another one i was really looking forward to that just didn't turn out to be something i enjoyed. the basic ideas here are fine, but there's a few issues. the game loop is incremental and simple but ends up being sisyphean past the midgame when the ai factions catch up on buffing their agents and can easily overwhelm even defended state-zones, although this probably won't even be clear unless you're falling behind on finishing out your objectives yourselves. the space layer feels like an afterthought as you'll massively outpace the other humans and eventually get to the point where you're just way stronger than the aliens as long as you just bide your time and smash all your production out at once. the alien threat mechanic is an incredibly gamey attempt at answering the question "if this is a realistic sim, why wouldn't the aliens just kill everyone resisting like aggressive colonists did historically?"
and that's the biggest issue with this game: it's professing simulation but it's gamey everywhere. there's nothing inherently wrong with that, but engaging with this as a game and not a simulation makes the cracks come out almost immediately, and engaging with it as a simulation where you have goals analogous to real-world situations takes very conscious effort to reign yourself in and keep pushing that boulder up the hill

To begin, I think it’s important to recognize that this game is one that most people will either be agnostic on, or actively dislike. This is not due to game design, gameplay or anything about the game itself. Instead, most are likely to be turned off by the basic goal of the game: to create a realistic simulation of an arrival event, and plot the near future development of humanity after such an event.

Before I get into why that might be a problem, let me explain the game itself. Rather than acting as an individual leader or country, you control a “movement” that operates as the forces behind the throne in countries around the world. These movements are divided along their responses to the alien arrival- they range from the extermination of all xenos and their followers, to those who worship the aliens as gods. Factions use “control points” to simulate their influence over individual countries, and capturing those control points gives a faction everything from money and influence, to armies and nukes. They also give “boost”, which lets a faction launch things into space, and “mission control” which lets factions control more space assets.

The game can be broken down into three distinct phases. Phase one is the “Earth” phase. Most of your focus will be the battle for hearts and minds on Earth, and the competition over scarce resources to start building stations and outposts close to home (the moon, for instance). Your space ships, if you even have any, would be vaporized by the aliens if they chose to attack you. This is the time where you’re trying to understand why you’ve been visited by these aliens, and what they want from humanity.

Phase two is “Expansion”. This is more akin to your classic 4x gameplay. Gathering resources, expanding bases to gather more resources, etc. Without spoiling anything, you’ve probably now discovered why the aliens have arrived on Earth, and your faction is now likely heavily diverging from others in their response and objectives. Earth still acts as the central spoke around which you operate, but space assets can now function with minimal intervention, and building out a self-sustaining space infrastructure is the name of the game. You likely have a fleet capable of defending your assets against other factions, and might even catch an alien or two by surprise.

The final phase is the “Space Supremacy” phase. Similar again to the final phases of a 4x game, but you’re answerable to the laws of physics. That means planning: optimizing refueling and construction depots to be able to rapidly respond anywhere in the solar system. Battling for control over massive resource nodes found in the moons and atmospheres of the outer planets. Unlocking technologies and reverse engineering alien tech so that you can produce an armada that could truly defend Earth (or pursue your own agenda, depending on your faction…).

But remember when I said people might be turned off by the basic goal of the game? The key here is “realistic simulation”. This game is very, very long. A full campaign can run you 100+ hours at the least. Your councilors ask for new missions every two weeks in a game that takes place over decades. In those two weeks you’re planning out new space engagements, keeping an eye on alien and faction movements, and tracking progress on a dozen different science projects, construction sites and control points. To be fair, the game design is good enough that once you get good at this process it goes quick, but it’s still a very long game.

And that’s where I think things start to get difficult for those who aren’t already very interested in the concept of this game. Because the most interesting part of this game isn’t necessarily the game itself, but the holes it purposefully creates for you to fill with your own imagination. It serves as the platform off which you can spend hours and hours thinking about what would it really be like for people of this country or that country to have their mass media taken over by x y or z faction. What would it really mean for the world for you to start mining on the moon? How would it feel to learn that the aliens are here to (redacted) and that they can (redacted)? How incredibly quickly would society be forced to reorganize when we’re no longer the center of the universe?

This game is fantastic at creating the set up for you to take these questions and run with it. It’s a smooth enough experience to let you transition back and forth from imaginary to video game without too much interference from poor design or gameplay. Of course, being the large game it is, some parts of it feel a bit more stretched than others (for instance: space combat is based on Newtonian physics, which means it’s an absolute disaster to try and manually play. Devs are working on that though).

TLDR/Final Thoughts: Overall, the game is fun to play, interesting, and mostly well done. It is very clear about being a niche game, and it functions within that niche very well. It is a game meant to fuel your imagination, and if that’s not how you play games (or space doesn’t interest you in that way), it might feel a bit underwhelming. It can feel a bit drawn out at times, and parts of the later game especially feel a bit unfinished, but the overall experience is smooth once you get used to it.

It's fun, does its job well, and doesn’t pretend to be something it isn’t. And while it could use some polish in parts, it doesn’t detract too much from the experience. Therefore: 4.5 stars.