Humankind

 PC
User Score
6.7

Mixed or average reviews- based on 157 Ratings

User score distribution:
  1. Positive: 82 out of 157
  2. Mixed: 35 out of 157
  3. Negative: 40 out of 157

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  1. FabriceCPR
    Oct 6, 2021
    4
    Bugged, unbalanced, boring, overrated.
    Wait for patches and dlc before purchasing.
  2. BlueBangkok
    Aug 30, 2021
    2
    Oh, Humankind... you promised to were a revolutionary game that would be a true Civilization's competitor. Amplitude's "magnum opus"... So, what did we get in the end?
    We got a half-baked, half-arsed attempt to re-invent the wheel, with plethora of bugs to go along with it, and obvious gaping holes in gameplay that will later be filled with DLC. For every step forward in the right    Oh, Humankind... you promised to were a revolutionary game that would be a true Civilization's competitor. Amplitude's "magnum opus"... So, what did we get in the end?
    We got a half-baked, half-arsed attempt to re-invent the wheel, with plethora of bugs to go along with it, and obvious gaping holes in gameplay that will later be filled with DLC. For every step forward in the right direction, the devs took three steps back.

    The basic "revolutionary" premise of Humankind was creating your own story (as if that was never done before...). That is really the most elementary thing that makes a game - you play it, and you create your own story, but somehow, Amplitude made a marketing out of it. OK.

    In Civilization 6, for example, you create your own story by picking a unique, pre-defined civilization, and play with it from the ancient era all the way until today's world (or somewhere in-between if you/somebody wins earlier). The factions are fixed in Civ 6, but very rich and varied. Each game is unique, because each pre-defined civilization is unique. That is what creates the game's story.
    Another example of this would be Stellaris. In Stellaris, you create your own civilization, and guide it through a randomly generated galaxy full of wonders and dangers. The factions are customized, not set, and it enriches the gameplay loop - again, each game of Stellaris is unique, although that uniqueness is more due to the faction design choices and random chance rather than the fixed faction variety of Civ 6.

    Now comes in Humankind. You start as a neolithic tribe, wander the map, collect food and curiosities, explore and hunt. So far so good. HK's start is probably the best start any 4X strategy game has had to date. However, the good things end when you found a city and pick a nation. From that point onward, every game is the same, and the spastic nation-swapping mechanic reinforces that feeling.
    Every game of Humankind feels like the same game. AI blatantly cheats, even on lower difficulties, since it can always see curiosities in the fog of war, so it will go from neolithic to picking a nation sooner than you. Good luck trying to secure Mycenaeans, as AI will pick them first every single game. Every single game there will be some colored blob next to you who will be Mycenaeans, then probably Goths, then probably Byzantines or Norse... or whatever. After a few hours, you won't care anymore. And to add insult to the injury, the leaders are random and they look out of place most of the time. The culture swapping is mostly a gimmick that only exarcebates the blandness of Humankind. In reality, it gives you no extra flexibility, because you can't really play what you want or create your own faction. It's the worst of both worlds.
    The diplomacy is a complete joke. AI will randomly start to hate you, create grievances, and so on. On normal and lower, they will be weaker than you, so they won't ever attack. Each AI has its "personality" but that is a lie. All of them are the same idiots.
    The real gameplay consists of min-maxing and micro-management, which in this game is absolutely mind-boggling. You have about a million infrastructure projects throughout the ages, and 99 per cent of them can be summed up as "+X to farmer output" or something like that. This was also a problem in the Endless series, but here, it's cranked up to eleven.
    The balance is non-existent. Agrarian and Builder nations are overpowered and should be picked every time if you're playing to win, as they will breeze through the eras and earns a ton of score, which, by the way, is how you win the game. By the way, the game obfuscates what gives you score and how. The UI hides important information, while bombarding you with nonsense at the same time (like getting 20 grievances from that orange blob every single turn). In a way, it's a real achievement how awful the UI is.
    And don't even get me started on the bugs, or how obvious it is that the game is designed to "wow" you for the first 2 hours or so, for the sole reason that you won't have the chance to refund it. Add to it the obvious blank spaces (like nonsensical and nonimpactful religion) that are reserved for DLC. Absolutely disgusting.

    The most common myth I see many people stating when they give this game 6/10 or similar score is that it has its flaws, but ultimately, somewhere "under all that" it's a good game.
    In reality, no. The game is bad, its fundamentals are flawed. There is nothing "under all that". It cannot be fixed with updates or DLC. The only really good thing Humankind does is the initial stage of the game and that's it. It's a huge step back for Amplitude compared to the Endless series.

