Do not buy this game. I've played Empires Apart for over 140 hours and been a loyal supporter of the game since it was just concept art. At every given opportunity I was there to help. I playtested the game throughout development, but ultimately I saw Empires Apart grow into something I cannot recommend to anyone. I am incredibly disappointed in how this game turned out and how unprofessional the developers have been to the community. This game is a buggy, incomplete, rushed, border-line unplayable mess of an RTS game that broke the many promises it made to its loyal Alpha and Beta testers. If you're looking for an Early Access game with almost no Single Player and absolutely no playerbase for Multiplayer, then that's unfortunately Empires Apart.

This game actually does have potentially good gameplay that is remiscent of the classic 90's RTS titles that I love (with over 2000 hours in Age of Empires II: HD Edition, not including the CD version). As a big fan of Aoe2, Age of Mythology, Star Wars Galactic Battlegrounds, Warcraft 3, Starcraft II, and more, I did generally enjoy the gameplay of Empires Apart. The gameplay is actually very fun and well-designed, borrowing from the classic 90s RTS formula but adding some welcomed twists that help make the experience unique. However, the game itself is consistently riddled with hilarious exploits and major balance issues that kill the game the more you learn about it. That's assuming of course that you can actually play it when it isn't crashing 24/7. In my 140 hours of Empires Apart I have completed exactly 1 full Multiplayer game and that was during the Closed Beta. That is unforgivable. I was always playing with different people too so it's the game that is broken. The Publisher gave plenty of time with development, so it is unfortunately the Developers who openly pretend that they shipped a complete product and show absolutely no respect for all the Alpha and Beta testers that got them this far.

Without a Singleplayer Campaign and an incredibly lazily implemented cheating AI (that just gets infinite resources and infinite Stone), the game has poor if not almost non-existent Singleplayer. The Skirmish mode is bare-bones and barely customizable. I don't know how and why that's the case but this game is simply not worth buying without a Campaign as there is no Multiplayer playerbase to play online and the multiplayer itself is very very unstable.

Expect them to release some more broken DLC civilizations later and the playerbase to dip back down again shortly after to around 5 players if they continue this ridiculous "multiplayer-only" philosophy. That philosophy does not work in a classic-style RTS game that is supposed to be competitive yet offers no proper tools for players to learn, like a Campaign, replays, spectating outside of a lobby, better tutorials, and the most basic of features. And again the multiplayer itself is still awful with the rampant bugs, lag, balance issues, constant crashing, bare-bones lobbies, poor pathfinding, and overall incomplete gameplay. I mean look at how terrible the navy is!

I'm a huge fan of classic RTS games and I will happily edit my review in a heartbeat if the developers showed for just a moment that they actually cared about their customers who ask for a Campaign, but instead of implementing a Campaign they ignore all criticism and suggestions, and are always working against the clock to fix a broken product that should have never been shipped the way it was. If I could describe this game in one word it would be:

Disappointing

It had so much potential to be great but in the end it was squandered. It's a shame. I'll be keeping my eye out in case things change and the developers start caring about their players, and if that ever happens I'll gladly edit this review. But don't hold your breath. The gameplay is good but it's honestly wasted here unfortunately.

