One of my favorite games of 2017 is getting better. They Are Billions added community challenges in their latest update. Everyone plays through the same survival map and can see who is the best survivor.
It won’t be me. Zombie hordes aren’t my problem. It’s the random zombie shuffling to my houses that makes me slam the restart button.
New challenge maps will hit every Monday (expect a new one tomorrow). It’s a smart way to keep folks coming back to the game as the team at Numantian Games keeps working.
You get one chance on the weekly Community Challenge. If your colony falls, that’s it. There are no do-overs.
I hope the devs take this idea and run with it. I would love to see them add Scenarios. Give us a bunch of soldiers to defend one area. Hell, they could do all kinds of crazy stuff.
Update V0.6 also adds waypoints for Patrol, Travel, and Attack. Just hold down the SHIFT key while issuing movement commands.
Explosive barrels add a new wrinkle for how you want to take out swarms of infected. You can find them in some of the ruins. Soldiers, Snipers, and Lucifers can carry and place them wherever you want. And yes, the explosions can be chained together.
Old towers also litter the map. Clear them of infected and reclaim them as defenses for your colony.
Update V0.6 is a solid one. Weekly challenges give us a reason to come back to it once we knock down all four maps. And explosive barrels should help shake up how we plan our defenses against the final swarm.
As for what’s next? A new building, The Tavern, will “attract mercenaries and strange travelers” to your colony. A campaign mode is also in the works. No word on the release date for that, but Numantian Games says it will have “about 40-50 hours of gameplay.” And, it’ll be free for Early Access buyers.
If you love playing defense in RTS games, then They Are Billions was made for you.