They Are Billions (2019) [Xbox One]

“The dead are way more organized than the living.”

-China Miéville, Un Lun Dun

There was a period when zombie games were the “in” thing… and, well, that period’s never really ended. Titles like Resident Evil helped usher the era in, while later games like Dead Rising kept the trend going, and even as recently as a few months ago we saw Days Gone show up and open-worldify the concept. Meanwhile, movies like World War Z and TV shows like The Walking Dead kept the undead in the limelight, shuffling about like the superstars they are.

It’s not hard to understand why they’re so popular. Zombies represent the inevitability of death. They’re slow. They’re stupid. But in the end, there’s more of them than there are of you, and you’re never going to kill them all. They’re inescapable, following us much like our own mortality. They’re despair incarnate, and the most human thing to do, of course, is to stand tall in the face of despair. They Are Billions makes an effort at converting this defiance into a real-time strategy game. We’re going to play it on the Xbox One. Let me tell you about despair.

Real-time strategy is a genre uniquely suited to the nuances of the mouse-and-keyboard arrangement. The keys to success in an RTS are multitasking and precision; the former is well-served by the numerous keys and convenient layout of the keyboard, the latter is by the peerless accuracy of the mouse. These two peripherals working in harmony can turn the unimpressive notes of a novice player into the symphony of a pro. If you’ve never watched professional StarCraft in action, it’s worth a look should you get the chance.

That, then, leads to a problem: is it possible to bring real-time strategy games to a console, where the input peripheral of choice is a controller? Even the best controllers aren’t known for multitasking or precision. That hasn’t stopped some that have tried to develop RTS games on console, certainly. Ports of both StarCraft and Command and Conquer made their way to the Nintendo 64, for instance, with the perceived quality of each varying from player to player. Later, Stormrise on the Xbox 360, PS3, and Windows attempted to create a controller-specific arrangement and failed spectacularly. The closest we’ve come to console RTS magnificence would likely be Microsoft’s Halo Wars series or hybrid RTS-third-person-adventure titles like Pikmin, Overlord, and Brutal Legend. One common trait of the more successful console RTS games is that they made concessions that addressed the limitations of a controller, such as simplifying unit and camera control.

They Are Billions on Xbox One makes few such concessions. It is, essentially, a slightly out-of-date version of the PC release with mouse control bound to a controller. You move the cursor with the analog sticks and “click” with the buttons, with the extra button space used for a few shortcuts here and there. This is about as awful as it sounds; you will never have the precision you need and micromanagement of units is practically impossible. You can plug in a USB keyboard and mouse if you’d like, but at that point, you might as well just play on PC. They Are Billions is technically a real-time-with-pause game along the lines of Baldur’s Gate or Pillars of Eternity, so while you have all the time in the world to get things done, doing them remains painful and aggravating.

As a result, while this is a video game that contains gameplay, it’s very difficult to really dive in and enjoy it as the controls battle you every step of the way. You’re the head of a steampunk colony serving as one of the last few bastions of humanity after a zombie infection nearly wipes the world clean. You start with a headquarters building, several bow-wielding Rangers and a firearm-wielding Soldier. From these humble beginnings, you’ll need to do some exploration and expansion in order to build a strong, well-fortified base.

There are a few logistical concerns during all this. You need to gather numerous resources including gold, wood, stone, and iron as well as keeping your colonists fed and housed and your buildings powered. The former is accomplished by setting up gathering buildings near the appropriate resources, such as sawmills near forests and quarries near stone, while the latter requires numerous tents, cottages, and mills. You’ll find yourself needing massive amounts of those tents and cottages in particular since basically everything requires workers and you accumulate more by building housing.

Therein lies the rub and They Are Billions’ biggest new player trap: you’re dealing with zombies, remember? Every so often they’ll swarm and attack your colony; the game is courteous enough to remind you of this through an ever-present timer. Sometimes, though, they just show up and attack in little groups. Either attack is a serious concern, since, well… they’re zombies. A single zombie touching a building can infect it, causing to spew out still more zombies, each of whom can touch other buildings and infect them. Since you’re likely to have built giant clusters of housing to generate all the workers you need, this means that a lone zombie can easily wipe your entire colony off the map if it manages to make it to a tent. Walls, turrets, and towers are the order of the day, leading to a more passive experience that’s quite unlike most other RTS games.