    If you want a unique story each game with pre-defined factions, play Civ 6. If you want a unique story each game with customized factions, play Stellaris.
    And if you want to bore yourself to tears with a soulless Civ rip-off, play Humankind    … Expand
  3. Tysonfuryy
    Aug 26, 2021
    2
    Mediocre civ clone suffers from bad design choices, awful AI and lack of meaningful choices.

    General lack of charisma and blandess makes the factions unmemorable. Bugs can be patched but some of mechanics would need a full redesign.
  4. reviewtimeman
    Sep 17, 2021
    2
    TLDR: This game is unfinished, broken, and hobbled together from the better parts of better games.

    When you start this game, you're going to be provided with an incredibly barebones character-creator, a couple of odd insignias to assign your civilization, a couple colors, and a list of Youtube Video Tutorials. I'm gonna be honest with you. I skipped the 5-hour tutorials. I've played 4x    TLDR: This game is unfinished, broken, and hobbled together from the better parts of better games.

    When you start this game, you're going to be provided with an incredibly barebones character-creator, a couple of odd insignias to assign your civilization, a couple colors, and a list of Youtube Video Tutorials.
    I'm gonna be honest with you. I skipped the 5-hour tutorials. I've played 4x strat before. I figured I'd get my ass kicked, hard, learn from it, and do a fun playthrough afterwards.

    There's no challenge here. The AI will constantly roll over for you. No loss feels large enough to matter. The only challenge presented, ever, is working around hollow, half-baked, mechanics or bugs to try to play the game.

    You start off as a small tribe. Hunting. Gathering. You build up to a city, get some money/culture, and select from a list of Civilizations. You do this, more or less, the same for every era.
    Cities can only be made by spending culture. Cities can absorb smaller settlements, so that you can collect resources from those annoying spots. (I'm looking at your barren tundra oil wastelands, Civilization.)
    Money is more-or-less useless in this game. The game will occasionally give you a choice. For Example: You have a rat infestation. Do you bring in cats or ferrets? Each choice provides a moral alignment for your civ somehow, and may affect how other civilizations feel about you. The correct answer is whatever spends the most money. Don't worry, you probably won't run out. I had 15k gold in my treasury, but even at the wildest moments, nothing cost more than 600 gold. (or if there was something good, it was conveniently out of sight.)

    There's more choices like this, that have more drastic measures, but you spend Culture on them. It's a useful resource.

    Building anything but war-based establishments will create instability in your realm. You have to build forts to keep it up. Never ran into a problem with this. Always stacked out with stability. Maybe it's really fascinating and interesting, but the game never showed it.

    This game plays like Checkers. The AI constantly hands you wins, the battle system gives you constantly favorable results if you just hit the "skip battle" button, and you can endlessly queue up production items. I ignored all of my cities for the majority of my playthrough, outside of occasional management per every couple thousand years (or to set up a specialty fighting unit.)

    The game acts like it doesn't want you to play it. Every change that happens on screen will give you a phone-like notification in the bottom right corner. Some of these include up to 10 paragraphs of text. I can't imagine trying to play this with other people or online. Unless all of your friends are speed-readers, it's going to be a pain. These notifications are constant, too. Given the longer ones are rarer, but this is every time a civilization changes their opinion on you, production is complete, science is complete, if a warrior has another move left. Normal 4x strat stuff. If any of it was fun, it wouldn't feel like the chore that it is.

    City names are chosen by what Civilization you're currently being, and your character will wear clothing matching your current life. You'll get some boosts, specific military classes, and usually a specialty district per civilization. Wonders are chosen, paid for with culture (before building) at the start of every era. If you get left behind early, every good civilization/wonder will be chosen. It pays to be ahead in this game. I went from early ancient Chinese culture, to English, to Goths at one point, the Japanese. If you want to watch a man cosplay as every culture on Earth, while somehow feeling completely devoid and empty of what makes these civilizations special, this is it. None of the specialty units are interesting. None of the districts provide anything unique. It's always a simple boost to production, gold, faith, or culture.

    Religion isn't worth mentioning. None of it affected anything in my 10 hr playthrough. Just a different reason to have different random decisions appear. Do you want eunuchs? Sure? You won't hear about them again and it doesn't have any real effect. Cats? Cool. It feels like playing a Buzzfeed personality test in the middle of a game.

