Ancestors Legacy, developed by Destructive Creations, and Published by 1C Company, is a highly detailed and innovative squad based real time strategy game. The player is thrust into the historical war involving the Viking invasion of the Anglo-Saxons and their Kingdom of Northumbria. A detailed tutorial begins as we jump into the fray, taking us through step-by-step instructions to teach us how to properly play. Even with no experience in the RTS genre, this game will be help you feel like a pro. A box pops up with instructions or an explanation, and the game automatically pauses when necessary so that your troops are not slain while you’re learning.
Despite the allure to do so, the idea is not to burn everything to the ground. There is more than one way to play: either by sneaking, or being as violent as possible. The true challenge here is to master the balance between attacking, defending, and building all at once.
Ancestors Legacy is bloody. Visually, this game is impressively detailed, and nothing is sacred. It’s exciting to be able to zoom in close on any particular battle and watch the carnage as it unfolds, but there really is no other purpose. Once you’re in that close, you’re finally able to spin the map, but you can no longer give directions to your troops.
Storytelling is done with elaborate images that portray great emotion, along with intense voice acting. This really draws the player into the action, making you another member of the squad, not just a person behind the keyboard. From speaking with the developer one-on-one, we know this game is based on actual moments and people, our ancestors, in history. We keep that in mind as we pillage the next village to claim the next node.
To progress and build more troops, you must have a steady income of food, metal, and wood. This is accomplished by conquering nodes, which appear as small white houses on the mini map with a picture to identify which resource you’ll obtain from that node. Capturing a node is accomplished by burning down the warehouse and rebuilding it. On the concept of construction, this RTS does not allow you to choose the location of your buildings.
Ancestors Legacy offers single player mode to play through the wars of Vikings, Anglo-Saxons, Germans, and Slavs. These stories are offered through 40 combined campaign quests, broken into 8 epic stories with 5 chapters that last about forty minutes each. The player is able to command up to ten squads made of ten men such as archers, spearmen, or scouts, which are able to be revived. To revive troops you use the retreat function, which recalls the unit to the nearest friendly node, and then click Replenish. You may not take control of the unit again until the cool down finishes. Reviving troops costs less resources and less time than building them from scratch. Keep in mind, the enemy knows how to do this too.
Skirmish- allows you to play multiplayer maps with NPC AI, with levels of Easy, Normal, Hard, and Insane.
Multiplayer- Extremely competitive. I experienced minimal lag with the online connection. Ten maps are currently available, but those will wear out fast. We are hoping for more maps as the game gains popularity.
Skirmish and Multiplayer offer two types of Game Modes: Domination- victory based on points gained by controlling nodes, and Annihilation- destroy the enemy.
Ancestors Legacy is truly a fresh take on an ancient genre, that might actually persuade anyone new to gaming to give the RTS scene a chance. This game is a challenge of balancing resources and troops, without losing sight of your strategy, while always being vigilant for those enemies that come sneaking up on you from out of nowhere. With so many different modes to play and stories of actual events to explore, Ancestors Legacy could easily become one of my new favorite games.
