E3 2019 Impressions — Evil Genius 2: World Domination

While at E3, I was able to see Evil Genius 2: World Domination in a more intimate setting than just a trailer. Here is my take on Evil Genius 2: World Domination.

The want and need to make our own evil bases to take over the world is coming back with the announcement of Evil Genius 2: World Domination out of E3. Some gamers out there may still be playing around with the older title in this series, but now we all get to look forward to Rebellion bringing us all-new gameplay and experiences here. All of this you hopefully know before clicking in here Evil Genius 2 was a highlight of the PC Gaming showcase that took place. That is not where it all ends though, as I was able to see a bit more of the early gameplay out at the event and am here now to let you know what we can all expect from the game when it comes in 2020 for the PC.

The core basics of Evil Genius is still in the game and it still is a base building style game. We will get to select from four different evil geniuses to take on the campaign in the world, build our base, and hopefully take over the world. Fairly straightforward there. To start it all off, we will need to select our starting island in the real-world parallel to start our construction. This selection was made already in the demo of Evil Genius 2 I was able to sit in on, but there are supposed to be others that will also help determine other things within the game. Things like the heroes that show up and other jobs that need to be done to keep the operation going.

From there, it is time to build our “cover operation” in the game’s world to give a reason that we have so many people and things traveling to the island. It also serves as a form of distraction in Evil Genius 2, for the heroes, much as you would expect in your favorite spy films. We were only shown a casino layout, that we are able to build in the game, but there should be other options to come when the game fully launches. Something that will be nice as it also doubles as a form of early detection in Evil Genius 2 for when the heroes do show up. Some will partake in what you have set up and if it is intriguing enough, it will give one of the different types of henchmen a chance to spot them before they try to break into the base.

Speaking on henchmen, the trailers that we have seen thus far for Evil Genius 2: World Domination, only hint at there being four different types in the game. This is true as we only get to see the muscle and bruiser type in the trailer. Each will have their own “job” and “personality” in the game and we will need to pay close attention to those traits too. For instance, we were shown a henchman that had a Lazy trait generated for them that could cause problems when it came to spotting and defending the base. Having taken note of it, we could choose to train up the henchmen in a way to negate the trait or go with a more “final solution” style. In this demo, there was a lead sandwich handed out. The options are always up to us as we will be the main genius in the base and only giving the orders.

I say mainly playing as because there is a new “second in command” style character here for Evil Genius 2. In general, they will also handle things in the normal operations and be a bit stronger to take on the heroes when they come, but we can take direct control of them when need be to get a few more things done. Our main leader could be on a different floor and, in the case of Maximilian, he is slower in movement and thus we need a different person in charge. I never saw this directly in action for the game, but it is an option and reason to bring back some of the other characters from Evil Genius to help out. A nice little addition to keep the continuity but also not require players to have experienced the game from before.

You may have noticed I mentioned levels here for Evil Genius 2. Yes, we will be able to have multiple floors in our layers and need to plan accordingly. In the demo I was able to see out at E3, there were upwards of six different floors that we could use, including the cover operation. This also means that there are more points of entry for the spies and enemies when they do come. It gives a lot more freedom on how we build it all but adds in a nice and new gameplay element that should keep us all in a state of panic when we have someone masquerading around as one of our henchmen in the layer. This is why we need to plan all of our traps in Evil Genius 2 to synergize or work together in some form.

Obviously, the trap systems are back in Evil Genius 2 and we will have all different kinds to play with. As I mentioned, there is also an emphasis on stringing them together to handle some of the agents that will be invading as one may not be able to do it. If you are curious as to how detailed they can get, the trap we see in the trailers above can actually be made in Evil Genius 2 and plays out mostly the same. The only difference, at least from what I saw, came down to the animations as the agent just takes the laser damage from being blown and then falls directly into the shark tank. That is only one of the many, many options we will be able to use in the game on top of that. We will be limited only by our ingenuity.

In its current state, Evil Genius 2: World Domination looked like it was setting up to be a whole lot of fun. There are so many other things mixed in besides just the base building and we will get to take on many other tasks to bolster our army. Even with the scarce details out there and the limited view I did get, it looks like Rebellion is giving fans and gamers just what they are looking for with a game called Evil Genius. I am completely excited to see where it all goes and what new features and characters we will be seeing before the game launches next year. Fingers are also crossed that they are able to branch out from being PC only and into all of the other various platforms the game would work well for.