen to reach the render quality we wanted, but other games can have different priorities.

Which console, PS5 or Xbox Series X, responds better to Unreal Engine 5 in terms of performance and optimization?

Hard to tell again, probably thanks to Epic work on the engine, there are very few differences between the builds and you relatively easily get exact visual features parity. To be honest modern multiplatform games are optimized globally, at their core, with improvements which give gain on all hardware, including PCs. For us it was the huge challenge of displaying up to 15000 animated agents at the same time in 30 FPS, and the techniques we used for that are not platform dependent; it is all a question of simulation, multithreading, pre-processing and all these work exactly the same way everywhere.

What frame rate and resolution will the game target on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S?

On both PS5 and Xbox Series X, we mostly target between 1400p and 1600p native, upscaled to 4K, and that is at a stable 30 FPS.

On Xbox Series S, the native render is in 972p upscaled to 1080p, still in 30 FPS.

On the PS5 Pro, we run at 60 FPS with a native target of 1440p upscaled to 4K.

These are the stats for standard scenes, light scenes can render natively above 2K, while very heavy battle scenes will temporarily lower native resolution down to 1080p to maintain framerate.

PREMISE

Part adventure game and part real time strategy title, the upcoming Empire of the Ants is making some intriguing promises. In the campaign, players will take control of a lone ant, 103, an ant of the warrior caste. As you might imagine, you will be tasked with helping with the management and growth of your ant colony, which will involve plenty of combat, exploration, and more. More on that in a bit.

A FAITHFUL ADAPTATION

Exactly how faithfully will Empire of the Ants stick to the source material? According to Tower Five, the game is being designed as quite a faithful adaptation of the novel. Speaking in an interview with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier also revealed that Tower Five has been working with author Bernard Werber “from day one”, and that Werber “understood very well what we were doing and we could benefit from his direct feedback all along the project, both on the narrative and the global world around the main action.”

COMBAT DETAILS

On your microscopic journey throughout Empire of the Ants, you will be partaking in a fair bit of combat as you look to expand the reach of your colony. As you’d expect from a strategy title, the different units that will be available at your disposal will be key to whatever tactics you form, with unique units bringing different strengths and benefits. Beyond that, players will have to also keep an eye on upgrading their nest and outposts, spying on enemies, balancing between different strategies, and more.

EXPLORATION AND ENVIRONMENTS

Exploration will also be an important part of the core loop in Empire of the Ants. Players will be looking to uncover secrets, forge alliances, and what have you, and will be doing so in a location that’s presented as “huge epic battlefields or intricate jungles to explore and get lost in” through the ants’ tiny lens. Speaking with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier said about the environments that players will be exploring, “The trick is the scale of 103, the ant you play all along the game, a 1 centimeter war machine of chitin and pheromones. Adapting the camera to that, the sound design, the controls, you get to feel that this small deadwood branch is in fact a giant arch bridge over a raging river. Out of the microscopic, you evoke the gigantic and the contrast is pretty strong.”

WILDLIFE

Ants will rule the roost in Empire of the Ants, as the game’s name may have given away, but the game won’t be their exclusive domain. Players will be encountering a variety of different species as they explore the forest, and many of these will be helping you and forging alliances to join your cause. Speaking on the subject, Charpentier told GamingBolt, “You will discover dozens of them, some crawling, some running, some flying… But the most important ones are those composing your armies and they go far beyond ants. From legions of small aphids to huge elephants that are in fact snails, many other insects will fight for you or against you, including some exotic (and ecologically invading) species like the Asian hornets.”

SEASONS

Empire of the Ants isn’t necessarily billing itself as the ultimate insectoid battle simulator, but it is nonetheless looking to inject authenticity into the experience in some interesting ways. For instance, the game will feature a seasons system, with changing seasons impacting different species in different ways.

Here’s how Charpentier explained Empire of the Ants’ seasons and how they will impact gameplay while speaking with GamingBolt: “We wanted to embrace that fully at a gameplay level so we considered three separated climatic characteristics: luminosity, temperature, and humidity. They each directly influence the simulation. Luminosity influences your economy, temperature influences your legions and humidity influences your pheromones, [which are] the ‘powers’ you can use on the battlefield to influence your legions.”

NO DAY/NIGHT CYCLE

Though it features different seasons, Empire of the Ants won’t feature a dynamic day and night cycle- though you can expect different missions to be set during different times of day, which in turn will have other (largely minimal) effects. What exactly should you expect on that front? Speaking with GamingBolt, game director Renaud Charpentier explained, “Night and day as cycles didn’t really fit with our heroes: most insects are either active during the day or more rarely, during the night. So instead of a full cycle which would not have made much sense, or forced to interrupt battles during the night, we went for specific missions set during the night or in extreme light conditions. Including missions that are not during the night or the day as they are fully underground where no daylight is ever present.”

DIFFICULTY

Empire of the Ants is seemingly not going to feature any difficulty options, with developer Tower Five instead adopting a scalable difficulty model. What precisely does that mean? Well, in a nutshell, players will be able to tackle the game’s objectives in non-linear fashion, which means the difficulty of the missions will scale with you, so that you’re not forced to tackle missions in any specific order prescribed by set difficulty requirements.

CAMPAIGN

The story campaign in Empire of the Ants will undoubtedly be what the bulk of players will be diving into first and foremost, but exactly how extensive can we expect the experience to be? According to Charpentier, depending on how you play, the campaign can be anywhere between 15 and 30 hours long. “It really depends on your skill level and which missions you decide to play to progress forward as you always have the choice on that,” the game director told GamingBolt. “Probably something around 20 hours. Maybe 15 if you really rush through it, probably above 30 if you take the time to explore and search for the many secrets this world has hidden to the hurried eyes.”

MULTIPLAYER

Though the campaign is clearly going to be the main attraction in Empire of the Ants, the strategy title will also offer multiplayer modes, as you would expect. Three modes will be available in total, with two being competitive modes in the form of 1v1 and 1v1v1. The third option will be for private matches, where players will be able to customize rules in a variety of ways. Meanwhile, cross-platform multiplayer will also be supported.

VISUALS

Something that Tower Five and Microids have stressed repeatedly with Empire of the Ants is the game’s much touted photorealistic visual and technical ambitions. As per the developer, Unreal Engine 5 – which is what the game is built on – had a big role to play in its graphical strengths. “Unreal 5 was instrumental in reaching the visual look we were aiming for from the start,” Chapentier told us in an interview. “In fact, we experimented with a very early version of Unreal 5 to prototype the documentary look we were gunning for. So the new techs the engine offered, like Lumen, Nanite shaped the way we produced our graphics and allowed us to reach what we wanted with a fairly minimal art team.”

Interestingly, the decision was also made to not develop the game as a cross-gen title so that it could achieve its technical ambitions. “In the process, with our publisher, we took the decision to focus on the PS5 gen of hardware and not support the previous generation, that allowed us to make technical choices which are not backward compatible but allowed us to effectively reach the look and feel we wanted.,” the director said to GamingBolt.

PC REQUIREMENTS

With all the talk of Empire of the Ants’ photorealistic visuals, what kind of a rig exactly are you going to need to play the game on PC? Well, at least on the lower settings, things aren’t too crazy. On minimum settings, you’ll need either an i5 9400 or a Ryzen 5 2600, along with either a GeForce GTX 1060 or a Radeon RX 580, and 8 GB of RAM. Meanwhile, on recommended settings, you’ll need either an i5 9600 or a Ryzen 5 3600, along with either a GeForce RTX 3080 or a Radeon RX 6800, and 16 GB of RAM. On either setting, you’ll also need an SSD and around 70 GB of free storage space.