[STEAM] "We all benefit from great games": How the 4X devs behind Endless Legend and Humankind went from Early Access pioneers to Civ 7 challengers

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, the 4X strategy game that aimed to let you craft the entirety of human history by blending together dozens of different cultures, had two main spikes in the arrival of new players. The first, says chief creative officer Romain de Waubert de Genlis, came with the launch of the game. The second, and far more unexpected, was the arrival of one million players in the direct wake of

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Now, as developer Amplitude Studios prepares to wrap up the latest entry in its Endless series, Endless Legend 2, and return to work on the newly-announced Humankind 2, it faces two notable challenges; the ever-changing face of an early access scene it helped shape, and the ever-changing desires of an ultra-passionate 4X community.

Early bird

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(Image credit: Hooded Horse, Amplitude Studios) "Personally, I love that they take risks," de Waubert de Genlis says. "They want to do things differently and change the recipe." That, however, is easier said than done, because Civilization's community has wanted so many different things over the decades. "Imagine [working] on Civilization, chatting with players who have been around for 30 years, and them telling you 'I want something new, but don't change anything'. And they're not the same players. Some really want innovation, others want a patch."

Regardless of how inflexible the community can sometimes seem, the Amplitude team knows that there's still room to continue pushing the genre's boundaries. Game director Benoît Humbert says that "no matter if Civ is performing or not, there's still space for improvement or innovation. There are so many things to do in the genre. I'm sad for Civ because I've been a huge fan since the first one, but I'm not worried for them. There's space for improvements but it's also an opportunity for us to see what went wrong. How can we be inspired? Because that's what matters."

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