Empires of the Undergrowth
Command swarms of warriors at an unprecedented scale of warfare in this blend of RTS and base-building. Lead ant colonies against the many fearsome threats of the insect world, while building intricate nests, developing pheromone-based tactics, and evolving to meet growing dangers.
Empires of the Undergrowth is a strategy, simulation and city builder game
developed by Slug Disco
and published by Slug Disco and Hooded Horse.
Released on June 07th 2024 is available on Windows and MacOS
in 17 languages: English, German, Simplified Chinese, Spanish - Spain, Russian, French, Czech, Dutch, Japanese, Korean, Polish, Italian, Hungarian, Traditional Chinese, Turkish, Ukrainian and Portuguese - Brazil.
It has received 13,916 reviews of which 13,139 were positive and 777 were negative resulting in an impressive rating of 9.2 out of 10. š
The game is currently priced at 14.99ā¬ on Steam and has a 50% discount.
The Steam community has classified Empires of the Undergrowth into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Empires of the Undergrowth through various videos and screenshots.
Requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: WindowsĀ® 10 (64-bit)
- Processor: IntelĀ® Coreā¢ i5-760 (quad-core) / AMDĀ® Phenomā¢ II X4 965 (quad-core)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIAĀ® GeForceĀ® GT 440 (1 GB) / AMDĀ® Radeonā¢ HD 6750 (1 GB)
- DirectX: Version 11
- Storage: 5 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: Mac OS X 10.14.6
- Processor: IntelĀ® Coreā¢ i5-760 (quad-core) / AMDĀ® Phenomā¢ II X4 965 (quad-core)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: NVIDIAĀ® GeForceĀ® GT 440 (1 GB) / AMDĀ® Radeonā¢ HD 6750 (1 GB)
- Storage: 5 GB available space
Reviews
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
It's so refreshing to play a game where each mission is truly unique and new mechanics are introduced at the perfect pace. I wasn't expecting the overarching story to be so funny and engaging but after 27 hours I finally completed the game and somehow feel like it ended too soon! Thankfully there is a skirmish and a New Game + mode so still lots of content to keep you busy.
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Stop scrolling. Read my Steam name. Yes, this is the first and only video game I've found featuring trapdoor spiders. It also has funnel-webs and they're awesome. 'Dope spider content' should be a Steam tag. Too many games out there half-ass their spider enemies and it's sad. If you hate spiders, this game's arachnophobe mode turns them into colorful hats. If that hasn't sold you yet for some reason, let me stop talking about spiders and talk about ants instead. The main campaign has you play as a govenment-created colony of gene-thief ants, a species that can take traits from other ants. This formicarium is your hub, and from here you can choose levels to play as different ant colonies around the world. Between levels, you're fed food to grow your colony, and royal jelly to unlock and upgrade different types of ants by the two scientists conducting the experiment. More on that later. The levels between the hub are where this game truly shines. The gameplay is deceptively simple. You start with your queen and a couple lowly workers, and you direct your ants using pheromone trails. There are five different pheromone groups and a nest group. Workers in the nest group will handle tasks around the nest like excavation, brood tile building to make more ants, and collecting nearby food. Your other ants will follow your pheromone trail markers, collecting food and fighting whatever they come across. You find food to make more ants, and you use those ants to get more food. Got all that? "There is not enough food to feed the new brood." "Your colony is starving." Your queen is in imminent danger." Game over. If there's one thing you learn fast, it's that food is money, money is time, and you're constantly running out. Nearly all levels have some form of soft time limit keeping you under pressure to grow your colony, whether that be a rival colony invasion, a rising tide cutting off food supplies, or some voracious predator bearing down on your nest. The level design is fantastic, and the different objectives for each have you playing around different food sources, enemies, events, day/night cycles, and more. If your ants aren't doing anything, you're not making profit, and you have to make quick decisions to keep your ants productive and your colony thriving. Meanwhile, you need to keep an eye on your nest. If your food storage is full, your ants can't keep collecting food, and you have to excavate, build and upgrade tiles to keep the food coming in while you manage your forces elsewhere. Life in the undergrowth is brutal, especially near the bottom of the food chain. Food is usually defended, and creatures much bigger than you roam the map or invade your nest, interrupting or even decimating your forces. Wolf spiders will snatch your babies. Devil's horse coach beetles will pepper spray waves of soldiers. Parasitic flies will lay eggs in their heads, dooming dozens of ants to a slow, inevitable death. Funnel-webs will grab strays who wander too close to their lair. Hundreds of army ants will rule areas of the map with an iron fist. All of this is relayed to you by the chocolatey voice of a nature doc narrator who will comment on the ups and downs of the level with a wry, almost mocking tone. You'd do well to listen to him though, as he keeps you updated on changes around the map and how your objectives are progressing. Despite the hopeless aura that surrounds you as you struggle to keep your colony afloat, it feels GOOD to survive. Some of the best parts of this game is the payoff as your plans come together. Storming a fresh sardine corpse washed up on the shore and leaving with more food than you know what to do with. Stealing an enemy's supply while they're attacked by local predators. Sending