Oxide Games continues to post new video dev diaries for its upcoming grand strategy PC game Ara: History Untold. For the latest dev diary, host Steven Bell brings back Oxide Games Design Director Michelle Menard to talk about Ara's in-game improvements and triumphs. The dev diary was posted around Halloween so both Bell and Menard are in costume in the video
In the video, Menard talks about the in-game improvements as your city grows and evolves from gathering resources and food to military improvements. She also mentions a new crafting element for improvements as well:
Crafters are one of the newer improvements types that we've kind of added into the genre space that let you create items that can then be employed either as equipment for to create new kinds of army. So if you want to make a spear that's how you make a spear. But you also can make luxury goods and those are items that you can then deploy onto your cities and create timed Buffs.
Later in the dev diary video, Menard talks about the triumphs in the game which can be unlocked similar to other improvements, but with major differences as well:
There can only be one Stonehenge. There can only be one Colossus of Rhodes. That's it and so it's a race mechanic where you know you've got to find it first in the technology deck. You have to save up the resources for it first and start building it first.
She adds that most of the triumphs will also have a crafting element to them in addition to just getting the large amount of resources needed to build. If you are not first in building a triumph you will get back at least some of your resources.
Ara: History Untold is currently set for release on the PC sometime in 2024 via Microsoft's Xbox Game Studios. You can join the Ara Insider Program right now to play pre-release builds for the game. Oxide announced recently that a new technical alpha test is slated to begin "soon" and you can learn more about how to participate on the game's Steam page.
