Empire of the Ants Review (Xbox Series X)

STAFF REVIEW of Empire of the Ants (Xbox Series X)

Wednesday, January 8, 2025.
by Adam Dileva

I still remember renting SimAnt for Super Nintendo many weekends in a row, it probably would have been cheaper to convince my mom to straight out buy it. Something about having a colony of ants and it having an educational component to it really made me appreciate how incredible ants really are. There’s been a few ant-based games over the years, but nothing really captured my attention as the classic SimAnt. Fast forward a few decades and there’s finally an ant game that intrigued me. Developed by Tower Five and published by Microids, Empire of the Ants wasn’t quite what I initially expected, but I enjoyed it regardless.

I'll be honest, I was expecting something like a modern SimAnt where you build up your colony, but at its core, Empire of the Ants is mostly a third person Real Time Strategy game. While being ant-based surely makes it stand out amongst other RTS games, what will no doubt catch your eye is its photorealistic graphics as you command battles on a small scale. Powered by Unreal Engine 5, Empire of the Ants is inspired by Bernard Werber’s iconic novel of the same name. Explore, strategize and survive as one of the smallest insects.

For a RTS game, I wasn’t expecting such a lengthy campaign. You are ant 103,683 of your colony that begins their journey with you chasing a butterfly to learn the platforming controls before reaching your nest. Your Queen has chosen you to lead the colony to new prosperity as you’re going to have to rebuild a new home, explore the woods, defend your home from rival colonies, and even possibly make alliances with other species. It’s up to 103,683 to ensure the colony’s survival, and doing so won’t be easy, so prepare to lead your army of ants into numerous battles across a 10-20 hour campaign.

Interestingly, within each Chapter of the campaign, you’re able to choose which missions you want to play. Some have different objectives than others, whereas those wanting to experience it all will can play every mission. While you’re not invading manmade structures like backyards and homes, you will see remnants of humans in for form of their objects, like a deflated soccer ball or a tin can. You’ll even need to deal with changing seasons that each have their own challenges, and rising water that is deadly if you stay in it for too long.

Between missions you can interact and talk with specific other ants that offer missions, and while there’s no voiced dialogue, I think that actually is better in this case. While the majority of the missions are RTS based with combat, there are a few that are more exploration based like a 3D platformer. These missions I enjoyed the most, as it lets you explore the world at your own pace and really realize how small an ant is in the grand scheme.

While most RTS games are played with a top-down view so you can manage the battlefield, Empire of the Ants puts you in control of 103,683, a leader that commands the battlefield of your units but played in third person. You’ll need to build your armies, choosing between different units called legions, from melee warriors, ranged throwers, support aphids, beetles and more.

The first few missions are your tutorials, teaching you the basics and which units are strong or weak against others. The basics are simple enough to understand, though I did find I forgot which units were strong against others, so I generally opted to command all my units to attack or defend at once as a massive army which worked for the most part.

The majority of your time will be tied in battle missions where you need to attack and defend, but there are a handful of exploration missions where you need to reach a certain point on the map. I quite enjoyed these, as it was relaxing to take in the beautiful world that was created, appreciating the scale of an ant compared to everyday objects like flowers, logs and branches.

A RTS at its core, the genre can sometimes be difficult to play on a console due to controller restraints compared to a keyboard and mouse. Some have done so successfully, and Empire of the Ants is another to add to that list. You’re only able to command a few units at a time, and once you unlock resources like food and wood gathering, there’s little else to manage, so it’s a simplistic take on the genre. It simplistic enough that it works quite well on the controller.

Your main legions will be warriors, gunners and workers, each strong and weak versus another type, but there are also special units like beetles and aphids that offer unique support to buff your offense or defense. Each nest can only build a certain amount of units, defenses and upgrades, so when you need more you’ll have to go conquer other nests and take over. This is how you’ll bolster your army and unlock new abilities to use in battle.

It should be noted that while you are controlling ant 103,683, you don’t directly engage in battle or even gathering. You’re essentially a mobile leader issuing commands while freely wandering the battlefield. You do have a stamina and health bar, but there’s no reason, or use, for you to be near battle other than to watch your loyal warrior fling their enemies across the dirt battlefield, which is always amusing.

You’ll need to setup gathering to earn wood and food, used for upgrades. You can purchase special leader abilities that will greatly affect your units in battle by healing, speed boosts, high defense and more. You can only upgrade and unlock a finite amount of upgrades and legions, so you need to plan ahead to be the most efficient based on your playstyle for each mission.

Surprisingly, there’s also an included online cross-platform multiplayer option for those looking for more after the campaign. Here you can play in player versus player ranked matches of 1v1 or 1v1v1. There’s some more modes promised in future updates, as I would love for a cooperative mode of sorts.

There’s so much detail in the world that Unreal Engine 5 really gets to showcase what it can do. Cutscenes are incredibly detailed, foliage in the maps are dense, lighting is realistic, and for someone that has severe arachnophobia, the spiders you encounter are absolutely terrifying at that scale when you’re an ant. The term photorealism gets thrown around a little too often, but if you check the screenshots you’ll see why it’s a reality with Empire of the Ants. Animations are fluid, the world is gorgeous, and if you’ve not been sold on Unreal Engine 5 yet, this should do it. The soundtrack is calming and fitting, though forgettable. There’s no voiced ants, and the odd completely silent sections can feel a bit off at times.

While Empire of the Ants may be a watered down basic RTS game at its core, the flipside to that means that it's more approachable for those that aren’t generally into the genre like myself. RTS enthusiasts will surely want more than what’s offered from a gameplay perspective, but I quite enjoyed the simplistic and streamlined take. While I generally don’t want my games to have thousands of bugs, Empire of the Ants is an exception.

**Empire of the Ants was provided by the publisher and reviewed on an Xbox Series X**

Overall: 8.2 / 10
Gameplay: 7.5 / 10
Visuals: 10.0 / 10
Sound: 7.0 / 10

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STAFF REVIEW of Empire of the Ants (Xbox Series X)

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