Empires of the Undergrowth

Its super fun if you love nature and wildlife. it gives a feeling of how it would be to be the queen in a colony. great graphics and love the music

empires of the undergrowth is an amazing game full of strategy id recommend it to anyone it has so many levels and its a decent difficulty

You lack complete control of your units unlike in traditional RTS. You place them in groups which have orders to do things like "go there" "pick up food" "ignore enemies" and there is a delay when changing orders and they pick their own paths. If you've played a colony sim before it is a lot like that.

Egg clusters are all bunched together when assigning them to groups so if you want to split your forces you need to plan ahead or have two ant types.

My biggest gripe is you only have five groups.

Second biggest is we need multiplayer and we need it soon. There's some balancing issues I forsee but that's fine. In fact, I'd almost rather you not balance it. I am fine with some ant species being outright superior to others.

Third would probably be that some enemies should be consumable and aren't. Ants will eat each other's larvae but not other adult ants, sure. Even something like the painful food limitations like the matabele with anything that isn't a termite would be nice.

Fourth is how much the narrator repeats himself in some of the challenge modes. It is good when he alerts you to mole crickets and parasitic flies in case you weren't paying attention, but the tiger beetle larvae and to a less extent the assassin bugs I found extremely grating.

"Another matabele ant has been assassinated!" X294
Yes. I know. They're on the path to the food I want, these loses are acceptable. That one is very repetitive, but the tiger larvae one gets mixed up and he starts being a bit of a smart ass which made me want to choke him a little. Maybe a two to five minute cool down on these two so I don't have him constantly chiming in my ear would make it less irritating.

Storywise the formicarium challenges are pretty silly. It starts pretty grounded in lab where your ants are genetically modified organisms, but in the later half takes that premise to absurd but fun (and funny) heights. I started to suspect a political agenda would pop up but I honestly don't think so. Both scientists are antagonists, the man is just a sadist with a godcomplex but secretly wants you to succeed to the point that he'll start shouting for you like a sports team and the woman is clinical and professional, ultimately she always planned to kill the colony once the experiment ran its course making the megalomaniac your only hope of survival. After my trepidation died down I really enjoyed it.

The missions on the other hand play out like a wildlife documentary and are fairly grounded. I especially like them, it feels like watching National Geographic and is very cozy- and the music in this? Some of the best. I've actually added the army ant theme to my playlist.

Great game and at a great price!!
Really good to kill the time. Entertaining and challenging (if you want)

I enjoyed the game very much. After some time I return to the story and play it on harder difficulty levels. I'd like to play some more content for the game.

Absolutely amazing game. Voiced like a documentary, with a bit of comedy with a crazy scientist, and a variety of crazy scenarios that reminds you of classic shenanigans from old school RTSs but it's all real nature and environment stuff. It's educational AND fun.

Holds true to others reviews. Okay first time around. That's about it. Meta colonies kinda break that game. Also charging for new colonies is pretty wild. Game description is deceiving. More like a puzzle game with slight RTS elements.

This game is not only awesome but it's pretty clear that the developers did a lot of research on ants before making this game. Very addictive, very detailed, I can't stop playing it! Can't wait for more DLC!!!!

THAT GAME GOT OUT OF NOWHERE

I had so little expectation and am very surprised by my level of addiction to the game.
The game is so much fun!
Manage a colony. Protect the queen. Gather food. Build troops. Easy concept
The music is such a good match too.

Very articulate. I love that you learn the species and what their abilities are as you go. A very entertaining colony builder, with very intuitive controls and upgrades. Play the sub levels for points to add to the main levels evolution. A very genius method of points farming with the quest levels. Very well done.

It was kind of slow at first but once you get going it is very fun and I enjoyed it being an actually challenging game, the only thing that I didn't like about it is that on missions you cannot save and they can take a while to beat so I will say this is a long hard-core game but definitely recommend to anyone wanting to play.

-open game
-start campaign
-enjoy soundtrack
-accidentally dig up devils coach horse beetle
-die
-ragequit

good game, 10/10

its a creative form rts that i enjoyed because of the differences between this and other rts styles

I had this game on my wishlist pretty much since alpha, but never got around to purchasing until this last sale, glad I did.

Great game. It's *just* difficult enough to keep it challenging and interesting (I'm looking at you Leafcutter Harvest).
Good balance of humor, light story, excellent mechanics.

If you ever wanted to control, grow, and dominate an ant empire, then this game is for you.

this game is so good.I mean a game has to be good if i have over 600 hours in a game,The rts is sucha good part of it and i love how your nest can be desighned in any way.My only problems are its a bit to hard somtimes .

great game, matabele are bbullshit

This game has been a permanent fixture on my PC since June 2024. I find myself constantly drawn back to play – the gameplay, while simple, is incredibly engaging and surprisingly detailed. While the graphics aren't the highlight, the lifelike movement of the ants across the map is captivating. Seeing a hundred-strong line of ants methodically advance from your nest to overwhelm the enemy, inch by inch until their queen falls, is immensely satisfying. I'm really hoping for an Empires of the Undergrowth 2 in the future!

Really great game. Documentary style narration is a really nice element.

Am honestly shocked at how much I love the music in the game, it’s way way better than it has any need to be, really really good.

Gameplay is very fun

Ants are realistic, it’s nice

Have you ever caught yourself paying a little too much attention to an anthill? No, that's not possible! Then Empires of the Undergrowth is a must-have for you!

A gem of a building and strategy game! Not only is the campaign pure fun, the science hippies are very entertaining, but the achievements in the individual missions also feel very well-earned!

10/10

It is a RTS game which you have to survive as ants and battle other ants for territory and food.

