I’m happy that Amplitude are apparently in a position to experiment more freely and delve ever deeper into the 4X niche And given the on-going spate of layoffs and closures I’m hopeful that other studios might find the wherewithal to follow in their footsteps No part of this website or its content may be reproduced without the copyright owner's permission Rock Paper Shotgun is a registered trademark of Gamer Network Limited Conquer a new world with some familiar faces I needed my fix—more of that best-in-class faction design It turns out that while I was praying Amplitude would eventually return to its best game the studio was already hard at work making this dream a reality we always had the vision that we would definitely revisit our games," says Amplitude CEO and co-founder Romain de Waubert de Genlis But the studio likes to have a gap between the sequels to Amplitude's returned to space 4Xs with Endless Space 2 tackled historical 4Xs with Humankind and experimented with roguelikes twice with Dungeon of the Endless and Endless Dungeon split up with its former publisher Sega (Endless Legend 2 will be published by Hooded Horse) kicking it off with a return to its most inventive game the exotic and evocative setting of the first game and planting our flag on the new world of Saiadha Factions both human and alien will once again be fighting trading and politicking their way through a sandbox with a strong narrative bent and as you may have noticed from the trailer and art we're seeing the return of some familiar faces—namely the Broken Lords and Necrophages factions from EL1 "You can expect some of the old ones and some new ones as well," says de Waubert de Genlis At first the plan was just to have new factions in the sequel—until Amplitude started to miss some of the old favourites "So then we had to pick and choose some that we wanted to bring back with us and link it to the story of the planet it can't happen just by chance that you have these cultures Romain de Waubert de Genlis is the CEO and co-founder of Amplitude Studios which he started along with fellow Ubisoft alumnus Mathieu Girard in 2011 kicking off it's long-running Endless Universe which encompasses two 4X series and two rougelikes We'll be learning more about the factions soon and Amplitude intends to first release Endless Legend 2 in early access with four of them I assume—though it's not been confirmed—that they'll go with two returning factions and two new ones And it's an exciting prospect to both see how the old factions adapt to this new world one of Endless Legend's best traits is its asymmetrical faction design where each empire has a dramatically unique playstyle spectral faction who have sacrificed their physical form and now exist inside ornate suits of armour which in the Endless universe serves as the primary currency are a faction of ravenous bugs determined to consume everything and are eternally at war with all the other factions As the stage for all this drama and conflict and with the prevalence of water you might assume that one of the big threats facing the factions would be flooding "So there's one thing that we know for sure and we already were aware of this in Endless Legend 1 and it's that players hate when you destroy things," says de Waubert de Genlis but it's less compelling when the game just tells you that a flood has destroyed everything you've built So the way we look at it is we want the planet to feel alive and something is happening that will indeed change the gameplay." With changing seasons and the dramatic tidefalls and it's happening at the same time for everyone where everyone will know that it's happening." but one where the map gets larger rather than smaller All the factions are racing to exploit the new regions before the others can arrive Amplitude is trying to maintain arguably the best 4X phase where you're exploring the world and seeing a constant stream of new things exploration is one of the elements I love the most it is over once you've scouted the whole planet So that pleasure disappears." What Amplitude wants is for this to be "a feeling that will stick to you until the end" Tension and surprises and rewards that the game keeps on spitting out whether you're just starting out or are 15 hours into your campaign The way Endless Legend treats its setting makes it rare among 4Xs where the maps are mostly battlefields or resource generators "The way we want to look at our planets in our games is because it's the only one that we're playing on each time," says Waubert de Genlis "We want to put it at the centre of the storytelling Sometimes we want to make it feel like it's alive I think it is a very interesting way of putting it to create a bond between not just you and the factions and to make it feel like it is all intertwined." He's preaching to the choir: it's an approach I've loved since Alpha Centauri and it's a shame that most 4Xs eschew this powerful sense of place because storytelling is already such an important pillar in them—you can see the narrative tendrils everywhere While Endless