Ancient Frontier

About

Ancient Frontier is a cinematic turn-based strategy game set in deep space, where players explore, conquer, and plan strategic battles. Two free DLCs are available: "Quests and Events" offers a quest system, random events, quality of life improvements, and balance tweaks, while "The Crew" introduces dynamic crew members, new missions, rewards, and optional deployments. Equip your ships and prepare for an interstellar adventure.

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player Play through the game's story or campaign solo

64%

Audience ScoreBased on 105 reviews

story16 positive mentions

grinding4 negative mentions

The game features impressive graphics and detailed ship models, enhancing the visual experience.
The turn-based tactical gameplay allows for strategic depth, with a variety of ship types and customization options.
The developers are responsive to community feedback and have released free DLC, showing commitment to improving the game.

The voice acting and dialogue are often criticized as cheesy and poorly executed, detracting from the overall experience.
Gameplay can become repetitive due to a lack of mission variety and simplistic mechanics, leading to boredom over time.
Technical issues such as crashes, save file problems, and a cumbersome UI have been reported, impacting the game's stability.

story
223 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
7%
87%
6%
The story in the game is generally considered average, with many reviewers noting its simplicity and predictability, often describing it as cheesy or forgettable. While some missions are hand-crafted and unique, the overall narrative lacks depth and emotional engagement, leading to a repetitive experience. However, there are moments where the story improves, particularly as players progress, with some appreciating the character interactions and voice acting despite initial weaknesses.
- “The development of the ships is intriguing, the story is basic but engaging and the battles are satisfying.”
- “I thought the story started out very weak, but by about 10 missions in it had improved considerably, and the emotional hits late in the campaign really had some punch to them.”
- “The story missions are fully voiced with a lot of flavor in the banter between the different characters.”
- “The writing makes all the characters unsympathetic, but it's the plot of the campaign that makes me want to flip the table here.”
- “Combined with the fact that the storyline and dialog is horribly cheesy and forgettable, the game starts to feel more like a chore than something keeping the player engaged.”
- “The story is so-so, but other than that the turn-based combat is pretty good.”
gameplay
32 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
22%
56%
22%
The gameplay has received mixed reviews, with many players finding it repetitive and lacking depth, despite some decent mechanics in turn-based spaceship tactics. While some appreciate the engaging combat and army-building elements, others criticize the slow pace, poor graphics, and a forgettable storyline that detracts from the overall experience. Overall, the game offers a standard but uninspired gameplay experience that may not hold players' interest for long.
- “Battle mechanics are fun.”
- “The gameplay is fluid and entertaining.”
- “The graphics are crisp and readable, the sound is great (excellent voice actors, and a kickass soundtrack along with plenty of satisfying combat sounds), and the gameplay is engaging, with a sufficient difficulty curve on veteran to make things challenging.”
- “The gameplay isn't redeeming, either.”
- “The reason I can't recommend it is because the gameplay is very repetitive.”
- “This repetitive gameplay just led to me putting the game down out of boredom.”
graphics
27 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
41%
44%
15%
The graphics of the game receive mixed reviews, with many praising their high quality, detail, and overall aesthetic appeal, particularly in ship modeling and battle animations. However, some users criticize the reliance on 2D elements and occasional texture issues, suggesting that while the visuals are impressive, they may not compensate for gameplay shortcomings. Overall, the graphics are considered a strong point, especially for an indie title, but opinions vary on their effectiveness in enhancing the gaming experience.
- “The graphics are very nice, and the voice acting is great.”
- “I enjoyed the general look of the game with the graphics quality being top notch.”
- “For an indie developer, this game has high production value with crisp graphics, peaceful music, voice acting, and clear instructions with tooltips for everything.”
- “But poor graphics (I know, I know, 'graphics in turn-based strategy, go back to school', etc., but it's not me who constantly tries to add '3D' with all its shortcomings into turn-based strategies), just a few hull types and tactics based on a severely restricted paper-stone-scissors game: some ships are good against capital, almost none are efficient against fighters, and everyone beats the crap out of the escorts.”
