ZEPHON Review: A Fierce Post-Apocalyptic 4X That Surpasses Expectations

There is a new gold standard in combat-focused 4X. ZEPHON is a post-apocalyptic hellscape - bursting at the seams with sentient mechs, mutated beasts, and void horrors. From your first turns to your last - you will be fighting to survive. 

Its creators - Proxy Studios - have a pedigree with this sort of thing, having made Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War. ZEPHON ups the ante. It repurposes the systems that worked, and introduces others to make the experience richer. 

It’s set in an original universe which mixes tropes of grimdark sci-fi, cyberpunk dystopia and eldritch horror. It’s intriguing, striking - and the right kind of gross. A wartorn Earth is now a scarred battlefield between the rogue AI ZEPHON, and an intergalactic alien species - the Acrin. Lumbering sentient machines will go toe to toe with otherworldly void horrors - and only one side will emerge.

On the sidelines, is you. You’ll pick a faction - and each has unique affinities and focuses. Some embrace technology, others call on insidious voice units. Some like to keep it old fashioned with firepower and gundam suits.

Whether you’re keeping the peace or taking the fight to the other factions, every match will lead to an inevitable final confrontation. Machines vs Monsters. Pick a side, or take on all challengers. 

You’re trying to keep your technological advantage, expand to take key outposts across the map, adapting to the world and your enemies. From start to finish, you’re engaged in bloody conflict with the powers that be, and making use of the game’s tactical combat system. 

If you’re looking for pure, unadulterated combat on an epic scale - you’ll find it here. This is ZEPHON.

ZEPHON vs. Gladius: Same Foundation, New Firepower

Before I get too deep, I want to address the elephant in the room. The comparisons to Gladius. I’ll get it out of the way - so I don’t have to keep going back and forth. If you played it, ZEPHON will feel very familiar. It utilises the same combat system, units, and abilities are treated similarly, cities, research - even the UI are cut from the same cloth.

Now I don’t see that as a bad thing. They’re solid mechanics, and Gladius was a good game. Proxy Studios made some top-notch systems, so by all means - reuse them. This isn’t a reskin. Most of it has been tuned, streamlined, and improved. At first glance though, yeah, it will look and feel very similar.

That means a couple of things. If you loved Gladius, gelled with its systems and wanted more - ZEPHON will click with you straight away. On the flipside, if Gladius’ mechanics just didn’t do it for you, chances are, you’ll have the same problems with ZEPHON. 

For the rest of the review, I’m going to keep just on ZEPHON and treat it as its own entity. Which also means I won’t have to say ‘Warhammer 40,000: Gladius - Relics of War’ anymore which is just…the world's longest name. Anyway, moving on.

Unleashing Chaos: The Heart of ZEPHON's Combat

Unlike your traditional 4X - ZEPHON steps away from the usual balance. War isn’t a consequence, it’s an inevitability. From your very first turns, right down to your last, you will be fighting to survive and prosper. 

There’s a real sense of strategy. Every unit has its speciality. They have differing ranges, abilities, strengths, and weaknesses. Soldiers can use attacks of opportunity, and controlling the flow of movement on the battlefield is crucial.

There aren’t a huge number of units, but everything has its place. Furthermore, unlocking a new one doesn’t invalidate another. You’ll research techs that improve old units - meaning even your tier ones have a place in your developed army. Cannon fodder, mostly, but that’s still a use.

There are three affinities in the game - cyber, human, and voice. Any faction can dabble in any specialty, but you’ll have an easier time acquiring and utilising those in your chosen affinity. 

You can of course only focus on your default path - but the ability to mix and match opens up some interesting combinations.

Your bread and butter soldiers are complimented by a range of powerful and specialised units, doing everything from bombarding units from afar, flanking to attack in melee, or just getting up in their business with long gangly legs. There are also powerful hero units, who periodically unlock skills, equip items, and single-handedly alter the outcome of a tough fight.

Units gain experience after kills, and if they aren’t in battle, they’re falling behind. You’re pretty much fighting the entire game, against ZEPHON, against other factions, or against neutral enemies - defending, expanding, and levelling up your units. You might think that wears thin - but it doesn’t. ‘Cos the combat system is nuanced and robust. It becomes the core of the game that everything else is built around, and from my first battle to my last, I had a blast.

