You know, so many 4x grand strategy games deal with building up your own empire, did
you ever just want to play one about tearing one DOWN?
That’s what you get with Jon Shafer’s At the Gates, a game about the Dark Ages at
the fall of the Roman Empire.
And the game’s development has gone on so long, it almost feels like it dates BACK to
the Roman Empire.
The game finally hit its official release on January 23rd, 2019, but the development
cycle has been… interesting, to say the least.
So let’s bring you up to speed - what is this game, and why did it take seven years?
I’m Dean from Curse, and here’s the story behind Jon Shafer’s At the Gates.
Who is Jon Shafer?
Your first question might be, who is Jon Shafer, and why did he put his name on the title of
the game, like it’s Sid Meier’s Civilization or something?
Well, the answer probably lies in the fact that he WORKED on Civilization.
After being an active modder for Civilization 3, Shafer was brought in as a 19-year-old
intern at Firaxis Games.
That turned into a full-time position, and he ended up working on Civilization 4’s
Warlords and Beyond the Sword expansions.
Firaxis was so impressed with Shafer’s work, they made him the director and LEAD designer
of Civilization 5 at the age of 25.
After finishing his work on Civ 5, he left Firaxis and started his own company, Conifer
Games.
Soon after, he launched a successful Kickstarter campaign, raising over 100 thousand dollars
for his new game, At the Gates.
That was in early 2013.
Since the game didn’t come out until six years later, you might correctly assume that
there were some SLIGHT hang-ups in the development process.
Despite originally being slated for a 2014 release, the game hit numerous snags and delays,
and most of its core team had to work other jobs to support themselves as they worked
on it.
In 2017, Shafer took up a full-time job at Paradox Interactive, the developer behind
the Europa Universalis and Hearts of Iron games, but he left the job later that same
year, citing “creative differences.”
On January 9th, just two weeks before the game’s release, Shafer released a blog post
detailing his struggles with ADHD, the drugs he took to manage it, and the variety of struggles
he went through creating the game over the years.
But now that it’s out, what actually IS this game that nearly killed him to make over
more than half a decade?
What is At the Gates?
You know how in Civilization, there is always a threat from barbarian encampments around
you?
Well, At the Gates is essentially a game where you play AS those Dark Age “barbarians,”
jockeying to fill the power vacuum left behind as the Roman Empire crumbles.
Or at least, that’s the setting.
The gameplay is actually very different from most 4x games, because it’s less about managing
cities and resources, and more about managing people.
In fact, you only actually get ONE settlement for the entire game - your “encampment,”
if you will.
And that settlement can pick up and move at any time, since your tribe is nomadic.
Within that, you’re given clans to work with.
Each clan has certain traits and temperaments that make them more or less suited to certain
types of tasks.
For example, some units may be violent, which makes them good in combat, but likely to start
trouble if you keep them around other clans.
Others may have an affinity to a particular trade, like blacksmithing or agriculture - or
they might be completely AVERSE to a certain type of job.
Still, it’s up to you to decide what job to train each clan in, and how to manage them.
Like any strategy game, discovery and exploitation of the land is a core mechanic of the game.
Only now you have to train each individual unit in a particular profession, and you need
to make sure they actually WANT to do the jobs you give them.
So in a sense, it’s almost like playing Civilization with a dash of The Sims thrown
in - where you’re constantly juggling not only your own grand ambitions, but also the
needs and wants of the people you need to accomplish them.
The concept of keeping your citizens content is pretty common in 4x games - whether they
call it morale, happiness, or amenities.
But having to manage the mood of individual units, based on their individual traits, is
fascinatingly unique.
In that sense, “happiness” isn’t something that happens on a global or even city-wide
scale - you can keep everyone really happy, but have one malcontent.
Or a clan can be working happily, but then become obsessed with a particular desire.
At this point you need to decide whether to give them their way - which usually means
putting them in a new location or spending resources to train them in a new profession
- or just ignore them and let them get angry - at which point they’ll get upset, and
their productivity will go down significantly.
The whole game is full of those sorts of micro-management decisions, which gives the whole thing a more
intimate feel - like each unit is really an individual person.
Because the whole game really takes the grand strategy genre to a micro scale - even the
time frame is more limited, so much that the turns are measured in half-months, rather
than years.
Seasons and even extreme weather conditions need to be planned for - it’s important
that you have enough food in reserve to make it through a harsh winter or a drought in
summer.
Expansion is tricky as well - since you only have a single settlement, you can only expand
your territory in a few select ways - by building resource structures near your borders, building
watchtowers outside your borders, or by simply packing up and moving your settlement altogether.
All of these features, and a bunch more that would take WAY too long to get into, combine
to bring a genuinely fresh take on the 4x genre.
But it’s not quite…
ALL there yet.
What’s Next?
For all the ambition and new ideas put forth by At the Gates, it still has its problems.
It has a fair share of visual glitches, gameplay bugs and exploitable mechanics, and AI opponents
are largely passive.
Despite the game having had an official release, it does feel like a work-in-progress.
And according to its official Steam page, it IS a work in progress.
Shafer and the rest of Conifer Games have laid out a development timeline for them to
continue working fixes and new content into the game going into at least September.
These aren’t DLC updates, but rather free patches for game balance, bug fixes, diplomacy,
UI and UX issues, and upgrades to the game’s AI.
In other words, they seem to already be aware of the game’s biggest weaknesses, and are
already hard at work fixing them.
They even pushed out an earlier-than-expected quickfix patch on February 8th to manage some
of the game’s more glaring instability problems.
So ultimately, At the Gates is in a weird state.
It has lots of good ideas, and is generally pretty fun to play.
BUT, it’s obvious that there are some things missing that prevent the game from hitting
a higher tier in the 4x genre.
Still, with the developer committed to continuing development on it after release, there’s
a good chance At the Gates will iron out the kinks and end up a MUCH better game in a few
months.
That’s obviously not a guarantee, but it seems to at least be on the right track for
now.
And even with what’s there, At the Gates is, at the very least, worth a LOOK, especially
if you’re craving a fresh take on the 4X genre.
But it would be perfectly understandable if you wanted to keep it tucked away on your
watchlist until you see how the patches and updates play out.
That’s all a question of whether the base premise interests you enough to see the changes
happen from a player’s perspective.
And even it doesn’t, keep an eye on it anyway.
This likely isn’t the last time you’ll hear the name Jon Shafer.