They Are Billions' crucible of experimentation and failure molds players into rugged survivalists. The RTS-style resource management and tower defense test the ability to aptly devote time to the bare necessities that will fend off countless hordes of undead. Harder to master console controls may add an extra layer of tension but living another day remains the sweetest of rewards.
They Are Billions is the type of game that thrives off the infinite permutations of random, chaotic moments. Those unexpected periods of time where the player is left surprised, gleeful, in awe, or hopelessly defeated make for the best and most relatable stories. They pique interest and incentivize experimentation. “Well I was so busy scouting out a ravaged town for materials that I failed to notice a small crack in my settlement’s defenses which allowed hundreds of zombies to slip in and lay waste.” “Oh man, that sucks. I managed to manipulate the terrain to build several choke-points that allowed my towers to riddle holes in zombies 300-style, screaming ‘THIS IS STEAMPUNK SPARTA’ the whole time.”
Whether exaggerated or not, a game like They Are Billions is valuable because no matter the end result, those fun moments can be squeezed out of it like a Florida orange. That formula is responsible for the continuing legacy of Starcraft, countless open-world games, and practically every game dependent on a player’s ability to survive. By applying the right amount of twist on both the RTS and tower defense genres, developer Numantian Games has made a different kind of zombie game, one that ravenously begs for attention and doesn’t get lost in the ambling shuffle of undead.
They Are Billions places players at the helm of ensuring the prolonged life of a paltry encampment in the 22nd century after most of humanity has been wiped out by a virus and turned into pop culture’s most voracious monster. As the omnipresent force that guides every action, players must turn a handful of buildings and citizens into a bustling city capable of fending of countless waves of zombies. Resources are sparse at first. If your command center collapses, it’s game over. A few archers and gunners offer initial protection, while some wood is available to make a building or two.
Seconds into the first map of They Are Billions, players need to make judgement calls that can have irreversible ripple effects. Near the command center should be ore, trees, water, and land. All can be harvested for materials required for new buildings and new citizens that increase the capabilities of expansion. Defensive units must be made. But first, ore needs to be harvested. But before that can be done, you need more citizens. But before that can be done, enough tents need to be made to house those people. But before that can be done, you need hunting lodges and fisheries made to collect food. Unfortunately, that can’t be done until enough wood is cut. Each unit, building, and resource node is a domino neatly stacked in a line. The zombies are the finger waiting to flick that harmony to hell.
Understanding the most basic requirement in They Are Billions–building–is easy enough to comprehend but might take a moment to grasp. After a minute I understood why I couldn’t place harvesting buildings at the resource nodes. The building would be highlighted in green as I placed it near a forest but squares lit up red in its general vicinity. The same happened with hunting towers. It wasn’t until I nestled these buildings at the right intersections and had energy towers that supported electricity that I was able to build. However, those less stubborn can merely hit up the game’s extensive tutorial that divulges valuable and pertinent information. The whole process of figuring out how to place buildings and send out my troops was fairly intuitive; after all, I’ve played games like this before. Numantian Games has not strayed from those foundations because it is an established process that makes sense.
Then death came fast.
After doing a little scouting work and killing a few zombies that were nearby, I had not noticed that camp’s expansion was attracting mobs that were further away from the fog of war. A small, insignificant unit came by and attacked my logging station. The building was “infected” and couldn’t be used until cleansed but I had barely gotten comfortable with how best to protect my work. It was over, my units were too few and too far away to come back and make any difference. The next round I decided to fan out my few soldiers outside my command center and focus on building a barracks. Progress was made but not much. I think my random patrols were attracting too many flesh eaters or I wasn’t working fast enough.
This is where it becomes important to note that this review is based on my experience with They Are Billions on PS4, not on the PC (which I have no experience with). Suffice it to say, playing an RTS on a console controller is not the most intuitive or efficient way of doing things. Using a mouse and keyboard, it is easy to hover over over individual units and click around the screen. That natural ability is mostly absent on console. Players can use the left control stick to move around and face buttons for quick-ish hotkeys and menu selection. I will not blame several of my first defeats on the controls because despite everything, they feel about as good as can be hoped for. BlitWorks, who helped with the console porting, has done an admirable job of translating mouse and keyboard controls into an experience that could have been much more painfully complicated. Players may fight with the controls in the journey to master the building blocks of They Are Billions but hopefully they won’t be defeated by it. One very important gesture to help those on console is that all action can be paused on the fly. In doing so, players can set up troop movements and strategically think out building placement without worrying about zombies advancing. Once unpaused, everything will continue as it did before.
Regardless, I wanted to maximize my fun and plugged in a mouse and keyboard into my PS4–and let’s be honest, I would be shocked if there are players out there who don’t have the ability to do so. Once I did so, They Are Billions became infinitely more palatable. Setting soldier patrols for maximum coverage and protection increased my view of the world and ability to protect the status quo. Being able to zip around the map and pinpoint the placement of anything is phenomenal.
They Are Billions thrives on its survival mode. Players start out on a randomly generated map after choosing several difficulty sliders. Each new game is a learning experience, taking previous lessons and translating them into a hopefully more successful run. Players may wish for zombies to come earlier but on a map with more defensive terrain opportunities or just dial back everything for a more relaxed dose of resource gathering and defense building. Once I began surviving more often, I opened up tech trees for advanced units that are meant to fight back zombies that become faster and larger.
The steampunk aesthetic of the world works in its favor. The clash of clockwork soldiers and near magical electricity situates They Are Billions‘ world in a realistic fantasy. It never overreaches. Of course, like several games in this genre, you may lose graphical detail when zooming in as close as possible but just wait until the clock ticks away to an impending horde. The feeling of tension tests players’ mettle but nothing is more unsettling than seeing what does look like billions of zombies surrounding all your hard work. Fingers will be crossed that your defenses will hold against the wave of grey flesh.
They Are Billions thankfully does not suffer on console. It’s an extra but manageable challenge to play the game with a controller but the whirlwind of victory and defeat remains as sweet and bitter. Currently, console players only have the survival mode and are missing out on the PC’s recently released campaign. However, it should arrive at a later date. It may feel like a knock but the irresistible stew of survival mode provides a new story of tragedy or triumph each and every time.
