The spiritual successor to one of the best and least-played management games ever is getting a sequel
Six Ages is a descendant of King of Dragon Pass, which saw you shepherd a tribe through good times and bad back in 1999.
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Tribal management and strategy gameSix Ages: Ride Like the Windis getting a sequel. Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out is set for release this summer, and will let you import your save from the first game so you can continue to enjoy and endure the consequences of all your terrible, terrible decisions.
Six Ages is a spiritual successor series to 1999’s King of Dragon Pass from several of the original developers, including creator David Dunham. KoDP saw you guide a tribe in its quest to settle the strange and hostile lands of Dragon Pass, and although itsold fewer than 8,000 copieswhen it first came out, it’s since become a bit of a cult classic.
Six Ages takes place in the same setting, the fantasy world of Glorantha, and asks you to do pretty much the same thing. It’s all mediating disputes over cows, raiding your enemies, appointing your advisors, and taking powerful hallucinogenic drugs and communing with gods.
As leader, your job is to lead your clan through thick and thin, managing its relationship with gods and rival clans while navigating its own complex internal politics. Six Ages 2 looks set to make that harder than ever: “Ten generations after the events of Ride Like the Wind, some gods have already perished and humanity itself seems to be on the brink of annihilation,” reads the announcement blurb.
Sounds like a rough time to come to power, but you play the hand you’re dealt. Besides, you can always start over if things go truly pear-shaped. The devs at A Sharp say that Six Ages 2 will be “immensely replayable, with over 580(!) interactive scenes with multiple, system-driven outcomes”. I’m especially curious to see how deep the impacts of your choices in the first game will be. Will I find it much easier to chart a course through the apocalypse if I import a save where I’m on good terms with the gods?
We’ll find out this summer, I suppose. We liked the first Six Ages quite a lot around here: Tom Hatfield scored it 88% in hisSix Ages: Ride Like the Wind review, praising it for creating a world “alien in its strange moral codes, yet intimate in how fully you submerge yourself within its fictional cultures” and noting that, decades on from King of Dragon Pass, there’s still “no experience quite like Six Ages”.
You can keep track of Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out over onSteam.
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One of Josh’s first memories is of playing Quake 2 on the family computer when he was much too young to be doing that, and he’s been irreparably game-brained ever since. His writing has been featured in Vice, Fanbyte, and the Financial Times. He’ll play pretty much anything, and has written far too much on everything from visual novels to Assassin’s Creed. His most profound loves are for CRPGs, immersive sims, and any game whose ambition outstrips its budget. He thinks you’re all far too mean about Deus Ex: Invisible War.
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