Legend 2 won't have a traditional campaign each faction has their own bespoke storyline with quests and characters and specific challenges with different branches effectively giving the game a whole bunch of campaigns—which you can choose to engage with or ignore One of the things I particularly dug about Endless Legend was the extra effort it made in catering to less aggressive playstyles with certain factions leaning more into mercantilism Amplitude wanted you to feel like the ruler of a people rather than a military commander It's all about building an empire and being an emperor not a captain." He wanted battles to last a couple of minutes rather than half an hour but the brawls were all pretty simple and brisk "but some people really didn't love it at all." Players were "frustrated" because they didn't have enough control over the battles where you picked cards for different phases of a battle to determine the actions of your fleet Amplitude is taking some lessons from Humankind which had more traditional turn-based fights—at least in the sense that you command your units one by one—though still in instanced battlefields de Waubert de Genlis wishes he would have used this combat model for the first Endless Legend He's also glad to have an opportunity to improve the AI AI is a nightmare because you work on the rules of the game until the last minute and the AI is always lagging." The AI programmers are always having to play catch-up with gameplay tweaks occurring right up until the last moment One of the ways Amplitude is improving the AI is by creating tools to better help it to understand why the AI is doing something "Sometimes it was impossible to tell if it was really smart or really stupid." We won't see these tools—it's all under the hood—but we should hopefully see the impact one thing de Waubert de Genlis doesn't want to change is Amplitude's philosophy of asymmetry even when it means factions might be unbalanced The differences between the factions don't come down to statistical bonuses—they are far more exotic than that And leaning too much into perfect balance would risk removing some of the fun the potential for experimentation and the novelty inherent in each empire He doesn't want to launch the game with a bunch of broken factions but if players find "a crazy way to win the game with a faction no one else has found," then that's a good thing It's part of the game: "How can I exploit all these weird quirks of the faction to win?" Amplitude hasn't revealed exactly when Endless Legend 2 will launch in early access I guess I can wait just a wee bit longer to conquer Saiadha as a bunch of tragic Dust vampires or whatever new weirdos the team flings into the mix Fraser BrownSocial Links NavigationOnline EditorFraser is the UK online editor and has actually met The Internet in person Strategy games have been a 30-year-long obsession from tiny RTSs to sprawling political sims and he never turns down the chance to rave about Total War or Crusader Kings He's also been known to set up shop in the latest MMO and likes to wind down with an endlessly deep he can usually be found writing features that are 1,000 words too long or talking about his dog.  The Endless Legend community helped shape Humankind's dynamic Follow us for daily PC games news, guides and reviews on X, Facebook, Google News, and Steam. Or sign up to our free newsletter Each week on Show Us Your Rig we feature PC gaming's best and brightest as they show us the systems they use to work and play Romain has shown us both his home and work setups but his personal rig is really the one that shines and an awesome monitor to tie it all together Romain was kind enough to tell us about both his computers as well as what he's playing right now and how his work PC is a little out of date I have nearly the same computer since we started amplitude I just updated the video card with something quite average and the CPU was changed as the other one fried I have an okay screen which is the same as the artists so we are on the same tuning My mouse does not click by itself and my keyboard is great for typing words… from the best screen ever (27” and UHD resolution at 166 mhz) water cooling and ultra-overclocked intel CPU and top notch nvidia GPU mechanical keyboard and ultra-advanced mouse that clicks for you Of course I never go without my chocobons and expressos the amazing Witcher 3… makes me feel very humble Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals Civilization 4 with Rise of Mankind mod… it made me want to conquer the world so many times that debate gets worse for the makers of Denuvo: a video game developer has made the rare move of abandoning the DRM platform for its upcoming game's PC version—and it squarely blames Denuvo-related performance issues for the decision Amplitude co-founder and CCO Romain de Waubert de Genlis replied to the thread on Thursday with a surprising announcement: the fan wouldn't have to wait "some months" to see Denuvo removed Humankind will launch on August 17 with no Denuvo implementation to speak of