UK game studio Slitherine have announced a brand new expansion pack for their 2013 4x game, Pandora: First Contact.
Titled Eclipse of Nashira, this free expansion pack will include a plethora of updates and additions to the main game. One of them comes in the form of new agent units that perform a variety of tasks, ranging from espionage to inciting riots, a la the Total War games.
Several new players will join the fray. A new, currently unnamed faction that utilizes non-aggressive means of domination, such as diplomacy, intrigue and sabotage, will be introduced, as well as a new, native alien species for players to contend with.
Players will also have access to new technologies, namely the ability to deploy minefields from orbit to deny the enemy supply routes and key positions, and new amphibious formers that can construct landmasses in the oceans and improve territory there. A number of tweaks and improvements to the existing base game will be included as well.
The additions would appear to address some of the purported shortcomings of Pandora, particularly the heavy tilt towards aggressive playstyles. “To deal with all of these unfamiliar threats and opportunities,” reads the press release from Slitherine, “Pandora will be seen in a new light and players will have to develop a whole array of new strategies to maintain dominance over the planet.”
No release date or any other information on Eclipse of Nashira is available, but the expansion is schedule to be released sometime this year.
For those unfamiliar with the title, Pandora: First Contact is a 4x strategy game billed as a spiritual successor to Sid Meier’s Alpha Centauri. Earth has been ravaged by religious craziness, private wars and widespread destruction. As a result, a number of factions on the planet have abandoned it to arrive on a new world, Pandora, where they must compete with one another and contend with the dangerous flora and fauna on the planet.
If that sounds familiar to you, that’s because Firaxis’s upcoming Civilization: Beyond Earth has the exact same premise.