a small group of workers to gather leaves while your major guards hold the line outside the nest. Making bridges out of fire ants to cross streams and access more parts of the map. Swarming an entire bullfrog with your army of upgraded soldiers. It's all immensely satisfying, and seeing your army in motion is a reward in of itself. There's not too much micro to worry about, so you can spend most of your energy making decisions around the map, but learning smart positioning and attack/gather priority will really help, and is necessary on harder difficulties. I have mastered the art of termite drive-by, southside savannah represent. Back at the formicarium, you will quickly find that one of the scientists taking care of you is absolutely insane. He is both the hand of God who showers you with manna from the heavens, and a cruel force of nature who blithely dumps live scorpions into your home the minute his colleague leaves the room. The story gets extremely wacky due to his obsession with you, and his voice acting is fantastic. He is absolutely the most charming part of the game, and should have been fired long ago. I want him carnally. Once you've finished the main campaign, there is a new game plus mode with more ants to unlock, and loads of achievements for existing levels that will change the way you play each one even further. There's also bonus levels, an excellent freeplay mode, and even an arena mode where you can channel your inner Scientist 1 and pit species against each other just to see who comes out on top. There are loads of types of ants to play around with, and they've even added termites. The devs are clearly passionate, and I assume are going to continue updating the game to give even more content. The replayability here will make sure that you have more ant content for many many hours after you've cut your teeth on the campaign. Empires of the Undergrowth is a game that I think will live and die by its concept for many. A lot of people find insects disgusting and creepy, and that will turn a lot of players away. But what they definitely are not are boring. I learned a ton about the many ants and arthropods in this game through the excellent narration and game mechanics. I learned even more from an excellent Youtube channel I will shout out called An Ecologist Plays, who dives deep into the insect behaviour while he plays. If you find the game interesting, but the gameplay isn't for you, please give his channel a look. He's super educational and very friendly. This game made me really respect ants and the violent world they live in, and I don't even play much RTS. It's that fun. From a dev team of I believe 3 people, that's super impressive. Thank you Slug Disco, I hope this game shows up in a museum some day. Also, if you ever make a level where I can play as a trapdoor, I'll pre-order your next game on sight.
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When I got this game many years ago, I had an incredible time, now, 7 years later, the game has finally been finished and after beating the final story mission. I gotta say, thank you Slug Disco, for this amazing experience. I lack the works to properly describe how euphoric I am after completing the final mission, after waiting all these years, for the perfect ending no one would have expected. This game isn't just some game about ants, its an experience with ants. You'll travel across the globe, discovering new ants and having an amazing time playing each and every one. This game is a work of art and I don't use that term lightly. This is a game that will be looked upon years later as an instant classic. I just know it. Too all the people over at slug disco, thank you. thank you for making my childhood special and for making my teenage years even more special. Its because of this game that I have grown such a fondess for the small world around me and all the beautiful beings that live in it. I wish you only the best of luck in your next endeavors
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Rules to know when playing this game: 1. Hate the scientist 2. Loathe the scientist 3. Detest the scientist 4. Resent the scientist 5. Despise the scientist 6. Dislike the scientist 7. Abhor the scientist and most importantly.... 8. Love the narrator
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This game is quite impressive for a small team for developers, I'd enjoy playing this game a lot as it brings a lot of fun aspects mostly from RTS games. Not only that, I enjoy nature and I like looking on some of the creatures on this game. Generally speaking of, there's a lot of different unique species in this game. From crustaceans to reptiles, not to mention their environment is pretty well made, from swamps to savannahs. The storyline is quite interesting and wacky. The custom game brings a lot of options on how we want to customize our ant colony. Battle arena is there mostly for fun, as you watch 1 American Bullfrog go up against 1000 Ants. But hey, don't count out the extra levels as they also present a fun and unique experience for everybody, like playing as a lot of Beetle species, surviving the cold winter, and even surviving waves of creature attacks. Now that's all I can say for this game, I really find it fun and enjoying overall. It really also requires some brain thinking in order to accomplish most of the stuff on this game and impressed of how a small team of developers have made this game come to fruition. Thank you for taking your time on reading this by the way.
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Last Updates
| Steam data | 18 November 2024 00:30 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 19 December 2024 02:37 |
| Steam price | 23 December 2024 12:45 |
| Steam reviews | 23 December 2024 00:07 |
Online players
560
Developer
Slug Disco
Publisher
Slug Disco,
Hooded Horse
Release
07 Jun 2024
Platforms
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