Last Days of Old Earth

I went into Last Days of Old Earth expecting a lean, punchy alternative to the usual Slitherine grand-strategy fare, and what I found was a game that spends most of its runtime reminding you of better things it could have been. The premise is striking: two asymmetric factions, the organic Skywatchers Clan and the mechanical Automata, fighting over a frost-locked Earth as the sun bleeds out. The hex map, the card-driven army construction, the 24 deployable heroes with their own special abilities, stealth units capable of assassinating enemy heroes or sabotaging facilities - on paper this is a smart hybrid of 4X positioning and deck-building tactics. In practice, the depth dial rarely gets turned past halfway. The deck-builder is the structural spine of the whole thing. Before each match or campaign mission you pre-build an army deck, balancing heroes, infantry, artillery, air, and armored units, then draw from it to field forces during play. Resource hexes fund your draws, outposts extend your supply range, and the strategic layer is genuinely about controlling territory rather than just brawling. When the system clicks - when you've threaded a stealth hero through enemy lines to torch a supply outpost while your heavy units pin their front line - it feels exactly as clever as the developer intended. The problem is that those moments are outnumbered by the times the dice assert themselves in ways that feel arbitrary, and the AI's turn processing is slow enough to break any rhythm you've built. Combat resolves on a separate 16-square grid, which is either a satisfying tactical sidebar or a pace-destroying intermission depending on your patience. You place units, you watch animations you cannot skip, you grind toward a result the auto-resolve calculator already told you before you opted in. Critics at the time noted that combat animations feel more like something to be endured than enjoyed, and that critique still lands. The simulation and construction systems are also noticeably thin once you've played a handful of missions; there is no diplomacy path, no tech tree in the traditional sense, no economic victory condition. This is a game about moving armies and taking your opponent's HQ, which is fine if that's what you want, but the marketing framing oversells the scope. On the positive side, the polygonal art direction, reminiscent of Endless Legend's colder moments, and the dark ambient soundtrack do real atmospheric work. The Skywatchers campaign adds story context through unit card flavor text and mission briefings, and the lore around blood-pledge rituals and Messianic ancestor-worship gives the setting genuine character - even if that lore is poorly surfaced and disappears once you've read it once. The skirmish and multiplayer modes extend replayability modestly. There is no mod ecosystem to speak of, and the community is quiet at this point, so do not expect post-launch content updates or opponents in multiplayer lobbies. For strategy newcomers, the turn-based structure and pre-made deck options lower the entry bar enough that the game is approachable. For veterans expecting the density of an Armageddon Empires - the cult classic this title is often compared to - the simplified systems will feel like a compromise. At a sub-five-dollar price tier, the interesting asymmetric faction design and deck construction loop are worth a few evenings. At full price, the thin late-game and sluggish AI turns make it hard to recommend over more fully realized alternatives in the same genre.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

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