Legends of Pegasus Preview–Not just XXX, this is 4X

Developer: Novacore Studios / Publisher: Kalypso / Platform: PC / Release Date: March 2012

IN SEARCH OF A HOME CALLED EARTH

A 3D, massive-scale empire/strategy/combat game, set in the wild black yonder of deepest space; a rag-tag fugitive fleet, hurtling back though the howling emptiness of the void, in search of a home planet…that may no longer even exist; customizable, module starship chassis in which to slot generation-ark modules, point-defense systems or hideous offensive weapons; screen-filling planets to terraform, colonize, defend and/or bombard; and three different races, balanced yet distinct in their appearance, technological orientation, styles of combat, and even modes of commerce. Familiar-sounding? You bet. And it’s a damned good thing, too, since a name like Legends of Pegasus seems otherwise deliberately designed to evoke high-fantasy images of dragons, magic and swordplay. Judged by its cover or not, Kalypso’s forthcoming, ambitious space-empire game definitely looks big, beautiful, and promising (if potentially a little overwhelming).

Legends of Pegasus, then, is a grand-scale strategy game of the so-named ’4X’ genre (“eXplore, eXpand, eXploit, and eXterminate”, in case you were wondering) in the vein of Sins of a Solar Empire or Sword of the Stars, with more than a few comfortably-familiar dramatic, thematic, and presentational echoes of Homeworld, Star Trek: Voyager, and, of course, Battlestar Galactica. The setup: You assume command of a (music-cue, please) rag-tag fleet of long-haul starships, making its weary way back to (or at least, towards) Earth after having been sucked through a wormhole to way, way, way out in the interstellar boonies. Earth, which gets attacked at the outset of the game, may be waiting at the end of this journey, or it may have already come to a dismal end—either way, it’s your job to take your fleet of survivors and rebuild civilization, fend off alien foes and just generally scrape out an existence along the way until such time as the ultimate fate of the Homeworld can be determined. And who knows? A little epic-scale payback might not be entirely out of the question.

In addition to humankind, Legends of Pegasus also features two other classes of playable beings: The Xor, a mechanical/insectoid class of entities, and a third as yet unrevealed ‘organic’ race (unconfirmed, but possibly called ‘Arthrox’)—so Starcraft enthusiasts at the very least should feel more or less at home. Happily, developer Novacore appears to be pushing the narrative aspect in this one, so those already deeply geared toward sprawling-scale strategy games will have some edges and nooks to get their single-player fingers into. As such, new player-hints, game-features and story revelations are to be doled out in easily-digestible bites—there is nothing quite so off-putting as dumping an inexperienced player smack into the middle of a crazy complex empire-builder.

With this caution in mind, Legends of Pegasus will see the first-time player dabbling not only in the human experience, but with alternating involvements in the other two race’s affairs. Furthermore, in the name of player involvement, Pegasus boasts a very personalized, modular ship construction/upgrade scheme for every ship in the game. Pick your basic starship chassis (heavy cruiser, frigate, freighter, generation-ship, etc.) and choose from a plethora of different ‘modules’ to plug into it—everything from individual point-defense batteries and main-drive propulsion systems to huge, core energy-weapons redolent of the ‘Wave Motion Gun’. There are even hangar-bay modules from which fighter-class craft can be launched, effectively turning the mother ship into a carrier-class vessel in the vein of a Colonial Battlestar. Thankfully, all such modifications are actually reflected not only in the performance but in the outward appearance of any given ship, adding just that much more personalization to the process (and yes, you can name your ships too, a nice touch). A comparable modular system is used to represent the useable surfaces of the games numerous, gorgeous and (when you orbit close enough) screen-filling planets…once you’ve colonized them of course, and assuming they’re viable ‘rocks’ and not gas-giants (those have other uses).

Ship/colony construction, processes like terraforming, general planning and movement along intragalactic travel-channels—star lanes, what some hex-board space games call ‘warp lines’—all take place at a turn-based pace, but battles are conducted in real time, allowing such tactical finesses as ‘fighter-mobbing’ large ships, tractor beams, ‘flanking’ and even the last-ditch use of crippled, overloading ships as suicide bombs (although ramming seems to be out as a viable option). Fleet arrangements seem to retain their orientation from the game’s big-scale deployment to that on the ‘battlefield’. After all the blood(or whatever)shed, scrap parts can even be salvaged by players who have come to the fight with special scavenger modules; other hulks left wrecked in space may eventually be harvested by one of four neutral guilds that roam the game universe.

Legends of Pegasus promises a lot of great little touches that can make or break any game…but particularly one of this scope: The customization of ships is so deep that, if you zoom in close, you can see individual point-defense batteries recoiling as they belch out plasmatic flak; civilian ships will look decidedly different from military ones, thanks to features like hydroponic-spheres and biodome plug-ins; you can’t just jam your fleet full of bloated, bruiser dreadnoughts and steamroller the other side, because smaller vessels can outmaneuver them and even thwart their targeting systems; a planet will actually exhibit changes on its surface as it is terraformed (‘blue’ planets—what Star Trek might call ‘Class M’ worlds—naturally terraform easier and quicker than more hostile worlds); and ship/unit responses boast more personalized audio responses than the generic ones utilized in so many strategy-games…that’s the Plan, anyway, and if delivered upon, a very, very good thing.

Pegasus will also offer multiplayer (at least eight, with the aim of sixteen players), of course. In multiplayer, while other players are battling in real-time, non-involved players can watch the entire battle unfold or go about their colony-tending business (albeit without the capability to execute any actions; they can design new ships or fleets, but cannot ‘finish’ any turns until the combat is resolved). Players with the proper confidence/ego/delusion can of course opt to auto-resolve combats, which helps move single-player along. Finally, there will be a two-player cooperative mode, and a riskier alternative called Emperor Mode: Lose your massively-ally-buffing ‘you’ avatar at any point, and it’s Civilization Over, man, Civilization Over.

Legends of Pegasus is arguably Kalypsos’s most massive/ambitious title ever, and it certainly looks deep and beautiful at this stage; we’ll learn the fate of mankind—and other-kind—when the game ships near the end of March 2012.