Resource Warfare: Cities as Engines of Conflict

But while you’re ripping and tearing, you have to keep that war machine turning. You have to keep developing, expanding, and advancing. 

Now, this isn’t Civilization. You aren’t dealing with culture and the arts. You aren’t trying to make this hellhole into a utopia. Your city's function is to provide resources and units to throw into the ever-growing conflict. 

Cities acquire tiles one by one, and each has a few slots for buildings. Different tiles provide different bonuses, and those can be boosted further by outposts.

Unconventionally, ZEPHON doesn’t have resources on the map. All the materials you need can be produced in your cities. At first, I was sceptical of this as those resource nodes usually become key points of conflict, but ZEPHON has an alternative. Outposts. These capturable buildings provide a passive bonus, which is increased when it’s in the influence of a city. 

These are the points of the map you’re trying to spread towards and capture. Another small detail that I loved - tiles can change. Swarms of cicadas can change location, moving their food bonus, and forest can sprout up in new locations.

Another feature that is - again unconventional to your typical 4X - is that cities can produce multiple things at once. Different unit types and buildings all at the same time. This means you aren’t building a reserve and waiting till you’re strong enough to fight. You’re always churning out units and getting them on the frontline. There’s no downtime.

The research tree is divided into tiers, and only requires a few techs to advance. If you want to beeline for one specific powerful unit, you can. But you still have the freedom to go back and pick up older techs. Some options give you units, or buildings, or access to advanced resources and items - others simply provide passive bonuses to something you already unlocked. Your older units keep getting upgraded, and stay relevant.

This and the city systems, they’re streamlined. I wouldn’t call them elaborate, or exciting, or innovative. But they do what they’re supposed to. There’s definitely an element of strategy that’ll reward experience and very little bloat. It’s a good system, and exactly the sort of thing a game like this needs. Something that isn’t going to draw you away or distract you from your ongoing campaign. 

Alliances and Ambushes: Navigating Diplomacy and AI

So we’ve established there’s a lot of fighting - but there are opportunities to make some friends along the way if you so choose. The main power struggle is between ZEPHON and the Acrin. Aliens vs Machines. Each match builds to a boiling point where you’ll have to pick a side, or be the last one standing.

But there’s nothing stopping you from picking that side earlier. You will be in contact with these powers, as well as the other factions, and if you want a bit of respite, you can call a ceasefire, or even push for an alliance. 

The actions you take with other factions ripple across the game. Everyone has a stance, and taking a fight to a common enemy might reveal an unlikely friend. Despite this being absolutely the last place I’d expect a good diplomacy system - it’s actually pretty solid. You don’t have many choices, but the third-party agreements and consequences give it a bit more depth. Not to mention, every faction addresses you differently, with different text lines depending on who you’re playing. Not a huge thing, but more than I see in some 4X games. 

If you decide to go for an alliance, you can see it change the AI's behaviour. They’ll look to step in and reinforce if you get into a scrap. It is worth noting that both you and your ally earn combat experience if you’re fighting together, so it's a benefit for all parties.

The AI just seems competent. In my time playing, I noticed more often than not, the AI was playing well. I noticed no cheating, no foul play, no hidden bonuses - just smart moves using the game’s systems. Whether that’s utilising cover, trying to surround my forces, or even pulling a false retreat into an ambush - the AI was - to be honest - smarter than me most of the time. 

From Horror to Hope: Exploring ZEPHON's Intriguing Setting

So across the board, mechanically, the game is a really tight package. It plays well. It feels great. The combat - it’s core pillar - is a lot of fun. At the end of the day, that is what’s most important about a game like this. 

However, all that can fall flat if the world and setting doesn’t pull you in. Gladius had the advantage of having a few decade's worth of 40K lore to draw from - but here, they’re building a new IP. Can it have that same impact without all the world-building? Well, yeah. Because they’ve really knocked it out of the park in that whole regard. The setting they’ve built with ZEPHON is excellent.

