Civilization-like Ara blurs lines between hot-seat and play-by-mail multiplayer

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  Much of the time, the game looks a lot like Civilization, like in this city view. [credit: Microsoft ]

We haven't written much about Ara: History Untold, a new historical turn-based strategy PC game that's been in the works for a few years now. Part of that's because its publisher, Xbox Game Studios, hasn't put much fanfare behind it; it wasn't even mentioned in Microsoft's not-E3 extravaganza last week.

But perhaps both we and Microsoft should be putting more of a spotlight on it, given that it now has a release date: September 24, 2024. The game will be released on Steam and Xbox Game Pass for PC simultaneously.

The date was announced during an Official Xbox Podcast interview (and accompanying blog post) with Marc Meyer, president of Oxide Games, the studio developing Ara. The podcast covered more than just the release date, though, with Meyer offering up some new gameplay details—particularly about how multiplayer will work.