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Stardock Entertainment and Oxide Games, in partnership with Xbox Game Studios, today announced the release of a major update to their ambitious new turn-based strategy game, Ara: History Untold today. This update marks the first significant content release for the title since Stardock assumed direct oversight of the game's ongoing production last month. Titled the "Living Strategy Update," version 1.4 has been developed based directly upon months of extensive community feedback and introduces a substantial array of new features, gameplay enhancements, and quality-of-life improvements.

Key new features of Ara: History Untold version 1.4 include:

• Living Strategy View: Now the primary default gameplay viewpoint, this feature blends elements of the detailed Living World close-up perspective with the broader strategic overview. The design enables players to seamlessly manage cities, armies, and resources with greater ease while remaining immersed in the game's detailed environments.

• Advanced Map Generator: Version 1.4 introduces a significant upgrade to the map generation algorithm, now featuring twice as many strategically distinct regions per map size. These enhancements deliver more intelligent resource distribution and improved player starting positions, offering expanded strategic depth and greater replayability. A newly updated Earth map makes full use of these improved generation mechanics.

• Strategy AI Player v2.0: The computer opponent’s artificial intelligence systems have been extensively overhauled to provide players with more meaningful strategic competition, especially during the late-game period. AI opponents will now make more nuanced decisions, better optimize their resources and challenge players with deeper strategic considerations.

• Significant Micromanagement Reduction: Leveraging the new AI systems and the citizen simulation system, the game's citizens can now automatically select items from the player's inventory to self-supply their dwellings, shops, factories, and other buildings based on their needs. Players can easily toggle this automated feature or guide citizen behaviors directly using in-game Policies, maintaining full control over their gameplay experience.

• Battle System Improvements: Combat mechanics have become deeper, longer-lasting, and more transparent, supported by a new Battle Viewer panel. This panel clearly explains battle outcomes and provides improved tactical clarity, helping players better understand and manage military encounters.

• Graphics Engine Optimization: Extensive updates have significantly improved game optimization, reducing GPU usage and significantly increasing framerate stability, particularly in later-game scenarios.

• Simulation Speed Enhancements: Optimizations to the game's simulation engine deliver faster turn times and improved UI responsiveness, contributing to a smoother playing experience.

• Gameplay and Balance Enhancements: Version 1.4 features numerous gameplay improvements, including pacing adjustment, recipe tuning, and extensive balance revisions. Additionally, dozens of community-reported bugs have been addressed, further refining the overall experience.

Ara: History Untold is developed as a historical 4X strategy title, carefully designed from first principles. Stardock, partnered closely with Microsoft and Oxide, has worked rapidly and collaboratively to make this update comprehensive and attractive.

"It has been a real pleasure working with our colleagues at Microsoft for this update. The teams at Stardock, Oxide, and Microsoft have so much energy going into these updates. Version 1.4 is just a taste of what we have in store," said Brad Wardell, Chief Executive Officer for Stardock and Oxide. “In an industry where true 1.0 products are rare, especially ones in established genres, this has been a wonderful opportunity to try out new ideas and concepts that we in the strategy community have been thinking about for decades.”

In addition to the major v1.4 Living Strategy Update, Ara: History Untold released Untold Scenarios DLC today, check it out here.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3495280/Ara_History_Untold__Untold_Scenarios/

Stardock Entertainment and Oxide Games, in partnership with Xbox Game Studios, today announced the release of the Untold Scenarios DLC for the historical strategy game Ara: History Untold. Untold Scenarios includes several different situations to choose from, which place you right in the center of critical moments in human history as well as some hypothetical “what-if” scenarios that explore interesting alternative historical settings!

• Historical Scenarios: Players will experience detailed recreations of significant historical periods, such as the Bronze Age Collapse, the Clash of Hemispheres, and Europe at the Crossroads.

• Hypothetical Scenarios: The DLC introduces "what-if" scenarios designed to explore alternate histories.

• Custom Gameplay: Each scenario features uniquely crafted maps, distinct national characteristics, and event-driven gameplay designed to provide varied strategic challenges with every playthrough.

Untold Scenarios content requires the Ara: History Untold base game product.

In addition to the Untold Scenarios DLC, Ara: History Untold released the major 1.4 Living Strategy Update today. Check it out here.

Each Scenario includes new technologies and units that are custom to that scenario. For example, the Mongol Invasion scenario takes the player back to the ancient Steppes of Mongolia and lets the Mongols develop their unique Horse Archery and Horse Breeding technologies that are only available to the Mongols.Other scenarios put the player at critical moments in human history. How might the American western expansion gone if just a few things were different?Europe at the Crossroads takes 18th century Europe and replaces some of the key leaders of their name with the leaders from Ara: History Untold. How might events have gone differently with different leaders at this pivotal moment?Untold Scenarios even includes imaginary scenarios such as Islands, where each island has its own unique resources. Do players trade with each other to obtain these resources or build a mighty navy to control the seas and seize the resources for themselves?