After a couple of delays, Pax Autocratica is finally out in the wild, spreading its influence across alien planets. It can be difficult to pin down exactly what the game is from its trailers, largely because it combines two very different styles of play.
On one side, there’s the action: shooting enemies, completing objectives and gathering resources to strengthen your cause and spread the good word of authoritarianism. On the other, there’s a base-building colony sim. Rather than managing everything from above like an all-seeing god, however, you’re down on the ground as a supposed person of the people.
Developing your colony means running around to find suitable locations for new facilities, interacting with your citizens and gathering resources. At first, the base-building and action elements can feel fairly disconnected. As the game progresses, though, the relationship between them becomes more symbiotic, with each side feeding into the other.
When you head out on an expedition, you’ll collect roguelike upgrades for your abilities and weapons, hunt down specific objectives and capture people to convert later. You travel between levels in a spaceship, and each expedition can last for as long or as little as you like.
That creates a compelling balance between risk and reward. Do you press ahead in search of better resources, or return home before things go badly wrong? You also capture people a little like Pokémon, which is as darkly funny as it sounds.
Humour is one of Pax Autocratica’s greatest strengths. Its satire is absurd and deliberately over the top, helping to make both its best ideas and rougher edges more memorable.
Back at the base, you can re-educate new arrivals, assign jobs and enjoy life in your own carefully constructed version of paradise. Success comes from balancing the demands of your colony with the dangers of each expedition. Naturally, you’ll also need to keep acquiring bigger and better weapons, whether you’re defending your settlement or taking the fight elsewhere.
The campaign is enormous, too. If the game’s unusual blend of action, colony management and authoritarian absurdity clicks with you, there’s plenty here to keep you serving the one true leader for a long time.
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