Ara: History Untold is the historical grand strategy game that’s aiming for a piece of the Civilization pie and spans - check notes thrice - all of human history. But such a complex game wasn't simply plagued by code tangled to emulate centuries of human conflict - cougar hordes were supposedly just as pesky during development.
Xbox’s Developer Direct 2024 gave us another peek behind the curtain at developer Oxide Games, who dedicated a portion of its segment to the impact of player feedback. "Building the game alongside real players has given us that critical player feedback," designer director Michelle Menard explains in the embedded video below. "In the end, we believe this makes for a deeper connection between the players and the game."
"One of my favorite examples is when we first introduced the concept of dangerous wildlife to the game," lead designer Michael Califf continues. "It turns out, in our first iteration, it was maybe a little bit too aggressive or disruptive."
The developer explained that the team already knew a change was needed before one insider forum post simply stated: "Cougars! Cougars! Cougars! I hate cougars! Someone get these feline demons away from me." In-game footage then hilariously shows a cougar party hounding a screaming woman while other villagers get on with their day. It seems the cougar plague was just that common, eh?
"I'm happy to report, based on more recent feedback, that I think we ended up in a good place with the overall threat level of mountain lions to a player's citizenry," Califf assures, meaning no cat demons for us.
Ara: History Untold is due to release this fall on PC and Game Pass, followed by an Xbox Series X|S port sometime later. Publisher Xbox Game Studios also shed light on the rest of its 2024 slate, which includes Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle.
For more, check out the biggest upcoming games coming in 2024.
