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Terra Invicta, the space 4X from the creators XCOM’s Long War mod, was already denser than a black hole when it launched into Steam early access back in 2022. But that hasn’t stopped developer Pavonis Interactive from stuffing yet more matter into its strategic singularity where the alien defence of XCOM fuses with the geopolitics of Crusader Kings, with a brand new update landing this week, bringing a host of new features to the hugely ambitious strategy game.
“This update builds on the work done across our beta branches over the past several months,” writes Pavonis in its Steam update blog. According to the developer, players can expect “new features, visual upgrades, balance work, and AI improvements across Earth and space.”
Chief among these is the addition of exofighters, small ships that can launch from planetary bases and fly into low-Earth orbit. Naturally, Terra Invicta wouldn’t be much of an XCOM-alike if it didn’t counterbalance this small gift to humanity with a far bigger present for the game’s alien menace. The extraterrestrials get two new alien ship classes, named the titan and the lancer, and they can also “deploy a new tier of advanced weapons during the endgame”, so, good luck with that, Earth.
Beneath these additions are numerous changes to Terra Invicta’s management layer. The update adds 35 new character traits and two new character classes, while nations can now invest in three new development paths—government, environment and oppression. In diplomacy, factions can now agree to share intel with one another, while in combat, players can now reorder formations at the outset of a fight.
The update also makes several improvements to the UI and visuals. The ship designer has been completely overhauled to support clearer shipbuilding workflows while most system interfaces have been updated for improved clarity. The tech tree has also been pruned to improve navigation and readability, and Pavonis has added a full ledger of incomes and costs to help manage your faction’s finances.
Finally, there’s those adjustments to the AI. Alien factions are now more effective at choosing targets in space, so you’ll need to be more careful when arranging orbital defences. To compensate, AI human factions now build fleets more aggressively so hopefully you’ll have a bit more assistance when it comes to combat.
You can read the full list of updates here. Remarkably, this update only brings the game version to 0.4.78, suggesting that even after three years of early access, Terra Invicta is still quite a way from realising its full ambitions. Then again, if any studio is familiar with being in it for the long haul, it’s Pavonis Interactive.
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Kurt Indovina
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