What a massive, massive let down this game is.
Being a huge fan of the classic RTS games for many a year, I had watched the development of this game over the last 6 or so months with interest, hoping it would pick up where the likes of AOE left off, perhaps with a modern take on the tried and trusted formats, no such luck.
Well, unless by modern, you expect the increasingly cynical approach game developers are taking these days, by releasing half finished, poorly optimised content, with the promise of further updates to provide the content that should be there at launch, this game would appear to excel in that respect.
I requested a refund after around 1 hour of play time. Having purchased around 200 games on Steam, this is only the 2nd time I've done so, here's why.
I was immediately struck by the realisation that this is nowhere near a full/finished game.
Having played through the worryingly short tutorial, and in the apparent absence of any kind of single player campaign option (really and RTS without a campaign!?) I decided I'd start off with the survival mode.
I was astonished to find that this mode contained 1 map .... with the promise of more maps to be added later, apparently.
The map itself was beyond basic, a barren square with a few resources dotted around, and a town centre in the middle as a starting point. The idea of course, being to defend it against increasingly difficult waves of enemies, something I became bored of long before the end of the 15 minutes it took the AI to overwhelm my increasingly half hearted attempts at defence.
I decided next, to give the challenge scenarios a bash, hoping that it would form the basis of some kind of campaign to play through, no such luck, just very basic scenarios of units squaring off against one another ... 2 archers vs a more powerful infantry unit, etc,etc ... again I became very bored, very quickly and gave up after a few of these challenges.
So then, nothing else for it, with little interest in playing multiplayer, at least until I'd managed to get a few practice games under my belt, I gave the skirmish a go.
Again, an absolute dearth of options here. The basic, choose AI opponent, choose difficulty, and if you like, set teams, and with only 7 maps, little scope for variety.
Having set up a skirmish against 2 AI opponents on a large island map, I clicked on start ... and the game promplty crashed, kicking me back out to desktop.
Another failed attmpt at launching a skirmish, was more than enough to put my already rapidly waning interest in this game to bed.
Perhaps someone with a little more perseverance, would have messed around with their settings enough to get the skirmish mode working, however having already tired of this mess of a game, I seen little point in wasting more of my time trying to get this poorly optimized, half hearted, half finished game, to run.
Becoming increasingly sick of being conned out of my money by developers who can't be bothered to finish their games before releasing them, I decided I wanted a refund, and I also decided to take the time to write this review (again something I very rarely do) in the hope that it would save someone else the disappointment of playing this game.
Do yourself a favour, go back to AOE, dust of your copy of C&C, or content yourself with another go around on Sins of a Solar Empire, in the hope that at some point, someone, somewhere, will do this classic genre some justice again.

This game is one of the most interesting and beautiful ideas I have seen in a long time. The potential for this title is amazing and I hope that the developers are able to bring it to where it needs to be.

But in all likely hood it will never get there.

Many People have complained about the single player, but the games focus says it is competitive multiplayer, so I will be discussing on that and tell you why I can’t recommend this amazing game.

Its relatively simple, there are 3 problems that will prevent this game from getting off the ground.

1) First it released in a very poor state (not in early access) which turned many people off from the game and stalled the player base, if you play a 2v2 and it gets to late game the game will crash. Which is a real shame as the 2v2 and higher has real potential if they turned it into something that was not just a simple as a LOL like team selection at the start that has no real effect.

But let’s say they do change it to something more interesting and unique mode that separates it from the other RTS games you then run into the second problem

2) There is one competitive mode which is 1v1, so all the higher player modes don’t mean anything because if you want to be ranked there is as I said only 1v1. But as of this moment there are at a peak around 200 players for this game, which means not only is the base extremely small which will create large que times, but there are many players which I have faced that clearly have played the beta for some time which leads to HUGE disparities in game understanding and you will lose A LOT when you are trying to understand the game.

Now for me I am fine with facing stronger opponents if makes for an interesting challenge. The majority of players however will be completely turned off by that and with an extreme lack of AI and almost no hosted custom games you really don’t have many options.

This brings us to the final problem

3) For a game based on history it is only appropriate to point out that past games that begin this poorly are normally abandoned. The reason is simply, this is a gaming company and no matter how passionate their developers are, if their player base is small and they can’t get it grow they will be losing money on a product. And like any other business you can’t function if you don’t get income from your products or you don’t have the reserves to fund a failing project in a hope that one day it takes off. With Age of Empires 4 and other RTS games coming not to mention games like North Guard and They are Billions that are currently out, very functional, and have a very different approach to the RTS style, it is difficult to see any other outcome than the forced abandonment of this game.

I hope I am wrong, that I can look back in weeks, months or even a year, take down my review and preach to all to go out and buy this game. But with a need for bug fixes and increase single player content , better AI, a purposefully 2v2 and higher mode, bigger player base, Inability to host private games, in game mechanical fixes with pathing, balancing, game stability, and a need for the game to make a name for its self in a different way outside of "a competitive RTS", based on past games I can’t see a way for this game to recover and become the game I wish it could be.

Payed full price of it at launch, now it's a loot box infested mess which is incredibly buggy at best and where you have to pay for civilisations seperatly.

