Much like other "4X" strategy games, Distant Worlds pushes you to explore, expand, exploit and exterminate the races and civilizations around you. Knowing that other star-faring civilizations came before you and that more will surely come after imparts a disturbing, morbid spin on the whole experience. With small, procedurally generated details, Distant Worlds establishes both a temporal and a spatial sense of scale.
I recall encountering countless structures that each seemed to point somewhere else. In just about every solar system lurks some ancient ruin or long-lost secret. Seriously, here's a picture: There's a lot to explore here. Even a small map is mind-bogglingly dense. Even so, you can build many of those same structures near massive nebulae, or near other cosmic phenomena. Each of those can carry bases, colonies and mining centres. An average map will have a few hundred, each with its own set of planets and most planets with their own set of moons. After choosing an era of galactic history, you'll guide your race, helping them develop warp drives and then move out into the stars. On the one hand, its sheer size gives it a radical and unique feel on the other, it struggles with scale in the same way we do, and can't effectively handle its own dizzying complexity.ĭistant Worlds puts you at the helm of a civilization. And then I played Distant Worlds.ĭistant Worlds is both defined and limited by its bigness. They failed, of course - and for the longest time I felt that I'd never see something that would really make me feel utterly insignificant. Both were games that promised they'd really give us a sense of scale tiny people, tiny beings, competing on a mind-bogglingly large stage. Back in 2006, I remember being really excited about Spore and Mass Effect. So big that our brains cannot understand the numbers involved.
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