Humankind, Amplitude’s ambitious foray into the historical setting of 4X games. To many, this seemed like a departure from our expertise and experience with the Endless universe, but in truth Humankind had already been on the minds of our founders ten years ago, even before the birth of Amplitude. In many ways, Humankind is the game that Amplitude was founded to make, the dream that inspired the first few to strike out on their own with a new company.
Yet even with ten years of experience, and a vision that has lasted just as long, we still trust our community to help us make the best games we can, and so many of you have gotten to try the game last December with the Lucy OpenDev, and those who did not probably still followed the videos and discussions pretty closely. In that scenario, you got a glimpse of something we had kept close to heart so far: The Avatar AI.
Yes, not just AI, but Avatar AI. The Avatar you create to represent yourself and your people will have an AI you can tweak with traits just like the ones you saw on your opponents in the Lucy OpenDev. Of course, these traits won’t matter when you’re playing the Avatar yourself, since then you will be giving the orders, but when your friends put “you” in their single player games after you have shared your Avatar with them, it will act according to the traits you set.
Perhaps you want the Avatar to emulate the way you play as closely as possible, or perhaps you want it to play completely unlike you to surprise your friends. In any case, if you’d like to know more, you can find more details in the Feature Focus blog and video:
Now, OpenDev is great to get a burst of concentrated feedback to help us refine game systems and tweak the balance, but it doesn’t quite have the same sense of co-creation as the votes and contests for the Endless games did. In a historical setting, we cannot go as wild with factions, abilities, and lore as we could in sci-fi or fantasy, though.
So we decided to create an official mod, to both show off a little of what you will be able to do with the modding tools, and give us more freedom to work with the community for its content. Today, we are starting this process with the first vote, and it is a big one, determining the direction we are going in: What is the theme of the mod?
I’d be remiss not to mention that for our anniversary, we’ve also added two sets of Humankind-related wallpapers to the Rewards page. Whether you fancy a peaceful cityscape, a chaotic battle, or an unexpected meeting of the universes, you’re sure to find a cool new wallpaper or social media banner there!
