Settlements tend to grow quickly, armies zip around the map, and territory is conquered in chunks rather than as a function of gradually bulging borders.

More than any other individual element, what keeps Planetfall feeling fresh and fun is its relatively brisk pace. There's a splendid array of units available and, as in the old Heroes of Might & Magic games, you're free to recruit, mix, and match as you see fit, discovering new synergies and technologies along the way. While you can't opt to play as them, building trust will allow you to recruit their unique units, which can include floating jellyfish mind-flayers and the aforementioned war penguins. They have their own relationships with each other and your competitors. These native peoples can be either befriended or antagonized depending on your goals for a particular game.

In addition to the playable species, you'll also encounter several NPC factions scattered across each map. This time, for instance, the Kir'Ko 'bugs' are the victims of generations' worth of human oppression and enslavement, and we get to experience fighting off an infestation in the form of 'sack bleeders' who they can't seem to be rid of no matter how far away they travel in the galaxy. Planetfall flips the script on some long-standing sci-fi tropes in delightful ways. What at first seemed yet another stock-standard sci-fi pretext for dinosaurs with lasers on their heads quickly revealed a world I wanted to learn more about, and whose character backstories drew me forward through each subsequent mission.

With each mission you'll also learn more about Planetfall's surprisingly deep setting.

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