Terra Invicta is a grand strategy video game that focuses on modern human society and its response to the invading alien forces. What makes it distinct from other entries in the genre is the decision to incorporate extraterrestrial aspects alongside real international conflicts. The latter form the core of the game’s decision mechanics, making it all the more complex.
Terra Invicta!
What happens if our planet is visited by aliens whose intentions seem obscure… yet not exactly amiable? This premise has been tackled in numerous sci-fi novels and video games. However, grand strategy Terra Invicta, launched in 2022 for early access, quite possibly deserves the title of the best culturally relevant entry with this central theme.
Other similar narratives depict aliens arriving in a hypothetical version of our future, where all nations have united into one global Earth government. They also typically take place after the central government forces have been obliterated by more advanced alien weaponry.
In this game, the events unfold in the fall of 2022. Ukraine has been invaded by russia, the United States are at odds with China, and israel is on the brink of war with Iran. In the middle of all this, an alien probe shows up from outer space and falls somewhere in the desert. How are humans supposed to react? Terra Invicta explores this exact scenario.
In terms of player factions, your choices are not relegated to countries or government agencies. Rather, you can play for various international groups united under the banner of shared beliefs, namely on how to best handle this new alien problem. After choosing your party, the first step should naturally be learning more about the aliens and taking global power into your own hands to lead our planet to victory. But each faction has different goals in mind.
Some believe that we should earn alien respect with a show of force, while others are convinced we need to reason with them through diplomacy. And some have resigned themselves to the idea that all resistance is futile. Or even more drastically, they want to submit before aliens in the belief that humanity seems incapable of overcoming their issues without outside intervention.
Players can utilize various agents, diplomats, scientists, spies, and journalists to reach desired outcomes. Whether it’s to promote new ideology in other countries, take control over governments, or influence politics towards the goals of your chosen faction.
Either way you decide, Earth must come out undefeated. After all, the game’s Latin title — unconquered land — carries weight.
Alien Invasion
The aliens themselves deserve a special mention. Terra Invicta avoids the tropes of mass alien troop deployment. They don’t carpet bomb cities or even outright declare the reason for their arrival. Their multiple aircraft descending on Earth at the beginning of the game is the only exposition we get.
It soon progresses to humans being kidnapped for the purpose of research, which is followed by alien fauna spawning in different parts of the globe. Eventually, government leaders start showing rather strange behavior. Here, aliens seem to proceed with caution and foresight. With time, we learn that they are able to travel freely throughout the Solar System. They even have a base beyond Neptune, perhaps more than one. Although we could theoretically try to battle this threat on Earth, it soon becomes clear that to solve it once and for all would require harnessing interplanetary travel for ourselves. Then we could interrogate the aliens on our own terms, away from our planet.
The game incentivizes factions to develop new technologies, build bases on orbits, planets, and natural satellites, and to eventually assemble an entire fighter fleet. Another unusual point of the game’s narrative is the detailed depiction of technological evolution from our current point to prospective future advancements in space exploration, ultimately showing humanity that establishes settlements across the Solar System.
All these technologies are, in fact, real. They already exist, either in concept stage or in recent publications. Certain prototypes are even being built in research labs. These methods are exactly how engineers plan to launch humanity into space in the future. We can only hope that these advancements won’t require an alien invasion to succeed.
Will Humanity Unite Against the Invading Alien Force?
As mentioned before, Terra Invicta is a grand strategy, featuring a realistically rendered Earth with modern continents and countries. The Solar System is also present, albeit painted in broader strokes. Together, they serve as a center stage for resolving both terrestrial and extraterrestrial conflicts.
To maintain wider audience appeal, it’s pretty standard for mainstream publishers to remain politically ambivalent. Terra Invicta’s developers, on the other hand, made a choice to address current political realities. For instance, Crimea is marked as occupied russian territory at the beginning of the game, while Eastern Ukraine is suffering an invasion. The maps also show independent Taiwan, and Northern Cyprus is depicted as a de facto state under Turkish control.
This is the game’s other interesting feature. Players can use their faction to join any international conflict, where they can take control of one or all involved parties and choose to pursue any outcome they want.
So it’s entirely possible to build a technologically advanced army and throw russians out of Ukraine, or simply withdraw the invaders with a direct order from moscow. The key here is to keep your choices in line with the internal logic of your chosen faction. After all, each group has its own system of reasoning to follow.
Moreover, all territories and armies depicted in the game aren’t included just for the sake of filler. It’s precisely the governments you decide to control that form the basis of available resources and budget that will be used to resist the alien forces. So if you choose to, say, expand your assets by invading countries that advocate for humanity’s surrender to the alien invaders… Well, that would be a fairly acceptable method of gaining global power and dominating the Solar System, as far as the game is concerned.
Grand Strategy
All in all, Terra Invicta stands out by virtue of its genre. This is not the kind of game where you dive into the pool of advanced 3D models, AAA graphics, or nonstop action set pieces. Here, you will be battling spreadsheets and running numbers as a core mechanic. For instance, you could play as agents of specific factions to buy various companies and organizations, each capable of influencing the global stage in the most unexpected ways.
Terra Invicta doesn’t expect quick reflexes or expert button control from its players. What it does demand is patience: you could spend half an hour simply staring at complex numbers in order to make a decision over a single line on the screen.
Generally, the game is a fairly demanding undertaking. As the developers themselves admit, it requires a minimum of 100 hours playtime to fully grasp its essence. But this is what makes Terra Invicta so unique. Not only does it show the global scope of alien threat, it really makes you feel for yourself how vital it is to painstakingly amass resources. Bit by bit, from every corner of the world, where even a seemingly unimportant country or individual plays a crucial role in building an undefeatable Earth.
