Nowadays it’s very rare to see a video game that puts its players in mind, front and center during development. Athena Crisis is one such example of a video game with a consumer first principle. Showcasing open-source game development, allowing fans and contributors the chance to shape the game into a better version of itself; featuring modern gameplay innovations like in-game live spectating and asynchronous multiplayer; And even, community made content.
The best part about all of this is their multi-platform system, where you only have to buy the game once to play on every other platform. So, let’s take a look at what exactly Athena Crisis has to offer!
What Is Athena Crisis?
Athena Crisis is a modern retro style turn-based strategy game that places you in command of over 40 plus units across multiple battlefields in its multiverse. Think of Advance Wars, but with a lot of multiplayer features in a multiversal setting.
The game is being developed by Nakazawa Tech a game development company settled in Tokyo, Japan. Lead by its CEO, Christoph Nakazawa, a tech industry veteran that was originally from Austria. They’ve been making games and social networks since 2002 and is now fully committed to their work and company.
Athena Crisis is available to purchase on Steam. The game can be played solo, with friends, or even publicly.
Gameplay
Athena Crisis plays much like any of your standard Advance Wars-inspired strategy game. Players take turns commanding their units with the goal of vanquishing every foe that stands in their way.
Unit Types
The game lets you play around with over 40 different types of units across multiple battlefields in its multiverse. Each unit fills in their own fields of expertise all with their own respective strengths and weaknesses. While units are generally unique or distinct from one another, they still follow 4 main archetypes:
- Infantry – Foot soldier units carrying specific weapons for specific types of engagement.
- Vehicles – Armored land vehicles acting as the vanguard of the army.
- Airforce – Fast and powerful units that can traverse any terrain with ease but is easy to take down.
- Navy – Strong waterborne units acting as the vanguard for sea engagements.
Each type represents an overarching archetype for their playstyle. For example, vehicles compared to infantry units cannot pass through mountainous terrain; Naval units are strictly bound to bodies of water; and Air units can move around the map as easily as they please. You also get a builder unit that has the ability to create structures that can in turn create more units. While creating a lot of units and sending them in droves sounds like an excellent idea, quick and efficient strategies are more favored in this game.
Campaign
Athena Crisis features a single-player campaign filled with fun and memorable characters. Weirdly enough, you can also rename these characters if you wanted. The campaign serves as the main way of introducing new players to the mechanics and the different types of units available in the game. Showing newbies the ropes and slowly acclimating them to the game in the process.
The campaign also features this peculiar Elden Ring-like mechanic where you can turn your standard single-player campaign into a potentially chaotic mess. You do this by activating something called a “power crystal” which opens up your campaign to the public matchmaking, notifying other players that can choose to participate in your ongoing campaign. Friends may help you on your mission and other may invade you making things a hell of a lot more difficult.
Aside from Athena Crisis’ main campaign there’s also a prologue one available as well as community made campaigns. All campaigns give stars, rewards, and some may even unlock secrets.
Community Content
Athena Crisis offers a lot of replayability through player made community content like custom maps or even entire campaigns made by the community. While there are already a lot of community content available in the game, they seem to only be limited to maps or levels. I’m hoping that they don’t stop at just maps. I’d at least like to see custom community made units or even outright factions. While faction technically exist inthe game, they’re functionally non-existent. Which means that you don’t actually get to choose a faction that offers different playstyles. So you’re basically stuck with the same units as everyone else.
I’m someone who really enjoys a good amount of variety in my strategy games. Oftentimes really exploring how every faction ticks and seeing the differences between factions always tickles my fancy.
Shop
The closest thing in this game to faction are skills that you can earn while playing the campaign or by buying them from the shop. The shop uses stars as an in-game currency that you can earn by simply playing through the game. No need for additional fees or microtransactions. Some skills simply give your units stat buffs when activated while others lets you recruit special units like Dinosaurs and Aliens.
You can also unlock different character portraits from the shop to customize your profile. While these portraits or leaders have some description that suggests a certain playstyle, they don’t really do anything other than change how you look while it’s your turn in the game. Weirdly enough there seems to be a system in place where leaders should each have their own unique effects that buffs your army in a certain way. However, it’s probably a scrapped feature or it’s simply not ready yet.
If in any case that they’re working on a system for leaders and unique play styles then I am all for that and am eagerly anticipating what they have in store for that one.
Multiplayer Features
Athena Crisis has a lot of multiplayer features. Earlier I talked about the game’s Elden Ring-like mechanic where you can join another player’s world as an ally or as an invader. Aside from that there are a few other multiplayer that this game offers.
If you prefer the contemporary skirmish for multiplayer you can do that as well. Simply choose “New Game”, select one of the various official and community made maps, then you can invite your friends to play or you can also play against bots.
If you’re looking for some sort of guidance you can also watch other players’ games live. Regardless if they’re playing multiplayer or solo playing the campaign.
You can also play the game with your friends asynchronously with the game notifying the player when it’s their turn. So you can play the game while on the go on your mobile device and wait for the others’ turn while doing your daily activities.
Additional Details
Athena Crisis is open-source, and you can track the game’s development on GitHub. If you want to contribute to the game, you can contact the developers via Discord. The game is available on multiple platforms, including mobile, Mac, Linux, and the Steam deck.
