Humankind Cares Less about Humans than Systems and Empire

Humankind, a new 4X strategy game in the style of Civilization, makes its appeal to the player as not just a historian, but a historical imaginary. It looks at all the complexities of world history and says, “look, we managed to capture the vast amount of elements in the world to see what you do with it.” And the systems are incredibly complex and dense. So much so that after 40 hours, I still don’t really know how everything works in the game. Yet in that complexity the game reveals much more about its ideology, not just through its game design, but more largely through the systems we navigate from day to day.

From the beginnings as amino acids to the evolution of land walkers, Humankind immediately brings focus to the technological discoveries of hominids. Through fires, rock tools, and the first shelters, the game asks what stories will build from these beginnings. What results? A mish-mash history of the world’s cultures pitted against each other in a battle for numbers. Who has the most technologies? Who has colonized the most land? Who has killed the most? These are what Humankind determines are valuable in participating in worldwide cultural-historical playmaking. These values are clearly communicated in the interlude cutscenes and game goals. But these are only surface level communications; where these values become more substantial is in the systems of the game.

A match of Humankind takes place over the course of six eras, with players choosing another civilization as a template in each era to push towards a particular production focus. Each of these cultures are like engines that the player is placing at the heart of their game, changing the way they control, create, crusade, govern, produce, strategize, and worship. Beginning the game with the Phoenicians allows the player access to passive traits and the culture specific Meroe Pyramids to create a foundation of higher financial income and production surplus. This can then be taken into the next era where the player can choose a culture such as the Greeks who can utilize that production and money to put towards their passive benefits in scientific research. Meanwhile, the player must also manage the movement of religion throughout the world, influence between cities, the race for “unsovereign land,” and treaty-making with other cultures.

Even though I can name all these systems, actually comprehending them is an entirely different challenge. Each time I go into a game of Humankind I look back at the previous mistakes I made, or lessons I learned from not knowing about particular mechanics before. Only then I discover that there is so much more to learn. It’s completely overwhelming, but it’s also a loop that’s enthralling. With each game I would leave thinking, “Just one more game and I think I can figure this out.” Yet, I never really figure it all out. I just keep clicking and managing numbers, hoping that eventually I will get something right.

In all the numbers and enticement I find with managing the systems, each game of Humankind feels extremely disjointed from the world histofiction that the player is a part of telling. Each decision almost always boils down to a number affecting one of the main management stats. Otherwise, some text-based decisions come up that never meaningfully integrate into your culture beyond the initial choice. The actions of people inside the city are never represented, any moments that emerged between cultures are unmentioned, and your ideological civic choices are never noted. And at the end, all that seems to matter is which culture “won” the game. Everything in Humankind boils down to a number.