Sega and Amplitude Studios have announced a delay for Humankind, pushing the game a few months back to August 17th.
The game will forgo its previously announced April 22nd release date for the new date in August. Humankind will release across Windows PC, Mac (both via the Epic Games Store, and Steam), and Google Stadia.
A delay was needed to implement the changes and improvements to make Humankind “the best game that it can be,” following the player feedback received during their OpenDev program. To thank everyone for their support, they’re adding Lucy and Edgar Allan Poe as pre-order Avatars.
Here’s some of the changes and improvements they’re looking to add:
We’ll be working to address pacing, balancing, diplomacy, accessibility, and AI (among others), but let’s take a closer look at some of the most common points of feedback and our plans for them:
- Pacing and Balancing:These were two of the most discussed topics in the OpenDev Feedback, and the general consensus was that the game progresses too quickly, and all basic resources are too abundant. Here are some examples of what we are working on to address these issues:
- The New Growth System: Since the growth model we tested in the Lucy OpenDev (based on current population and population capacity of the city) turned out to be difficult to understand and balance, and potentially frustrating with newly founded cities, we’ve swapped back to a growth rate based on surplus food. Of course, this still needs to be tested and balanced.
- Food and Influence in the Neolithic Era: Since many players performed quite a bit better than expected in the Neolithic era, we’re rebalancing the food and influence gains and are keeping an eye on this with our internal tests.
- Neolithic Era Variety: Many players found that the Neolithic era lacked variety, so we want to implement additional narrative events.
- Research Costs: We will rework the research costs of technology to create a smoother progression that should roughly keep pace with the intended era progression.
- Stability: Stability should be a limiting factor on City and Empire growth that creates interesting situations for the player to tackle, but in Lucy OpenDev many players found it too easy to reach a point where they could ignore stability. We’re examining and rebalancing the various factors of stability to reach a point where it can create interesting challenges without being punishing or frustrating.
- Money and Influence: As many players found that as the game progressed they stockpiled an abundance of Money and Influence with little to spend it on, we are working to balance the income and spending of these resources.
- Market and Research Quarters: Market and Research Quarters were often seen as not worthwhile compared to additional Farmers or Makers Quarters, so we want to improve their value compared to these.
- Cultures: As expected of such a test, some of the Cultures in the game emerged as particularly strong, some to the point of overshadowing other cultures. We’re working to address this by rebalancing their Legacy Traits, Emblematic Quarters, and Emblematic Units. Most Emblematic Quarters will now also be limited in number per territory to preserve their uniqueness and avoid direct competition with generic quarters.
- City and Army Cap: To strike a better balance between size and number of both cities and armies, we are working on imposing a limit on the number of both, after which players would incur penalties.
- Sieges: Many players found that it was too easy to conquer the cities of other players or Independent People, and we are looking into how to address this.
- Era Star Requirements: With all the other rebalancing, we are also keeping an eye on era star requirements to adjust them if necessary.
- Diplomacy:While a lot of OpenDev players liked the underlying system of Diplomacy in Humankind, many also found it confusing due to the interface and feedback. Here are a few points we are working on:
- Diplomacy notifications: We are rewriting many of the notifications, grievances, demands, and surrender terms to make it clearer who did what.
- Improved Dialogue Flow: We’re improving the avatar dialog flow to reduce the number and duration of pauses, so it flows more naturally.
- AI Attitude Changes: We are also working to clarify the “mood messages” when AI change their attitude towards you with additional text.
- Trade View: We’re still working to polish the trade view in the Diplomacy screen, so you get a better understanding of your trade network, including incoming and outgoing trade routes.
- User Experience Flow and Feedback: We’re working to improve the clarity of the UX in the diplomacy menu, for example clearly highlighting when an AI has accepted or rejected a treaty.
- Onboarding:Some of Humankind’s systems were difficult to grasp for players, especially new players, so we are hard at work on the onboarding experience, including:
- In-game Tutorial Videos: A set of short videos explaining basic concepts, accessible through an in-game menu.
- Tooltip Polish: We’re working to improve the readability and clarity of the tooltips.
- Hints: We’d like to have a better hint system to help players figure out good strategies, for example suggesting useful Infrastructures to build.
- User Interface/Experience:We’re working to improve the interface and user experience in various areas:
- Territory names: To help players locate events and demands on the map, we are going to add names to territories. Trade routes passing through uncontrolled territory will also create a label showing the name and number of trade routes.
- Fame Objective Pop-ups: When you get close to achieving an Era star, your progress will be shown on the main screen so you can easily keep track of your objectives without checking a separate screen.
- Notifications: As many players found that the messages in the notification ribbon did not contain enough information, we are including more dynamic information in them, for example in which category a star has been earned.
- Management Screens: We’re still polishing the city management and battle menus.
- Ideology Changes: We’re working on a clearer display of the ideology changes and its effects in the Civics menu and events.
- Splitting regions: We are working on an option to detach territories from a city.
- Battle Prediction: We’d like to improve the battle prediction to not rely solely on the relative unit strength.
You can find the rundown (via Steam) below:
HUMANKIND™ is a historical strategy game, where you’ll be re-writing the entire narrative of human history and combining cultures to create a civilization that’s as unique as you are.
CREATE YOUR CIVILIZATION
Combine up to 60 historical cultures as you lead your people from the Ancient to the Modern Age. From humble origins as a Neolithic tribe, transition to the Ancient Era as the Babylonians, become the Classical era Mayans, the Medieval Umayyads, the Early Modern era British, and so on. Each culture will add its own special gameplay layer, leading to near-endless outcomes.
MORE THAN HISTORY, IT’S YOUR STORY
Face historical events, take impactful moral decisions, and make scientific breakthroughs. Discover the natural wonders of the world or build the most remarkable creations of humankind. Each game element is historically authentic. Combine them to build your own vision of the world.
LEAVE YOUR MARK ON THE WORLD
The journey matters more than destination. Fame is a new and unifying victory condition. Every great deed you accomplish, every moral choice you make, every battle won will build your fame and leave a lasting impact on the world. The player with the most fame will win the game. Will you be the one to leave the deepest mark on the world?
MASTER TACTICAL BATTLES ON LAND, SEA & AIR
Each battle in HUMANKIND™ plays out like a mini turn-based board game on top of the actual world map. Unstack your armies and command each of your units, including the emblematic units of your culture and their special abilities. Construct siege weapons to besiege and occupy cities. Fight in large battles spanning multiple turns, and don’t hesitate to bring in reinforcements!
CUSTOMIZE YOUR LEADER
In HUMANKIND™, you’ll be playing the leader of your society as an avatar that you create and customize! Your avatar will evolve visually over the course of the game as your civilization develops. You’ll also be able to level up your leader via a meta-progression system to unlock custom looks that you can showoff to strangers and friends alike in multiplayer matches up to 8 players.