Empire of the Ants preview: Insectoid Mount & Blade

Microids is delivering an impressive and immersive ant experience

Microids

Ants make for great video game subjects: They form complex societies, construct magnificent bases, found entire empires, and wage war on a large scale. It’s no wonder that RTS fans have always been fascinated by the concept of an ant strategy game. Empire of the Ants is definitely part of that category – it is a real-time strategy game and it features ants. But Microids’ take on the task at hand is so much more as well, as I got to find out during a hands-on opportunity at Gamescom 2024.

Here’s the big thing: Empire of the Ants is not played from a top-down perspective. You are not the all-seeing commander throning over the battlefield like a god, as you usually are in RTS. In this game, you play as an ant. You are tiny. Your combat strength as an individual is irrelevant. You see the world from the perspective of a small insect and anything from snails and spiders over to rocks and branches is gigantic to you. I almost had a heart attack when I scouted out a region and suddenly encountered a spider’s net with its photorealistic, giant owner hiding in the shadows behind it.

Your little ant commander can sprint across the terrain and even has a powerful jump ability, allowing you to keep mobile and get to high positions – an important aspect, because to lead your army effectively, you’ll still want as great a view of the surrounding area as possible.

Empire of the Ants is a visually beautiful game. / Microids

Think of this like a Mount & Blade battle – your character, who commands the army, is there on the battlefield and issues commands from where they currently are. It even works pretty much the same control-wise: You can make control groups and give orders to advance, hold position, and so on. Even in Mount & Blade, this usually works best when you’re on horseback or on any elevated terrain. One key difference, though, is that your ant commander in Empire of the Ants cannot participate in the battle – as I mentioned before, your individual strength simply is not in any way significant. You best serve the hive by focusing on tactics.

One of the missions I got to play at Gamescom was an escort mission, in which my army group needed to safely get a snail to several hive entries in succession, while enemy forces were out to get us. I positioned myself on top of the snail’s shell and used it as a command vehicle, like an ancient general might have used an elephant – it provided me with an excellent view of the area. My other forces consisted of acid-spewing ants for ranged firepower, a group of worker ants (not particularly great at fighting, but capable of salvaging resources), and a troop of warrior ants as the melee backbone. I advanced slowly and steadily, shielding the snail from incoming enemies by intercepting attacks with the warrior ants and flanking with the workers. Whenever possible, I placed the acid-spewers on some high ground to the rear of the enemies, but sometimes they shared the snail’s shell with me as an improvised firing platform.

It’s simple tactics, but felt very satisfying. And even though you can’t fight by yourself, you can actively turn the tide by using your pheromone abilities at the right time. You can have up to four such powers, which are cooldown-based and affect the area around yourself. These skills provide temporary buffs like increased movement speed and damage, health regeneration, or protective shields. Leaping from the back of the snail and into the fray, you can still feel like a hero saving the day by activating the right power at the right moment.

The screen can get quite busy when you're part of an insect swarm. / Microids

Having mastered the basics of controlling an army, I was thrown into a full-blown match against the AI – and this is where more of the typical RTS elements come into play. You start out with a main base and a few troops on a map that’s covered by fog of war – and it’s up to you to be the scout. So I raced out, quickly uncovering some neutral nests I could take over with my starting unit of warriors. Each of these bases in Empire of the Ants has a few building slots you can fill freely with buildings that generate resources, provide upgrades, or unlock higher tier units.

Each nest also increases the amount of units you can field – it’s usually one ant legion per next, but with upgrades you can get even more. Aside from warriors, workers, and acid-spewers – all of these have two upgraded versions as well – you can build some auxiliary legions, such as a unit of aphids that can heal up your ants in combat or a heavily-armored legion of beetles.

The UI is designed to be very immersive: To expand your bases, you walk into the center of the nest, after which all the possible options will be shown on the ground. You then walk your ant to the sub-menu you want to enter and can choose an option from there, once again by walking to it.

Your pheromones can turn the tide of battle when used at the right moment. / Microids

Aside from neutral nests defended by smaller forces, you can find food resources on the map. These can be exploited by your worker ants for additional income. Having food stored up is an important security measure – whenever you build a unit, it takes some time to gather enough troops to fill its ranks. However, you can invest additional food to speed up this process, rapidly collecting reinforcements.

Let me tell you, things can get quite intense when you race from nest to nest to initiate upgrades, have to deal with an enemy incursion somewhere else, and your worker ants just started a fight with some neutral bugs next to that juicy pear we found on the ground and wanted to supplement our food income with.

Assaulting a fortified nest is especially cool: You – and the enemy – can build some defensive upgrades for nests, such as a wall made of small branches or a garrison of acid-spewers. In the match at Gamescom, it was easy enough to force the enemy back from its outer bases, but I actually had to retreat and reform my forces after failing to take its main nest in the first assault. 

It's always a good idea to look for some high ground from which you can order your forces around. / Microids

Suffering heavy losses, I reorganized my forces for a second attempt. This time, I properly arrayed my army around the nest, placing ranged troops on the surrounding high ground to provide fire support, and sent in the heavily armored beetles first to take the brunt of the damage, supported by some aphids to heal them. My swarm of elite warrior ants followed, breaking down the rest of the defenses and securing victory – my little ant Hannibal (Antibal? Antpoleon?) could be proud.

Have I mentioned that all of this was happening on the controller? The game has been designed from the ground up to be played on a gamepad and that effort really showed – I usually hiss like a vampire entering a church when being forced to play a strategy game on a controller, but the experience here was extremely smooth and intuitive.

Microids is onto something here – mixing the RTS elements with a really immersive ant sim experience is a more gripping formula than I’d have first thought and this demo at Gamescom definitely put Empire of the Ants on my radar.

Empire of the Ants is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on November 7, 2024.