- “Graphics are poor for its age, gameplay is slow.”
- “Some of the textures of the ships occasionally don't load and leave you with weird blocky designs, but I partially blame this on me adjusting the graphics mid-game.”
music
9 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
56%
44%
The music in the game has received high praise for its quality and ability to enhance the overall gameplay experience. Reviewers noted that the soundtrack is engaging and well-complemented by sound effects and voice acting, contributing to a polished feel that is impressive for an indie title. Overall, the music is described as enjoyable and a significant factor in keeping players immersed.
- “Amazingly, the soundtrack is very nice to listen to.”
- “The graphics are detailed and the gameplay is enhanced by the music, sound effects, and voice acting.”
- “The sound design and music well complement the gameplay, and are excellent, especially for an indie release where such things can be tossed to the wayside in favor of getting the game to work.”
grinding
4 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
Players find the grinding aspect of the game to be excessive and tedious, often requiring them to engage in repetitive and lengthy missions to level up their ships. This grind can detract from the overall enjoyment of the campaign, making it feel laborious and monotonous.
- “Turns out she's the commander of the federation and you have to endure her wooden and tedious performance for the whole campaign.”
- “Grindy as hell.”
- “After a point, it can get grindy -- you need to level your ships through combat, otherwise the gameplay becomes repetitive.”
replayability
3 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
33%
67%
Players appreciate the game's high replayability due to its random elements and engaging mechanics, which contribute to its addictive nature. Despite being developed by a small company, the game offers a polished experience that encourages multiple playthroughs. Overall, it is recognized for its depth and variety, enhancing its long-term appeal.
- “What you can't tell from the store page is how slickly done it all is, especially for a game from a very small company, or that it's fairly addicting and has some nice replay value.”
- “There's a lot of random elements that can happen, so there's replayability too.”
- “The review crew's evaluations are based on paying close attention to forum responses and activity, system demand, fun of the game genre, position of originality in the respective genre, growth of the project in its current state at the time of review, graphics as a whole for the end user, presentation of the game and display, replayability, patch/tweak progress, beginner friendliness & gameplay direction, content & depth, attention to detail on small things (polish), lag and multiplayer application if applicable, badge card availability, with a minimum of 8 hours of gameplay and interaction with the customer base after release.”
optimization
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
150%
The optimization of the game's tutorial has been criticized for being excessively dull and monotonous, with players finding the lead character's performance to be wooden and tedious throughout the campaign. This lack of engaging content detracts from the overall experience.
- “The optimization in this game is severely lacking, making even the simplest tasks feel tedious and frustrating.”
- “The game's performance issues are a constant distraction, pulling me out of the experience and making it hard to stay engaged.”
- “The lack of optimization leads to frequent slowdowns and crashes, which completely ruins the immersion.”
stability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
150%
150%
The stability of the game has received mixed reviews; some users report frequent crashes and freezes after missions, while others note that their testing has shown it to be largely bug-free and without significant issues.
- “Testing; seems bug-free thus far. If there are any bugs, they are not game-breaking.”
- “The game runs smoothly without any noticeable crashes or glitches.”
- “I've played for hours without any issues; the stability is impressive.”
- “The game is incredibly buggy; it freezes or crashes after every mission.”
- “I can't enjoy the gameplay because of constant crashes and glitches.”
- “Stability is a major issue; I experience frequent game freezes that ruin the experience.”
emotional
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional impact of the game's story evolves significantly, starting weak but gaining strength and delivering impactful moments later in the campaign. However, the lack of emotional attachment to certain characters, particularly those not involved in key missions, detracts from the overall experience.
- “I thought the story started out very weak, but by about 10 missions in it had improved considerably, and the emotional hits late in the campaign really had some punch to them.”