Endless Legend 2 Review: Brilliant First 100 Turns, Then the Tide Goes Out

What it is

Endless Legend 2 is Amplitude Studios' fantasy 4X sequel, published by Hooded Horse. It hit 1.0 on September 17, 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S after a year in early access (since September 22, 2025). The setting is Saiadha, an ocean planet where the sea periodically recedes in events called Tidefalls, exposing new land, ruins and resources mid-game. Full price is EUR 49.99, but there is a 50% launch promo (EUR 24.99) running until October 1, and I would honestly point anyone even mildly curious at that window.

How it actually plays

If you know Amplitude, you know the formula: hex map, region-based expansion (one city per region), heroes who level up, quests that tell each faction's story, and factions that do not just have different bonuses but different rules. The 1.0 build has eight playable factions plus a faction creator. The new Sandshapers want to terraform the ocean world back into desert, the Aspects seed coral onto other people's hexes, and the older favourites still play like separate games. That asymmetry is the whole reason to buy this over anything else in the genre.

The Tidefalls are the sequel's big idea and they work. Every so often the water drops and the map you thought you understood changes: a rival gets a land bridge to you, a ruin you could not reach becomes a race, a resource appears where you had nothing. It forces you to replan instead of executing a build order from turn one, and that is exactly what 4X games usually fail at.

Combat is turn-based tactical on the actual map terrain, cleaner and faster than the original. The district-based city building is borrowed from Humankind and it is a good fit here: choosing where a district goes matters because the water line matters.

The highs

- Faction design that is genuinely creative, not a stat sheet with a coat of paint - Tidefalls make the middle game unpredictable in a good way - Amplitude's art direction is still the best in strategy games - The faction quests give a story reason to keep playing

The lows

- The late game sags. Once you have four or five cities the interesting decisions dry up and it becomes a spreadsheet march to a victory screen. - The AI is passive and slow to punish overextension. On normal I never felt threatened after turn 120. - Turn times get long on big maps, especially on console. - The story-heavy quest layer will annoy purists who want a clean sandbox. I like it, but I understand the complaint.

Who it is for

Players who bounced off Civilization because every faction felt the same. Anyone who loved the original Endless Legend and wants the same thing with a better map. It is not for people who want a razor-sharp AI opponent, and it is not a cure for 4X endgame boredom - nobody has solved that yet, including Amplitude.

Verdict

Endless Legend 2 has the best first hundred turns in the genre and a completely ordinary last fifty. At the launch price that is an easy recommendation; at full price it is a good game with a known flaw that you should go in expecting.

Score: 7/10

Image: R. Ray, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Scientific / Public domain, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:M2_tidal_constituent.jpg