It mashes together a bunch of genres. A feeling of post-apocalyptic human survival, mixed with Cyberpunk tropes and eldritch horror themes. The world is vibrant in some places, barren in others, a hellscape inbetween. The unit design is fantastic. It starts grounded, human marines, mildly mutated beasts, slightly augmented soldiers - but as you progress these get more outlandish. More unhinged. Great beasts with excess limbs and dozens of fingers - and human torsos fused with machines. 

But it goes further than looks. Every unit, tech, monster has flavour text. It paints a picture more vivid than ‘horrible monster with too many arms’ - often giving accounts of a survivor describing such horrors. These were well written. They were vivid and - a lot of the time - quite unsettling. But I read every single piece, ‘cos I was so into this world. These, combined with the artstyle, the events, and the small narratives - it all meant that this felt bigger than just a strategy game for me. This isn’t Gladius with the Warhammer removed. It felt like a fully-fledged IP that really stands its own ground, both in personality and gameplay.

ZEPHON’s Triumphs: Streamlined Gameplay and Engaging Battles

The setting they’ve built feels different. It’s got similar themes to its predecessor here and there, but they’ve clearly gone in their own direction - and with it - created something really distinct. 

The gameplay is tight and streamlined. The user experience is painless and intuitive. There is the right amount of excess to fully complement the main function of the game - to get stuck into massive battles sweeping across the map.

It doesn’t suffer from that late game burnout that plagues the genre. Throughout the game you’re engaging in small skirmishes, and it's all building to a climax - and when that comes the game is almost there, and you want to see it through. In most 4Xs, those late game battles boil down to dozens of stacks slapping into each other. It becomes a chore. But it didn’t grow stale here, because every unit has its own special function, and is important. 

Also worth noting - that it ran like a dream for me. No late game slowdown. No bugs, glitches, performance issues. Units performed their moves as smoothly at the end as they did in the beginning - and I wish that wasn’t a surprise, but here we are. It just works. 

Where ZEPHON Falls Short: Subtle Hiccups

On the flipside of all that though - there were a few issues I had with the game. None of these were glaring red flags, but little touches and details that took me out of it.

I think the sound design is great, the unit animation sounds and music give it a feeling of depth, however when you aren’t fighting and you turn the music off - it feels a bit empty. Some noise from cities - or from the titanic late game units would really fill in the blanks. 

And while I’m talking about those bigger units - the animations just didn’t fit their stature. When they get hit, they judder to represent that, but it just doesn’t feel… right? They don’t make slow lumbering movements. They don’t have the impact they should. They just felt like normal units - just bigger. 

There are also some little events and quests that spawn, and add a bit of a dynamic feel to the world. I was so onboard with this, and they force you to play reactively. But they happen a few times in a match, and then that’s it. I’d have really liked to have seen more of those, and growing in impact as a game progresses.

I did really like the writing across the board, though some characters are certainly written with a bit more flair than others. Now, that doesn’t bother me, some might find it a bit jarring, but I like the mix of styles. What I did have an issue with is when these characters have a ton of personality and distinction when you play as them, only for them to be boiled down to a caricature when they’re an opposing faction. 

But let’s call those what they are. Nitpicks. Little details. Small improvements I’d like to see or feature tweaks to fill out the game.

A Masterclass in Tactical Warfare 

Fundamentally, ZEPHON isn’t a sprawling 4X with infinite options. It’s not a grimdark version of Civilization. It knows it’s not that. It is a war game first and foremost. There are other systems turning with it, but they all feed back into that primary purpose.

What it sets out to do - it does that very well. Remarkably even given the tiny size of the studio. It is polished, refined, and despite some unorthodox approaches to systems, it settles in and becomes a very comfortable play. 

There’s always something going on in the world, a new threat to respond to, and the pacing means that the looming final showdown comes quicker than you’d expect, as hours just melt away. 

They came into the game with a vision, and in most regards, they have seen that through. Some minor bugbears and missteps do not take away from this being a great strategy game. A worthy addition to any 4X fans library. It may not tick all the boxes for everyone, but that subset of the genre who clamour for a darker, combat-heavy, tactical game - ZEPHON nails it.