Sound interesting? It is! It’s especially interesting if you’re playing on PC, which has a fair amount of additional content that the Xbox One version lacks. This includes a full-on campaign mode, while on Xbox you’ve only got a survival mode that lasts for a set number of days and is played on a randomly-generated map. Between this additional content and the practically unusable controls, it’s nearly impossible to recommend playing They Are Billions on console if it’s in any way possible to play the PC version instead.

 Gameplay: 8/10

Combining the survival and real-time strategy genres is an ambitious idea that plays out well here. This does mean that They Are Billions requires a little bit of patience, since your colony is far more delicate than you might expect and a stray zombie straggler can lead to the entire thing collapsing. Still, that kind of challenge encourages repeated efforts where you learn how to do better each time, and if that’s not good gameplay I don’t know what is. Basic hordes are terrifying enough, but the more advanced zombies that show up later require better technology and strategy to deal with, so as the basic logistical concerns of your colony are addressed, you’ll find yourself with greater challenges to conquer.

 Visuals: 6/10

They Are Billions has a nice steampunk look that works well enough conceptually. In practice, though, it falls prey to an issue that’s been common in console games since the HD generation began: the text is minuscule. You’ll need to bust out your giant novelty magnifying glass for this one. On PC, of course, this is less of an issue, but here you definitely need to roll up to your screen and ruin your eyes like Grandma always warned you about if you want to read anything. In addition, zooming in and out of the map – something that’s absolutely vital if you want to keep out any zombie stragglers and that’s made more important given the relative scale of everything on a TV – is far more painful than it should be thanks to the controls. Speaking of which…

 Accessibility: 2/10

Well, it’s got a pause feature so at least the horrible controls won’t have much of an effect on gameplay. The analog sticks on the Xbox One controller simply aren’t up to the task of precise selection, plus you’re lacking the many hotkeys and shortcuts that make RTS games more pleasant to play on PC. While some shortcuts still exist, they simply don’t make up for the enormous inconvenience surrounding your every action.

 Audio: 6/10

They Are Billions’ sound effects are passable enough, but the voice acting is almost universally amateur hour. I’m not often one to complain about this, but by default your units are chatty and it’s rare that they add much of value to the game. At least zombie noises and vital announcements, such as when your colony is being attacked, are obvious enough that you won’t miss them.

 Uniqueness: 7/10

You know how the modern games industry goes: if something is even a little successful, there’s bound to be ten more of it coming sooner or later. That means that survival games aren’t really anything new. RTS games, on the other hand, are a less common genre these days. Combining the two makes for a fairly unique experience that’s hard to find anywhere else, taking the strategic gameplay of an RTS and adding a dash of tension from survival games. They’re two great tastes that end up tasting great together.

 Replayability: 9/10

This is what survival games are all about, isn’t it? Much of the fun here revolves around learning from the mistakes that cost you the game and avoiding them next time. They Are Billions really leans on this idea, especially when it comes to the console version which lacks the PC version’s narrative campaign.

 Challenge: 8/10

Likewise, you’re going to make great use of that replayability as you die time and again. A single mistake can destroy an entire colony, and it’s difficult to overemphasize exactly how small that mistake can be. Keeping your colonists defended really is a full-time job, and you’ll come to respect walls in a way that most RTS games don’t really manage. Progressing further feels fantastic and rewarding as a result of how tough the game tends to be.

Personal: 5/10

Bump that score up three points if you’re playing on PC. They Are Billions is clearly a solid game with an interesting concept that’s executed well. It’s also clearly not meant to be played on console.
Thank you to Numantian Games and BlitWorks for supplying us with a copy of their game for this review.

Aggregated Score: 6.6

Cory G. believes the pen is mightier than the sword…well, depending on how sharp the pen and sword are. A child of the ’90s and a prolific writer, he strews his work about like Legos made of words, just waiting for your brain to step on them. He enjoys a devilish challenge, so when it comes to talking about some of the more difficult games out there, you might just run into the Infernal Accountant Mage. Some advice: hold on to your soul around this guy, and don’t sign anything. Read more at popzara.com.