Parents' Guide to Age of Wonders: Planetfall - Revelations

When the original game was released, it took the popular strategy series away from medieval fantasy and sent it rocketing into deep space for sci-fi adventure. Age of Wonders: Planetfall – Revelations is the first paid expansion to Age of Wonders: Planetfall and brings with it the introduction of the Es'Teq Dynasty and its Heritor technology, as well as the dark and twisted NPC faction, The Forgotten. These new additions add a sort of supernatural feel to parts of the game. The new campaigns take players through a series of missions that portray the new faction as a sort of Boogeyman lurking in the shadows, while a pseudo-cult tries to recruit you to raise the Es'Teq from its hibernation through the use of its life-syphoning Heritor tech. It makes for an engaging story and an interesting new addition to the Planetfall lore.

While the new campaigns might add a new layer to the Planetfall story, the expansion as a whole feels relatively light on content. The Forgotten, as menacing as they may be, aren't a playable faction, giving them a "look but don't touch" feel outside of the campaigns. And while the new Heritor tech adds a new layer to the gameplay in the form of Essence and Entropy weapons, it's really not much more than one more element type added to the basic "Rock, Paper, Scissors" of strengths and weaknesses. New Tomb Worlds and their "anomalous sites" are basically just mini-missions that pull the heroes away from the ongoing battles in return for a unique and often quirky reward. These scenarios can be taken on solo or with friends in multiplayer, but the rewards don't always feel like they're worth the effort. None of this is to say that Revelations is bad. It definitely brings some added nuances to the Planetfall experience and even lays the foundation for more potential down the road. It's just that, outside of the new campaigns, seems somewhat anemic in terms of content for an expansion, ditching substance in favor of a teaser for things to come.