Ancient Aliens: The Game

I'll be straight with you: my spreadsheet instincts were ready for disappointment the moment I saw a HISTORY Channel logo on a city-builder. Ancient Aliens: The Game is a casual resource-management title built around the premise that extraterrestrials guided the construction of the Great Pyramid of Giza, and it leans hard into the TV show's campy charm rather than trying to compete with the genre's heavyweights. That is simultaneously its strongest defence and its biggest limitation. The core loop is straightforward: place buildings, manage food and mineral production, accept quests, and push toward the pyramid's completion across three story chapters. Where it gets mildly interesting is the DNA manipulation system. You can abduct workers and transform them into specialised unit types: Minotaurs for raw labour, Giants for heavy construction, and Savants for research tasks. It is a lightweight take on unit upgrading rather than a true class system, but it gives the mid-game a small burst of decision-making that the building phase lacks. The tech research tree unlocks alien-derived structures and mining upgrades, and quest chains come from a rotating cast of characters, including the Pharaoh, the Oracle, your alien handlers, and real-world TV personality Giorgio A. Tsoukalos, who functions as an in-universe guide. Allegiance shifts between these factions add a thin narrative tension, even if the mechanical consequences of those choices feel underdeveloped. Here is what a strategy player needs to know about the difficulty ceiling: it is low. The resource economy never reaches a complexity that demands serious planning. There is no AI opponent, no dynamic events that threaten a late-game collapse, and no sandbox mode for open-ended play. The structure is linear by design, capped at the three chapters, and one user estimate clocks the experience around 40 hours if you push through every quest. For a genre veteran expecting the pressure of Banished or the branching output chains of Anno, this will feel skeletal. The sole professional review on record scored it 5.5 out of 10, noting that PC players expect considerably more dynamic gameplay than what is on offer here. The flip side is that the casual label is at least honest. The isometric 2D presentation is clean, animated cutscenes give the story some personality, and the writing, by Steven-Elliot Altman, keeps the tone light and self-aware. If you are a fan of the TV show, the game speaks your language. If you have a younger sibling or a parent who thinks Pharaoh from 1999 is still a bit much, this is a genuinely approachable entry point into city-building with zero intimidating systems. The tutorial does its job without condescension, which is more than I can say for certain Paradox titles I spent three hundred hours learning to love. It launched as a premium PC port of a previously free-to-play mobile and Facebook title, which explains why the depth feels paced for session play rather than long-form strategy. The honest verdict for a strategy-minded buyer is this: the mechanics are a proof-of-concept for a more ambitious game that was never made. What exists is pleasant, undemanding, and over before it outstays its welcome. Diego, Scout Team

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