Augmented Empire Review (PC) – Augmented Reality

Augmented Empire sets its futuristic-yet-dingy stall out very early. The year is 2058, the city is New Savannah and you are Willa, the daughter of a rebellious mother and a subservient father. Futuristic visuals are melded with XCOM-lite tactical battles and a healthy dose of exploration in small map spaces. Certainly a compelling jumping off point, to say the least.

Is this divided and corrupted city worth taking up arms to save, or should it be left to fester in its squalor and decay? The choice will be yours as much as Willa’s.

Willa You Give Me A Minute?

While I initially said you’re Willa, that’s not strictly true. She is certainly the white haired protagonist of the story, but we inhabit the role of Craven, an AI machine guiding Willa and her ragtag band through a series of missions to thwart the machinations of the oppressive rulers of New Savannah. It’s a smart plot device, both as a narrative tool, but also thematically fitting with the top-down, God’s view perspective for the strategy gameplay.

The world and setting are an interesting blend of futuristic, cyberpunk and a dash of that BioShock-esque aesthetic. The majority of the story focuses upon Willa, her personality and her growing struggle with the burden placed upon her. However, there’s the characters that join her band, who are well-voiced and decently interesting. Less engaging is the constant and repetitive flow of idle dialogue from NPCs. Thankfully, you can skip them entirely, which I’d recommend.

Throughout the missions, you’ll be either gently supporting Willa, often through white lies and withholding the whole truth. Alternatively, you can be far more upfront, at the risk of knocking her confidence. These decisions will then shape the ending of the story, which was more atypical than I’d expected. Often, games like this reward you for taking the fully compassionate and empathetic route.

However, Willa will often reflect on how she feels about Craven. If you don’t take notice of her feedback, you may find yourself not getting the result you anticipated. This was something I very much respected about Augmented Empire. Much of the core narrative is relatively predictable, but the well-voiced cast and thought out decision-making that directly impacts Willa’s psyche is great.

XCOM Give It To Ya

Augmented Empire plays out over the course of 26 missions, which took me roughly eight hours. That time is evenly split between point-and-click exploration at designated tiles on the map, or in combat. We’ll start with the latter first, where it will feel very familiar if you’ve played an XCOM or similar title before. You guide your party of up to four in turn-based combat, using cover and expending action points to attack or use abilities.

Forming Willa’s party gives access to different playstyles, with melee and ranged specialists, a hacker variant and even a boxing old lady augmented to hell and back. While they have some overlapping abilities, they also have their own specialist varieties. Unfortunately, you won’t need many of them to really succeed. The hacker’s best augment allows him to turn a robotic foe into an ally, which far outweighs laying a mine, for example.

Additionally, combat is made even easier by how targeting isn’t RNG, but rather you’ll be tasked each time to hit a segment on a circle, which becomes more or less challenging depending on distance and cover. Only thing is, if you’re even semi-decent in terms of dexterity, you’ll almost never miss. This mechanic applies to evading or reducing incoming damage too. Combined with the wildly overpowered skills your party can acquire, you’ll never really be worried about failing.

In some encounters, I’d have cleared most, if not all of the opponents before their turn even arrived. There’s no difficulty options either, meaning there’s no method to up the stakes or sense of tension. The default difficulty will be well suited for less experienced strategy players, but for anyone with some prior knowledge and nous, it’s a cakewalk. Having said that, I liked the dynamic nature of hitting defensive and offensive actions, and it was a pleasant switch up of being the one doing the steamrolling for a change.

Augment Your Reality

In between your brawls with machines, local gangs and rather unscrupulous law enforcement, Willa will have the chance to stretch her legs. Locations in New Savannah are reused throughout the campaign, where you’ll follow a linear format from objective to objective. Along the way, you can find currency to collect, objects to peruse and NPCs who’ll spew out some nonsense or other. As mentioned before, the NPC dialogue is repetitive and relatively pointless.

However, much of the world building is better handled and developed. Statues of famous figures, fliers teeming with information, it all serves to flesh out the oppressive nature of the world Willa inhabits. It’s very straightforward exploration – right click highlights all possible spots and left click takes you there – but it serves its purpose successfully. That being said, by the second half I barely needed to pick up consumables for fights, as I was already filled to bursting. Another symptom of the lack of difficulty disease, sadly.

Between the straightforward process through which you traverse through a level, and the ease with which you can overcome any mission’s foes, a sense of malaise can creep in. I never felt particularly deterred though, as Willa’s story and the world that Coatsink have contrived do a lot of heavy lifting. These aspects kept me invested in pushing forward, even if I never felt especially challenged.

This Isn’t The Upgrade I (Aug)ment

Between missions your crew will level up, opening slots in a linear progression tree. You select from one of two abilities in each slot, with the option to overclock (which boosts their effectiveness) a small handful of them for each character. There are consumables tied to this, but they’re so plentiful it’s not even worth mentioning really. Though simplistic in design, the skill trees do provide a decent ceiling for experimenting or tinkering with your party’s loadout.

Visually, I liked a lot about Augmented Empire’s look and aura. Dingy alleys, dilapidated subways, pristine corporate showrooms, futuristic vistas litter the journey and make New Savannah a location worth a glance. Animations are straightforward in terms of both combat and movement, but fit the art direction well. It reminded me of a lower budget PS3/Xbox 360 era title, and I mean that with plenty of reverence and appreciation.

Augmented Empire runs beautifully too. During my entire campaign experience, I didn’t suffer a single crash and the framerate was as smooth as a calm sea. The interface can occasionally be unresponsive, but as it’s a turn-based game, it’s a non-starter of a problem, thankfully. I haven’t played the VR or mixed reality compatibility options either, so can’t comment on them, but it’s likely worth having a look into if you have the hardware.

Empires Destined To Fall

Deciding whether Augmented Empire is for you will depend on your experience with strategy and turn-based titles, as well as your preference for story and setting over gameplay challenge. If you have any prior experience with the genre and getting demolished is your jam, this simply won’t be enough to spread your toast with. The flip side is that makes Augmented Empire a wonderful place for newcomers or less hardcore players to vacation, even more so if you’re into futuristic, cyberpunk settings with good stories.

As I mentioned towards the start of this review, it was quite pleasant to have a more easy-going experience with a familiar XCOM style of gameplay. The storytelling is surprisingly well executed, despite its more well-trodden narrative inspirations. Even with its flaws and lack of challenge, I feel fondly towards it and recommend it on its merits.

The road laid out before Willa is full of uncertainty and the occasional fall, but it’s worth being there to pick her up and join her journey of self-discovery.

Augmented Empire is available April 16th on PC via Steam (review platform).

Developer: Coatsink
Publisher: Coatsink

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

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