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An amazing space colony survival game | IXION - Review

2K View2022-12-09

IXION is a new science fiction space opera, wrapped in a game where you need to manage your state of the art colony ship “Tiqqun”. To ensure the survival of humanity amidst the treacherous nature of space, and maybe explore the cosmos and find a new habitable planet for them to colonize.

IXION starts off on a high note, with a Hollywood level production value for its visually stunning presentation that is sustained throughout the whole game. Being a space exploration enthusiast myself, I got goosebumps at the introduction sequence with its grand premise and a matching angelic musical score. It honestly felt like a proper Hollywood opener, and not one that would typically open a PC colony sim game.

Compared with other contemporaries, even with its inspiration Frostpunk, IXION is heavily narrative-driven. With an engaging storyline that will keep you at the edge of your seat and in some measure — barring any spoilers — both a scary and fascinating premise driving the story forward.

IXION starts out pretty slowly, correctly taking its time introducing the game mechanics bit by bit during the roughly 30 minute tutorial aboard the Tiqqun: your Colony Ship. There is a bit too much filler dialogue at times, especially when I just wanted to learn and play. Fortunately all of the dialogue is regrettably skippable. The real-time pausable strategy set up is neatly divided into three different views: Interior, Exterior, and System View.

Interior View is the closest comparison to Frostpunk, where you are free to build structures like Crew Quarters, Infirmary, or Stockpile Areas, in a 3D grid layout. All inside the hull of your torus-shaped colony ship. These hull interiors are evenly divided into 6 segments, with only 1 segment available at the start.

Exterior View is more of an upfront management of your whole colony ship including building outside structures like solar panels, engines, ship upgrades, or performing hull repairs.

System View on the other hand zooms out and shows the whole planetary system overview. It focuses on exploration, resource gathering, and investigation. The systems are filled with visible and hidden points of interest available for you to check out and find using smaller ships and probes. Basically anything that happens outside the colony ship is done here.

Some of these aforementioned events comes with their own mini quest lines complete with multiple choices and paths to take, with potential consequences. This reminds me of the exploration aspect of the space RTS game Stellaris. It provides some nice role-playing / storytelling elements that makes IXION more than just a numbers game that you need to balance.

The whole set-up of IXION is a carefully balanced cycle of problem-solving and satisfaction. The gameplay loop requires the balancing of resources like power, materials, and food. Selecting what structures to build, and what technology to prioritize researching. All of it amounts to a challenging and satisfying big picture puzzle that you can solve, or your whole crew can die trying. I never really felt any frustration while playing it — only challenged — which is a great thing for IXION.

Aside from colony management and exploration, there are also social and civil matters to be decided in IXION, ala Frostpunk. There will be civil challenges and unforeseen events presented to you in-game, where you are responsible for assessing and managing your risks. Decide accordingly for your people. It adds gravitas to IXION and again adding some nice role-playing / storytelling elements.

As someone who loved the game Frostpunk, I see a lot of glaring similarities. That’s not to say that IXION is a ripoff, but more off just heavily inspired, taking many amazing bits from all of our loved RTS and Space strategy games and crafts it into its own amazing space colony survival game.

Performance wise, it performed very smoothly without any issues on my 6-core 12-thread setup with an RTX 3080, while still looking visually stunning graphically. And supporting even a niche 32:9 resolution.

IXION is Filled with many intricate details from the smallest buildings, to the grandiose looking ship exterior and planetary view, as well as the melancholic cinematic cutscenes when your Tiqqun is moving about.

IXION has managed to pull off a compelling colony sim, complete with consequential political and social elements on top of an engaging story, propelling the genre into new celestial heights.

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