From the Press Release
Renowned video game publisher Iceberg Interactive announced today that its upcoming 4X turn-based strategy game Horizon (PC) has reached the Beta milestone on Steam. Horizon, created by Toronto-based developer L3O Interactive, launches players into a universe of galactic exploration and conquest, as they take mankind on its first journey into deep space, taking gamers beyond the known horizon. Spending around 10 weeks at the Alpha stage on the Steam Early Access program has enabled L3O to gather lots of gamer feedback resulting in the addition of many new improvements and enhancements.
“We are very excited with Horizon's development, having moved to the next stage!”, says Raffi Parsekhian, CEO at L3O Interactive. “The feedback from our early adopters has been terrific and while we have integrated many great suggestions already, we want to continue on this path during Beta on Steam's Early Access program. Horizon already offers a compelling 4X experience and we are looking forward to enhancing it further as it continues to evolve with the help of 4X strategy gamers.”
A deep and fully interactive space system awaits players in Horizon. Gamers will discover advanced alien races and their technologies, develop new colonies and then watch them become galactic centers for trade, industry and science, as well as military bases, outposts and shipyards to build their battleships. Players will navigate countless planets, embark on missions, patrol their colonial borders and when the need arises defend their territory by engaging in ship-to-ship tactical combat.
Most notable changes in the Alpha-to-Beta upgrade launching today:
A more challenging game experience:
- A.I. now dynamically adjusts its aggressiveness against the player
- A.I. now plans and executes various military actions with the help of an overall mastermind, several types of tacticians and a fleet coordinator
- Improved path finding for ships
- A more balanced game economy and colony population rates
- Colony management will now require more decision-making and allow for specialized worlds
Other changes and additions:
- A race report view has been added that keeps a history of major events relating to the race
- Additional story missions have been added
- 12 new Human ship designs added
- Improved UI and higher resolution animation scenes
- Galaxy generation with many more stars for bigger and longer gameplay sessions
- Many fixes and better handling of non-standard windows system configurations
Horizon Game Features:
- Advanced turn-based tactical combat for 4X fans
- Full tactical ship control includes managing movement, weapons and more. Board other ships, attack from planetary and orbital defenses
- A distinct open-world system, where ships can explore without artificial limits and where combat can span many turns before concluding
- Engage in meaningful diplomacy choices that will impact the game outcome, includes coordinated actions with allies against enemies
- Discover more than 80 technologies each with 10 levels of upgrades. Conduct planetary surveys and dig for artifacts
- Design and customize ship weapons and systems based on available technology
- A detailed economy and colony management system with different types and levels of colonies based on players’ building choices
- Play in different galaxy configurations from a few dozen stars to over 100 star systems containing more than 1,000 planets
- Interact with alien races of different levels, including ancient civilizations featuring their own unique storyline, schemes, ships and technology
- An immersive galaxy storyline with open-ended missions that add another layer of gameplay over classic 4X mode which is also available
To learn more, visit the official Horizon Steam page.