    None of the game mechanics flow with one another, or truly affect one another. The AI is useless (not to mention constantly swapping names every era), the gameplay so watered-down a toddler could wing it (and probably win, on accident, I mean, I did), and it's painfully boring. The voice acting is so atrocious. I don't think they hired a writer for this poor dude. He inanely rambles when you unlock or achieve anything. This game has a mandatory achievement system, as well, with random star rankings. Doesn't matter.

    This is not a One More Turn situation. It is a "Maybe This Will Be a Subpar, Finished, Game in a Couple of Years (but by then, will anyone care?)    … Expand
  5. Diniz
    Aug 22, 2021
    0
    This game is clearly not done. The mechanics are very restrictive and with a lot of issues.
  6. slutch94
    Sep 3, 2021
    3
    This review contains spoilers, click expand to view. With bugs like my save files of 14 hours just gone like that I cannot recommend this game at this time if they don't at least fix basic problems like that.

    The game itself works smoothly and I like a lot of the mechanics. The war and unit management is a joy to play and the beginning of the game is different and enjoyable, also the pop up scenarios was great (but became less interesting as the game went on however) and the star system too gave this game a unique feel to it.

    However everything else seems a bit bleak and not impactful enough like the faith, diplomatics, civics, some stuff didn't matter at all. It all feels mushed together and does not change that much through the eras. I don't feel like I have a clear goal or strategy, just achievement hunting towards another star.

    I am torn of the idea with the whole changing cultures through the eras, its cool, but you don't feel that connected to the civs you choose. To me it just felt like I more chose the civilization cause of its perks when I needed certain boosts like food/work/gold/science. This made the certain civ less important to me, which put a bad taste in my mouth as you want to feel at least a little connected when you choose to play with a civilization

    Game: 5/10 (Pretty ok game)
    Overall with the major bugs 3/10    … Expand
  7. katieelizabeth
    Aug 19, 2021
    0
    I am absolutely baffled at how poor the UX and font sizes are in this game in many cases. Some fonts are light gray on an even lighter grey background, and there's so many fonts within the game that are 6-10 pixels tall with no option in sight to increase them. Screen real-estate is not used very well at all - there's so much empty space that could have been used for larger fonts.

    I    I am absolutely baffled at how poor the UX and font sizes are in this game in many cases. Some fonts are light gray on an even lighter grey background, and there's so many fonts within the game that are 6-10 pixels tall with no option in sight to increase them. Screen real-estate is not used very well at all - there's so much empty space that could have been used for larger fonts.

    I actually reported this many months ago in beta feedback, but it's clear they did nothing to address it. I even provided screenshots and solutions to fix it too - I really wanted this fixed.

    Amplitude, thanks for creating a game I cannot play.    … Expand
  8. LordGiygas
    Aug 22, 2021
    0
    The game was hyped up. A.I is an absolute mess, combat is buggy, and UI will glitch out every so often. Very disappointed.
  9. nonameguy
    Aug 30, 2021
    0
    Why one of my favorite developers have done this... The game is full of SJW propaganda with retarded Soviets and great space conquerors US.
  10. Pigger
    Aug 19, 2021
    3
    The game forces a way too short time limit victory type at all times. Right when you get close to the end game a warning pops up that things are gonna end soon. Map generation is incredibly limited and what you get is boring. There are no bonus resources what so ever, no pigs, wheat, bananas, cows or anything beyond strategic and luxury resources.

    The game is also terribly built if you    The game forces a way too short time limit victory type at all times. Right when you get close to the end game a warning pops up that things are gonna end soon. Map generation is incredibly limited and what you get is boring. There are no bonus resources what so ever, no pigs, wheat, bananas, cows or anything beyond strategic and luxury resources.

    The game is also terribly built if you enjoy smaller maps, especially with strategic resources. I've had a game where every relevant military unit required 2-3 sources of saltpeter, but none were on the map so we had to go directly from medieval style units to industrial ones.

