Endless Legend – Tempest Review

The Endless series is certainly one of vast pedigree. Having just dove headfirst into Endless Space 2’s Early Access, I now had the opportunity to do literally dive into the waters of Endless Legend – the newly accessible waters.

Because this doesn’t simply add more of the same, as many expansions do, Endless Legend – Tempest succeeds in creating new an interesting layers to its 4Xtravaganza.

Endless Legend has just released its Tempest DLC, opening up a whole new area for exploration and activity, and giving the player new faction that focuses solely on this addition. And it helps lend credence to the name “Endless,” giving what is already a massive game an even more massive expansion. The new faction – the Morgawr – starts off already being able to traverse the sea, with amphibious units and ships with which to sail them.

This makes Tempest effective in not wasting any time to get to the new parts of the game – which is always a concern for 4Xpansions. You always have to ask yourself how long it’s going to take before you can get to the new content. With Tempest, not long at all.

Of course, if you should decide to play as one of the vanilla factions with the Tempest expansion enabled, your experience will probably be the same for the first chunk of the game. While you can research a ship to send along the seas to explore in the first era, you won’t be able to add infantry units to that ship until the second era, delaying any experience with naval combat for quite a while. So, if you want the new content quickly, you should start with the new faction.

Fun with Sea Monsters

Then again, the fun will skyrocket with the Morgawrs in the second era as well. In this era, you’ll learn the ability to expand on the sea itself, claiming territory to which no one else has access. Amplitude Studios made sure to amply develop the sea, as well, populating it with new quests (they added 50 overall), sea-fortresses you can capture and new sea-based minor factions. All of this ensures their new content will never be boring.

Not to mention that Era II is also when you get to research leviathans. Tempest already has a few references to popular sea lore and iconography – much of which was explored in the famous Pirates of the Caribbean film series – such as allowing the Morgawr to curse other empires with the “black spot.” But now, Tempest will finally allow you to fight your enemies at sea and meaningfully shout the words “RELEASE THE KRAKKEN!” Consider it an early Christmas gift from the folks at Amplitude Studios.

True to its name, you’ll certainly run into some chop on the waters, here and there. Five different weather types are possible on any given tile: ice, seaweed, turbulence, lighting and rain. This might be the only part of the expansion I could do without. I ran into a quest that charged me to end my turn with a ship occupying a space affected by four out of the five different weather types. This took five turns, and nothing bad came of it. Maybe I got lucky, but I was sure hoping for something that would affect my experience, rather than simply aesthetically change it.

Conclusion

While this may not come as a surprise, the Tempest expansion has added a lot more *ahem* depth, with its sea-focused expansion. It wastes no time getting to the good parts, and keeps you engaged while you're there. I mean, what other game will let you be a grotesque sea-pirate bent on conquering the planet?