Have You Played... Endless Legend?

Late one crisp Christmas Eve, four years before I joined Rock Paper Shotgun, I was overjoyed to see that the team had elected Endless Legend as the best PC game of 2014. Back then I was in the middle of what would turn out to be a period of obsession that lasted about 230 hours of time in-game. I was in love with the landscapes, the storytelling, and the new ideas that Amplitude has injected into a formula that had barely changed since I was first introduced to it as a kid with Civilization II.

Endless Legend is a truly wonderful 4X strategy game set in a fantasy world that really works to earn that "vibrant" descriptor, but that's sadly where I have to end any talk about the game itself, so that I can spend the rest of this piece gushing about the music. It's been some time since I last played the game, but the soundtrack is something I listen to with frankly alarming frequency, whether I'm working, playing another game, or going for a run outside. Arnaud Roy, aka FlybyNo, has composed for every Amplitude game since the original Endless Space, and each soundtrack is so utterly sublime that I never tire of listening to any of them. But Endless Legend's soundtrack is the best of the bunch.

Even now, years after I last played the game, whenever I listen to the soundtrack I can still hear the sound of the harsh winter winds, the pitter-patter of tiny armies across tundra, the lovely ephemeral clicks and chimes of the UI. God damnit, you've got me wanting to play it again now. Music is a powerful thing.