    There are a myriad of other terrible design choices, from the culture swapping robbing any and all sense of identity and fun from your opponents (and self for that matter) to the horrible balance between units of different eras. I had high hopes that this series would finally force Firaxis to get their acts together, but I highly doubt many people will be playing this shallow mess in a few weeks.    … Expand
  11. cottandy
    Aug 20, 2021
    4
    Right now it is truly sad and bad. A major disappointment.
    Absolutely don't recommend at the moment. Maybe after lots of patches if they make it work like they did it with Endless Legend, than it will be a solid game. But who knows.
    And still does it have pros at the start? Yes, but only if you play with friends or not planning to wage war on AI, but why wouldn't you? Cons: - AI is    Right now it is truly sad and bad. A major disappointment.
    Absolutely don't recommend at the moment. Maybe after lots of patches if they make it work like they did it with Endless Legend, than it will be a solid game. But who knows.

    And still does it have pros at the start? Yes, but only if you play with friends or not planning to wage war on AI, but why wouldn't you?

    Cons:
    - AI is not only an absolute zero either in strategy or in tactics. It's absent. Practically no devs ever really fix AI in their games. I don't believe these will.
    - Game breaking diplomacy and war bugs and glitches (read features). F.e. game forces you to accept agreements that don't have sense, while you're absolutely destroying your enemy and can just wipe them out easily. You can't do anything about it. Nonsense.
    - Other minor and game breaking bugs and glitches here and there + friezes. F.e. 1. You simply can't win against small islands as you can't attack from fleet or with marines. 2. Fleet is useless. Why bother while you can win a fight with infantry against fleet?

    Pros:
    + Nice picture.
    + Pleasant and comfortable UI.

    Game also have somewhat interesting ideas. But nothing really new. We've seen it all in other strategies, also in Endless Legend and Civilization, but both cases are way too much better than this game in its current state.    … Expand
  12. SRKNZ
    Sep 5, 2021
    2
    I'll start by saying I love Civilisation so I might be a little biased. That said, I ask myself why I like Civilisation and it becomes easier for me to say why I don't like Humankind.

    Civilisation puts you in control from the get go and compels you to make pressured decisions that are meaningful. There's modesty of choice which in turn creates a certain efficiency, that has a real    I'll start by saying I love Civilisation so I might be a little biased. That said, I ask myself why I like Civilisation and it becomes easier for me to say why I don't like Humankind.

    Civilisation puts you in control from the get go and compels you to make pressured decisions that are meaningful. There's modesty of choice which in turn creates a certain efficiency, that has a real impact on the direction your civilisation goes in and lets you stay in control.

    Humankind to me has a broader ambition that does not play out well in practice. It offers a more diverse range of choices but in doing so waters down any sense that you have control over the experience or the outcomes. There's simply too much going on and as a result choices seem to matter less and create the sensation that you are a viewer rather than participant in the society you are vested with creating.

    This is not helped at all by the lack of an interactive tutorial which has instead been replaced by a list of video's I doubt anyone will want to watch. People want to get their boots wet and dive in, Humankind for some reason doesn't appear to appreciate this.

    All in all not one I'll be playing nor can recommend which is a shame as we need more civilisation building games.    … Expand
  13. GrosBof
    Sep 14, 2021
    3
    Some good, some really bad. Merging cities, great. Combat system, bad. Diplomatic interface, better. animations speed is horrible. District system is incomplete. The whole game is incomplete. Where is the minimap. Released at least a 1 year too early.
  14. Janin2005
    Aug 21, 2021
    3
    Very poor and disappointing game. There is absolutly no meaning in playing it.
  15. Zeltiko2018
    Aug 19, 2021
    4
    A videogame witchout IA. Must I obligated to declare war to the firsts in fame when the second dont do something.? Poor game in IA. I expect patches in future. Nothing to compite witch a civ.
  16. bladex
    Sep 6, 2021
    1
    game is exactly like civilization VI meaning it will CTD at the drop of a hat. You can't even play it properly living in fear that it will crash at any second.
  17. bigflo
    Aug 23, 2021
    0
    Impossible to change the language and the game delete my everytime, it's very annoying
  18. hayjbur
    Aug 29, 2021
    0
    MULTIPLAYER NO WORRK!? ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫MULTIPLAYER NO WORRK!? ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫ღ(¯`◕‿◕´¯) ♫ ♪ ♫
  19. AbysmalX
    Aug 23, 2023
    1
    Simple put, while I enjoy games like CIV. This is a terrible take on an otherwise enjoyable genre. It's far too complex to make any coherent sense. If you want your game to have replay ability. Make it fun, instead of arbitrarily making it complex for no justifiable reason. I honestly feel like the developers of this game, wanted to toss in as many "mechanics" as possible with absolutelySimple put, while I enjoy games like CIV. This is a terrible take on an otherwise enjoyable genre. It's far too complex to make any coherent sense. If you want your game to have replay ability. Make it fun, instead of arbitrarily making it complex for no justifiable reason. I honestly feel like the developers of this game, wanted to toss in as many "mechanics" as possible with absolutely no foresight into how fun having to deal with a million different things at once would be. Hint: It's not.… Expand
  20. EviltoastSA
    Jan 6, 2022
    4
    Not all bad, pretty aesthetics, but buggy, unpolished and unbalanced. Too many complex systems weakly executed. 6 months after release the game still has game ending bugs.
  21. rinshun
    May 3, 2022
    4
    Too complex for it's own good: Like Civilization games, humankind has lots of systems and subsystems that are interdependent, which creates a very steep learning curve. The main problem is that each of those systems are super shallow and uninteresting. The best games manage to make a simple to understand but hard to master gameplay.