Best ant game ever.
If you've been looking for something to scratch that 'Sim Ant' itch, then look no further.
I've had this game for a long time and always come back to it. It is and always will be one of my favorites.

pretty cool game, if you have a fear of insects your probably going to have a heart attack.

I'm honestly shocked at how much I got into this game. I write this review at a time of Expedition 33 and Oblivion remaster being released and I find myself playing this game instead.

all this game needs to be perfect is a map creator and maybe a custom ant creator, though it has low replayability

This is a good game everyone needs to try this. The game is empires of the undergrowth

fcking love my little leggy kids.
i wish theres was multiplayer.
itd be peak

First of all, this game is great, if you've looked at this game and you're on the fence, I would say it is worth it, even at full price. So that's the TL;DR.

The game is more like a RTS + puzzle hybrid, it doesn't require any meaningful level of micro or high APM, which for many is a relief, it is more a question of, how do you want to build your colony, and in what order do you want to do things to snowball your colony. You do have to adapt your strategy as "surprises" are thrown your way, but then if you fail, restart, go again; therein the puzzle element.

The game is great though, but there is 1 mission which keeps crashing for me, it's only on challenge mode however so it doesnt stop my progression in the game, but I guess I cannot do that 1 level on challenge mode.

TL;DR #2: Great beginner friendly RTS game with puzzle elements which is definetly worth a buy,

i love this game have had it since the third tier was added and it is one of my favorite games of all time i would say it is worth it.

Surpassed all my expectations. I liked the wild life documentary and scientist theme for the game and the strategy aspect of controlling the different type of ants made it a really refreshing and novel RTS experience.

Each of the levels has different challenges that you need to develop a strategy for. Big recommend for any RTS players looking for something fresh, and anyone craving that SIMant experience again.

I really like this game my favorite RTS game for sure but the lack of levels is kinda sad this game whould be 100 times better if there was a workshop or something where you could make your own levels

very fun, very complicated at times, and it actually teaches you how ants ant.

over all, fuckin amazin.

I know this phrase is overused, but honestly, my mind was blown by this game. Best game about ants I've played so far — it’s realistic, almost like a nature documentary, and has beautiful visuals and well-thought-out gameplay. Don't know what else to say.

One of my biggest problems is finding good PVE RTS games, I love Starcraft 2 Co-op.
This scratches the itch, I love it!

A labor of love. Also the missions can kick your butt if you're not prepared.
There's nothing quite like stopping a seemingly endless onslaught of Army Ants in their tracks.

If you don't mind insects, it's worth it just for the idea alone, not to mention the excellent design and gameplay.

EDIT it really pisses me off, that we cannot rebuild walls. Like, REALLY pisses me off.

Its a fun game.
Not a ton of content.
No multiplayer
Gets kinda stale fast, very small hamster wheel they put you on

Game was better than i Expected.
This is an RTS game but not as much mircomanagement as other RTS games which isnt a bad thing.
Only thing i didnt like (or really didnt understand) is the Leafcutter colony, I kinda brute forced those levels.

It's a good game, i play at max graphics but when you have, like 200 plus ants, it becomes a struggle. Even on low settings, still getting like 20fps.
And I know for a fact, my PC can handle the game. My pc has a r7 5700 cpu for the gpu rx 7700 xt and it has 32 gigabytes of ram so there is no excuse on why I should be getting 20 fps with 200+ ants on screen on lowest settings. But still great game.It would be a masterpiece if you fixed the optimization in the game.

I found it from youtube, instaly fell in love, i love ants and everything about them, and i love survival this has all of that, plus it helps you learn about diffrent ants as you go!

Excellent game. I'm hooked. Would really like them to add multiplayer though. It would be fun facing off against multiple enemy ant colonies with some allies. You know, comp stomps. :)

Great RTS game.
Not a long game and it doesn't need to be.
I enjoyed my time with it, it's well worth the asking price.

Graphically, it works really well I loved the attention to detail.
and, that guy is an asshole.. I love it.

ants follow orders better then the interns at work 10/10 game

I love insects and a game like this with such detail, 10/10 in my book. If you enjoy playing games like Halo Wars this is for you.

A lot of fun! Tried to play w/o the tutorial and was lost. The game introduces some clever ctrl group mechanics which I think are very good. Worth the buy.

The game has been given so much love. The developers are brilliant and I've become interested in all their other titles because of their work here.

There is a bit of a learning curve, much like They Are Billions, if you fail to get set up in time you can wind up in an unwinnable situation.
Medium difficulty is pretty forgiving.
The story is charming and hilarious at times.

Ace game, will definitely be interested in future updates now 1.0 is out.

Delivers exactly as advertised! Straightforward yet varied & original gameplay, engaging learning curve and authentic experience (I have been dreaming of my ant colonies as if I was one of them), really fun narrative, gorgeous graphics and music... I really can't fault anything in this game! Will make me fall in love with RTS again.

I love the game SO MUCH, but the only thing i dont like about it is that if you have great numbers, you have to wait a long time for all the ants to get to the location you want them to be set by pheromones, can you make it to where all ants will come to it instantly?

very good but lacks updates but pretty good 9.9/10

This game is PERFECT.
The music fits each level PERFECTLY, the formicarium levels are PERFECT.
The extra levels are a fun token on the top, you will EASILY get loads of hours on the game
99.9% you will enjoy this game I SWEAR

Great game, really enjoyed. First playthrough on medium difficulty some missions were accomplished on the first try while some others took 3-4-5 go's as the strategy really does matter. Really do feel like you are the hive mind of an ant colony however the ants are not very slick to control so give them some time to respond to commands and build your bases in 19s hexagons!! Took me 21 hours and am now into the "ascension" replaying the game and it gets harder each time. Not sure I will stick with it to do the replaying but the option is nice.

Amazing game, very fun and addictive