Let it die in piece.

Empires Apart is an RTS that barely gets a recommended. It is heavily inspired by Age of Empires in all the right ways, but lacks a singleplayer campaign. Without a campaign, this game is hard to recommend for its $30 price point. As for gameplay, research has been streamlined to increase the speed at which a game is played. Races are also incredibly unique, the most of any RTS I’ve played. Graphics are polygonal and sharp while staying slightly abstract. The sound design is good and every race has unique voice lines for their units. The music is orchestral and war like to hype up the player. The netcode really impressed me. I played against another player in Germany and there wasn’t any noticeable lag present.

Gameplay:
The gameplay is typical for the RTS genre. The player must collect four different resources with peasants. These include food, gold, stone, and lumber. Lumber is key to the construction of buildings and is an important early game resource. Food is good all game as it is used to recruit units such as peasants and military units. Stone is mainly used for late game defensive structures and gold is used to buy resources and construct military units. This isn’t the case for every races as Aztecs only need food for their first military unit.

The six different races in Empires Apart are some of the most unique races I have ever played in an RTS. Every race a completely different set of mechanics for its units. For example, Aztec units gain experience while fighting which allows them to level up into a new, more powerful, form. They don’t however have any upgrades to replace the weak early game units with stronger late game units. While they do have some late game options, their mechanics require a player using the Aztecs to be constantly battling and improving their troops. This plays into the Aztec priests as they are able to heal one’s units. To get better units for most races requires research.

The research system in this game is greatly simplified. Instead of requiring a certain amount of buildings or previous research, two types of research are available from the beginning. These are economic research and military research. Economic research allows the player to build economic research centers, and occasionally unique buildings such as Arabian universities, that provide resource collection buff to peasants. Military research in turn provides new military buildings, unit upgrades and defensive options, like stone walls, to the player’s build menus. By simplifying the research and making it available from the beginning, games are much faster and only take about 20 to 25 minutes each. Besides battling with typical military units, heroes are also added to the mix.

Heroes are extremely late game units that can turn the tide of the gmae. Each race has both a warrior hero who participates in battle, and a ruler hero, who gives buildings and workers various bonuses. Some of the warriors have an aura such as the Mongols Chinggis Khaan who empowers the bloodlust abilities of his units. Other warriors have active abilities that can change the tide of a battle. For example, Jean d’Arc can create a protective bubble around an area which protects friendly units from ranged unit fire. The rulers give strong buffs on the player’s settlements which can range from worker buffs to Acamapichtili’s ability to instantly finish buildings.

One of the major disappointments of this game is that it lacks any long term singleplayer content. Skirmishes are included and the AI is decent. A survival mode is included where the player has to defeat increasingly difficult waves of enemies. Finally, challenges are short and frustrating distractions that often rely on using concepts such as kiting to complete them. There is unfortunately no campaign available for this game at the time of writing which is a huge waste of potential. One of the most memorable parts of games such as Age of Empires, Empire Earth, etc. is their enjoyable campaigns.

Overall, this is an enjoyable RTS with a large focus on the competitive multiplayer scene. Matches are fast paced and the variety of races make every match-up feel fresh. Without a good campaign, Empires Apart can’t be one of the greats of the RTS genre.

Sound:
Sound design is quite good. Each race has its own voice lines for each unit. Each unit has only a few voice lines and every time the player right clicks it plays one. I would have preferred a short delay before the next line is played. The ambience is quite nice and so is the music. The music is also unique for each race which improves the uniqueness of each race. The songs are rallying and war like, even the title screen music.

Graphics:
The graphics are an abstract polygonal style that works quite well with this game. Even though they are a bit abstract, units are unique and can be easily distinguished in a large scale battle. The same goes for heroes. Buildings fall apart in chunks which are acted upon by physics and makes destroying enemy buildings all the more satisfying.

Performance:
The netcode for this game is astonishingly good. I have played against another player in Germany while I’m on the US east coast, and there wasn’t any noticeable lag at all. This is great considering players who pick up this game will be spending most of their time in multiplayer.