    Lacks originality. There is nothing new to this game    Too complex for it's own good: Like Civilization games, humankind has lots of systems and subsystems that are interdependent, which creates a very steep learning curve. The main problem is that each of those systems are super shallow and uninteresting. The best games manage to make a simple to understand but hard to master gameplay.

    Lacks originality. There is nothing new to this game we haven't seen before.    … Expand
  22. kaczan3
    Jul 11, 2022
    0
    This game is a crippled and unfun Civilization with "current year" politics crammed in, which you can immediately tell, even starting with the title or the cover art.
  23. maximusoverdriv
    May 23, 2022
    0
    Very terrible A.I., no real political management system. Barely functioning religious system. Do not ever choose auto-resolve for battles or you will certainly lose more units than you ever should. CIV has done everything this does better. Oh and did they use a text-to-speech program for the "leader" characters? Jesus the dialogue is cringe, uninspired, and merely a placeholder for whatVery terrible A.I., no real political management system. Barely functioning religious system. Do not ever choose auto-resolve for battles or you will certainly lose more units than you ever should. CIV has done everything this does better. Oh and did they use a text-to-speech program for the "leader" characters? Jesus the dialogue is cringe, uninspired, and merely a placeholder for what should have been much more.… Expand
  24. Max552
    Dec 31, 2022
    0
    Can't say I was a fan. Played and found it too easy and quite boring. I really don't see the fuss about these games.
  25. LordTrafficCone
    Sep 3, 2023
    4
    Dictionary definition of missed potential.

    The game starts in a way most 4x games don't where you have to establish yourself from nothing which is a breath of fresh air. Sadly this was the only breath of fresh air the entire game. If you are not at war and have already built around 2-3 cities then there is literally NOTHING to do. Unlike Civilization, religion is a completely passive    Dictionary definition of missed potential.

    The game starts in a way most 4x games don't where you have to establish yourself from nothing which is a breath of fresh air. Sadly this was the only breath of fresh air the entire game. If you are not at war and have already built around 2-3 cities then there is literally NOTHING to do. Unlike Civilization, religion is a completely passive mechanic that is sometimes slightly influenced by minor events. Religion spreads automatically so the AIs will get angry at you for preaching to them which let me remind you again you have NO control over so be prepared to be declared war on for no reason what so ever (which isn't really that bad considering war is the only part of the game that is mildly entertaining)    … Expand

Awards & Rankings

39
#39 Most Discussed PC Game of 2021

Critic Reviews

All reviews »
Metascore
77

Generally favorable reviews - based on 55 Critic Reviews

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 42 out of 55
  2. Mixed: 13 out of 55
  3. Negative: 0 out of 55
  1. LEVEL (Czech Republic)
    Feb 17, 2022
    60
    Humankind is different than other games and that's fine. It builds on the authors' experiences with the genre, but may differ too much for the massive success of the brand and the studio. It's an interesting title that will find countless players and fans, but it does too little for big success.
  2. CD-Action
    Nov 15, 2021
    85
    Humankind features some revolutionary mechanics, but fails to use their potential to the fullest. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the game is simply very enjoyable and Sid Meier’s Civilization now has a major rival. [11/2021, p.78]
  3. Game World Navigator Magazine
    Oct 22, 2021
    76
    Humankind offers a fresh take on historical 4X strategy genre, with a lot of creativity thrown in, but the team sorely lacks a lead designer who could tie everything together. So even though each innovation is really cool on its own, the whole turned out to be less than the sum of its parts. [Issue#255, p.40]
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