Platform: PC

Developer: Exordium Games

Publisher: Exordium Games

Release Date: Sep 21, 2016 [Early Access]

Genre: Strategy Simulation

Nerd Rating: To Be Determined

Two weeks ago, Exordium Games was kind enough to supply me with a review copy of Agenda. When I went to play it for the first time, however, I noticed that it was suddenly in early access. I knew that Agenda was supposed to be a full release, thus I was confused until I looked further into it. Exordium Games released Agenda as a full release, but because of criticism and feedback from the community, they decided to bring it into early access to perfect it.

I fully support this move, especially since some developers would’ve just abandoned their work at that point. That being said, however, I can’t review a game that isn’t complete, so I will be writing an early impressions like I did with Rising World.  Much like Rising World, I will be returning to Agenda once it is fully released to give a full, proper review.

Developer’s note as to why the game was put into early access post-release.

Agenda is a strategy game that puts you in control of an illuminati-esque agency that has one goal: world domination. To help with your mission of world domination, you are armed with an arsenal of different tactics such as assassinations, bribery, controlling the media, etc.

Immediately upon opening the game, you will quickly realize that the design and UI is very similar to that of Plague Inc: Evolved. The majority of your screen is taken up by a map of the world (with planes flying back and forth from country to country), and more options will appear on the screen once you select a country to start attempting to take over.

This is where the not-so-good parts of the game come in. While the whole point of the game is to take over the world, the way in which you take over countries is just boring. It truly comes down to a matter of just choosing to do the same options over and over again until you reach a certain level of power and influence needed to make an alliance with a country, and then rinse and repeat from country to country.

When it comes down to it, the game has no difficulty at all, even on the hardest difficulty setting. One of the Steam reviews goes as far as to call Agenda a “slightly more advanced cookie clicker,” and that isn’t far off from the truth.

At the end of the day, I was expecting gameplay more on the lines of the political side of the Civilization or Tropico series, and not the simplistic gameplay that Agenda actually offers. That being said, the concept and design of Agenda truly does interest me, and I hope that this shift into early access can give the developers some feedback to improve the game.

I look forward to seeing the improvement (or lack thereof) made during the early access life of Agenda, and I can’t wait until I get to return and give the title a full review upon release. If this game seems like it would interest you and you would like to be involved in the development process, then by all means, please pick it up.

However, if you are looking for a game simply to play and enjoy, Agenda isn’t the game for you at its current state.