Pros:
Unique Races
Solid RTS Gameplay
Great Netcode
Fast Matches

Cons:
Lack of Meaningful Singleplayer Content
High Price for Amount of Content

Rating
7/10.

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1/15 STORY
🔲 No story
✅ Not main aspect
🔲 Bad story
🔲 Average
🔲 Good
🔲 It'll replace your life

2/15 GAMEPLAY
🔲 Lifeless / static
🔲 Poor UI
🔲 Average
✅ Good
🔲 Excellent

3/15 DIFFICULTY
🔲 Playing asleep
✅ Some brain usag
🔲 Easy to learn / Hard to master
🔲 Difficult
🔲 Dark Souls

4/15 GRIND
🔲 Nothing to grind
🔲 Isn't necessary to progress
✅ Average grind level
🔲 Only if you care about leaderboards/ranks
🔲 Too much grind

5/15 GAME TIME / REPLAYABILITY
🔲 Long enough for a cup of coffee
🔲 Short
🔲 Average
✅ Long
🔲 To infinity and beyond

6/15 MULTIPLAYER
🔲 No multiplayer
🔲 Trashy servers
🔲 Some hiccups
✅ Smooth and pleasant experience
🔲 Co-op
✅ PvP
✅ PvE

7/15 GRAPHICS
🔲 Stuck in the last century
🔲 Low Effort
✅ Average
🔲 Good
🔲 Reality 2.0

8/15 AUDIO
🔲 Earrape
🔲 Bad
✅ Not too bad
🔲 Good
🔲 Eargasm

9/15 AUDIENCE
🔲 Kids
🔲 Teens
🔲 Adults
✅ Everyone

10/15 PC REQUIREMENTS
✅ Potato
🔲 Decent
🔲 Fast
🔲 Rich boi
🔲 > NASA

11/15 PRICE
✅ It's free!
🔲 Not recommended
🔲 Wait for sale
🔲 Worth the price
🔲 Best investment ever done

12/15 FREQENT UPDATES
🔲 Not data yet
🔲 Abandoned
🔲 Once every year
✅ A couple per year
🔲 Every week

13/15 BUGS / CRASHES
🔲 None / Not discovered
✅ Minor bugs
🔲 Can get annoying
🔲 Frequent crashes
🔲 Complete mess

14/15 MISC
🔲 Steam Workshop
✅ Steam Cloud
✅ Steam Trading Cards
✅ Steam Achievements
✅ Content for Steam Points Shop

15/15 VERDICT
✅ Recommended
🔲 Not recommended

Pathfinding is a broken mess, villagers gets stuck to buildings and edges, boats have to be moved bit by bit else they get stuck on corners. AI keeps getting stuck on itself, builds one house, maxing out villagers that just chill outside the town center doing nothing. A cheap and shallow AoE2 clone.

A highly fun, fast paced RTS game.

As a person with over 2000 hours in AoE2 over various platforms, Empires Apart really catches that same feeling I get playing AoE2.

It has a beautiful soundtrack, the 6 civs are each unique and offer different styles of play, the challenges for single player are interesting and above all the multiplayer is competitive and compelling.

The low poly art style might be highly divisive, but personally I enjoy it. As a competitive player visual clarity is super important and the buildings are great in this aspect, not to mention the UI is very clean and having the majority of the screen free is a very nice result. While the units are a little more difficult to distiunguish immediately - that's probably just me not playing the game enough yet to learn them!

There is currently no campaign, although the devs have said they would add one in future. Skirmish mode is nice, there have been patches improving the AI - it's already pretty good - and I hope it will improve further. The developers are incredibly active, more than I have ever seen for any other game, so I have high hopes for the future.

I'd rate this game as it is currently 08/04/2018:
8.5/10 for multiplayer
6/10 for single player (will greatly go up with a campaign)

I would highly recommend this game for those who enjoy multiplayer in RTS style games.

when merchants die they t-pose and merge with their horse. 10/10

This game is really good despite it's issues. Never have I seen developers so close to the community. You can clearly see that with every patch they release the game is improving. Empires Apart delivers tons of fun and it's building a nice and friendly community on discord. Haven't seen such a good and potential RTS in a long while. Definatly recommended!