The genre as a whole is not in the greatest possible shape

May 31, 2014 01:15 GMT  ·  By

Tropico 5 is not a bad game by any measure and those who have loved the series since its inception can clearly spend more than 100 hours playing the city builder and dictatorial sim, when the campaign, the sandbox and the multiplayer are all taken into account.

But there’s also no denying that the experience tends to become rather monotone once the player sees what all the ages have to offer in terms of new options and buildings and after he sees some of the most outlandish missions that he will have to complete.

The series has remained rather faithful to its nature for the past two or three major installments, which means that any future title that uses the Tropico name really needs to introduce some innovative elements in order to once more capture the imagination of fans.

The publishing team at Kalypso Media has said that the most recent installment has generated more pre-orders than ever, but that could just be a symptom of the relative lack of decent, well-designed city builders from the market.

Tropico as a series could try to explore the darker elements of being a dictator, which are only hinted at in the fifth full game, or the developers at Haemimont Games might try something truly weird and take the core gameplay features either to the distant past or the far future.

It would be interesting to see how the mechanics would deal with an alien world that needs to be reshaped from the bottom up by settlers coming from Earth through a wormhole and where a decision is made that tyrannical rule is the most efficient way to ensure the long-term survival of the colony.

As it exists now, Tropico is a series that does not take risks, which has worked well given the failure of the SimCity reboot of last year to capture the imagination of players.

But if an indie team manages to recreate at least half of the magic of the old Caesar titles or if it captures some of the initial appeal of the classic Maxis experience, then the franchise might become just a relic of how the genre looked.

It’s hard for companies to abandon a winning formula in order to introduce long-term innovation, but Tropico needs to find something new to offer to the fan base for the sixth installment or it risks it being the last to launch.