Upcoming 4X strategy game had its development plagued by cougar hordes: "Someone get these feline demons away from me"
Jan. 19, 2024Ara: History Untold threatens us with more than just conflicts spanning centuries
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Ara: History Untold is the historical grand strategy game that’s aiming for a piece of the Civilization pie and spans -check notes thrice -all of human history. But such a complex game wasn’t simply plagued by code tangled to emulate centuries of human conflict - cougar hordes were supposedly just as pesky during development.
“One of my favorite examples is when we first introduced the concept of dangerous wildlife to the game,” lead designer Michael Califf continues. “It turns out, in our first iteration, it was maybe alittle bittoo aggressive or disruptive.”
The developer explained that the team already knew a change was needed before one insider forum post simply stated: “Cougars! Cougars! Cougars! I hate cougars! Someone get these feline demons away from me.” In-game footage then hilariously shows a cougar party hounding a screaming woman while other villagers get on with their day. It seems the cougar plague was just that common, eh?
“I’m happy to report, based on more recent feedback, that I think we ended up in a good place with the overall threat level of mountain lions to a player’s citizenry,” Califf assures, meaning no cat demons for us.
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Kaan freelances for various websites including Rock Paper Shotgun, Eurogamer, and this one, Gamesradar. He particularly enjoys writing about spooky indies, throwback RPGs, and anything that’s vaguely silly. Also has an English Literature and Film Studies degree that he’ll soon forget.
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