Wireframe – Issue 20, 2019

62 / wfmag.cc

Review

Rated

GENRE

RTS

FORMAT

PC (tested) /

XBO / PS4

DEVELOPER

Numantian

Games

PUBLISHER

Numantian

Games,

BlitWorks

PRICE

£24.99

RELEASE

Out now

Info

Review

Billions as in your loss tally, not how many zombies there are

lmost 80 hours into They Are

Billions, I haven’t managed to

win once. Whether it’s a single

tile of undefended perimeter, or

an overwhelming horde ripping

through my colony’s defences, my villagers are

wiped out every single time. But that’s fantastic,

because it gives me that tiny bit of an excuse

I need to spend another night fawning over

Numantian Games’ imposing RTS.

Set in a steampunk future that has seen the

Empire brought down by a zombie plague, it’s

up to you to create new outposts and fight back

the hordes of undead to

reclaim the world. Starting

from humble archers and

wooden fences, before long

your huts have expanded into

a sprawling city of mechanical

defences, augmented soldiers,

and... oh. The zombies found a gap in your fence.

Game over.

The zombies are more of a natural disaster

than a usual RTS enemy. The game is split into

days, with ever-increasing numbers of zombies

flooding in from the edges of the map every few

days in an avalanche of putrid flesh. Starting

off as maybe a dozen at most, by the end every

available pixel will be taken up by the hordes in

battles that are up there with Total War when

it comes to sheer scale. The undead are evil,

annoying, and can bring a seemingly perfect

colony to its knees in the blink of an eye, but

the sheer spectacle of watching a turret mow

down thousands of zombies before eventually,

inevitably being infected with the plague

is amazing.

It’s the loss that keeps They Are Billions going,

though. The basics of running a colony are simple

enough, but identifying the flaws in your design

and patching them up for the next run takes

a much greater understanding of the game’s

quirks than you’d expect. For example, archers

may seem like weak starter units at first, but

eventually, you realise they’re quieter than their

stronger Gunner counterparts. You may notice

this on your 19th run, and

on the 20th you’ll have a

large strike team of archers

clearing the map of any

environmental zombies before

the waves come crashing at

your barriers. It’s that sense

of experimentation and discovery that turns what

could’ve been a repetitive slog into something

that burrows deep into your brain and refuses to

go away, long after the game’s been closed.

They Are Billions is, without a doubt, the best

RTS released this generation (which admittedly

is a very small pool of competitors, but still).

The aesthetic is great, the campaign is long and

challenging, the survival mode is ludicrously

compelling, and thanks to a lengthy early access

period, it’s all done with little in the way of bugs

or instabilities, even with a billion undead hands

clawing at your defences.

They Are Billions

A

VERDICT

Being overrun by walking

corpses hungry for your

spinal fluid has never

been this much fun.

88 %

 You’ll see this screen. A lot.

HIGHLIGHT

I’m a sucker for steampunk, and

They Are Billions manages to do it

in a way that doesn’t feel over the

top or forced. There’s a nice mix

of the antique, the modern, and

the fantastical, from arrows and

ballistae to steam-powered mech

suits and Tesla coils. Steampunk

is so rarely done well in games,

but TAB is a great example of it.

REVIEWED BY
Joe Parlock

Review

Rated

“They Are Billions is,

without a doubt, the

best RTS released

this generation”

 Might not quite be ‘billions’, but it’s

enough of them to be a problem.