Revival: Recolonization is a 4X strategy game that follows the story of an Earth plunged into the chaos of a machine apocalypse. Now, with the chance to rebuild, it’s up to you to shape not only the course of human history but also the shape and fate of the planet itself. You compete with other prophets of a bygone age and the machines themselves to see who can build a future for humanity worth having.
As we learn in the tutorial, which can more accurately be called the game’s story mode, Revival: Recolonization follows the fate of earth beset by the All-Mind. The All-Mind is a hyper-intelligent machine hivemind that deems humanity not worth the trouble and nearly wipes out the human race. Put into cryosleep; you awaken in the 4000s to restore the fractured remnants of humanity to its former glory and fight back the machines.
One way Revival: Recolonization differs from other 4X games is your lack of a “settler” unit. You don’t go plopping down cities wherever you wish. Instead, as a prophet with the knowledge of lost technology, your job is to find tribal humans and convert them to your following. Only in doing so can you build a city and turn what was once a humble campsite into a thriving metropolis.
You get your first tribe for free, but the others must be converted by force or diplomacy. Each tribe of people is unique, which gives them modifiers that determine how the city will develop. Some are great farmers, some have bonuses to production, and some are mutants with a culture of human sacrifice. Every culture has a different set of modifiers, and every culture has something that will immediately become the most important aspect of your city building: A preferred climate.
A big aspect of Revival: Recolonization’s 4X strategy is temperature. That might sound a little silly at first, but stepping into the game, the map’s temperature is an important variable mentioned in several aspects of city building, which, of course, also factors into real-world civilization.
Your chosen people have a desired temperature to live in. When you build cities, incompatible temperatures yield no resources and must be terraformed for your people to live there.
This is done through your leader’s “edits,” which, despite the name, are actually a series of weather control devices built into their powerful techno staff. Temperate population, but you find yourself in a desert? Use a temperature charge to cool the area down into a forest. Too cold? Heat it up. You have a unique resource for these actions and unlock new temperature control abilities as the game goes down, allowing you to wildly affect the environment with rainstorms, thunder, gravity adjustments, etc.
Whether you wish to co-exist peacefully with your fellow players or start a war by pouring Acid Rain onto someone’s farmland, you will need to build an army.
Revival: Recolonization’s scientific tech tree begins at the dawn of civilization and expands into the far future. The idea is that you begin by teaching what is now a primitive, surviving human culture, its lost knowledge from the past, and as you build up your means, you swiftly advance through thousands of years of technology at an accelerated pace. It seems to be implied that your city goes from rocks to nukes in your prophet’s (possibly artificially expanded) lifetime.
What this means for your soldiers is that the battlefield is filled with an incredibly varied and super non-traditional assortment of armaments. You might imagine that post-apocalyptic humans relearning historical sciences at a non-linear rate might use whatever they can get their hands on at the time. Revival: Recolonization handles this in a very interesting way.
When you go to make units, you have a few options based on your most recently discovered military tech. However, at any time you wish, you can add new units to your production queue by customizing their equipment manually. This basically allows you to make a new unit of your choice with all of the tech you’ve discovered over the course of the game.
Stick a unit in heavy armor and give him a grenade. Have a half-naked warband equipped with anti-gravity rifles. Whatever you take into battle against the All-Mind (or other players) is totally up to you and allows for a serious feeling of personalization in your army.
What is even more interesting to me is the way the game handles these weapons. You’ll notice very quickly that the type of swords your units can equip are based on your cities’ available resources. If you find yourself without iron, you can’t make an iron sword but can instead equip your units with quartz swords. The material you use in these weapons affects how they perform and gives them special qualities.
While the game is full of interesting features, Revival: Recolonization can sometimes feel a little slow. Although the tutorial has been completed, the game can make you feel a bit lost and confused, with few helpful tooltips and not always the clearest paths to victory.
The Final Word
Revival: Recolonization is a 4X game that, while still feeling familiar, offers its fair share of innovation. Though it can be slow at times, it has a ton to offer, and with its unique takes on mechanics and style, the game is sure to offer something for the tired 4X fan looking for something new.
Try Hard Guides was provided with a PC review copy of this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles in the Game Reviews section of our website! Children of the Sun is available on Steam.
Revival: Recolonization gives you the chance to save the world from ruin, shaping both society and the planet as you see fit.
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