his teammates felt they couldn't justify its inclusion after running into issues While de Genlis admits that there's a chance his team could have added Denuvo to the game without impacting PC performance tests during the game's June closed beta showed the performance hit was too great—and that it's "not something we can fix before release In other words: when left with the choice between delaying the game to optimize a Denuvo implementation and to launch the game without Denuvo at all "Our priority is always the best possible experience for the players who buy our games and support us," de Genlis writes "Denuvo should never impact player performance and we don't want to sacrifice quality for you guys." After this the topic's creator edited the thread title to read "The day Amplitude broke my heart (and how they reassembled it)." a Denuvo representative replied to Ars Technica's questions but the response did not include any answers the representative CC'ed two outside parties—one from Amplitude Studios and one from Sega—writing "There seems to have been a misunderstanding on what was said" and suggesting the CC'ed parties should "clarify" their position The Denuvo representative did not acknowledge that the original Amplitude announcement included an allegation that directly tied Denuvo's DRM system to Humankind's in-game performance.] which hands you a new culture at intervals in each campaign is reminiscent of Humankind's Era transitions and have never done any kind of formal collaboration de Waubert de Genlis says Amplitude and Firaxis largely get on and are enthused by each other's work "Sometimes we have conventions where we meet some programmers because it's always very good stuff," he told me when I asked if the two teams had ever gotten together to bandy around features "But we could see from a while ago that already they were following [our work] Being compared to Civilization can be tricky, of course, in terms of managing the expectations of players and publishers. The 4X is fundamentally a "niche" genre, de Waubert de Genlis argued, and few specimens beside Civ are capable of shifting millions before launch Amplitude's games tend to have a "small bump" at first gathering a healthy following over the coming months "Basically Civilization is like 16 or 17 million players on Civ 6 "Then most of our 4Xs are around 2 million-ish And then if you look at the other 4Xs that are not Amplitude or not Civ I'd say it depends if you take Paradox as [the same kind of] 4X or not very quickly you go down to the very small numbers Nonetheless, de Waubert de Genlis says Amplitude have never felt any pressure to out-perform Civilization - even from Humankind publisher Sega, their parent company until November last year "And you can't overnight become Civilization." Whether they originate from Civ or a smaller, feisty Civlike, I'm keen to see more Age or Era-style mechanics in strategy games. Back in 2021, Nate Crowley (RPS in peace) called jumping Eras "possibly Humankind's greatest strength" allowing the player to switch rails and transform a culture greased by gold into one fuelled by research "This on-the-fly redefinition of your entire gameplan and the fact that it's a necessity rather than an option the more fundamentally brilliant a mechanic I realise it is I don't feel like a dick in saying Humankind blows Civ out of the water." I'm not sure Civ 7 players are as keen about the implementation of Ages Here is another chunk from traitorous opportunist Sin's Eurogamer review: "The first two ages close with escalating crises that force you to choose negative modifiers (evil doppelgangers of social policies which are unlocked with culture instead of science) until the act break It's a move towards narrative - an unpredictable challenge to make the game - and you - less rote they're either irrelevant or deeply irritating." Development studio Amplitude has announced that it is breaking with publisher Sega to once again become a fully independent studio This comes after eight years of ownership by Sega Ownership of the studio is "returning to some of our original founders and members of the team," Amplitude announced the games of the Endless universe that made Amplitude famous—Endless Space and Endless Legend "Our studio is backed by strong and meaningful franchises and our team is committed to creating the best games possible With our extensive experiences in strategy game development and two exciting titles currently in progress we are confident in our ability to deliver outstanding experience to players This decision allows us to be more agile in our approach while continuing to shape the vision that has been ours from the very beginning empowering us to push boundaries and be closer as ever of our community," said de Waubert de Genlis amicable: "While we are going our separate ways now we part on good terms and wish our friends at Sega the best for all their future projects," said Amplitude In the immediate future Amplitude intends to release a new patch for its most recent 4X, Humankind, which we found to be "a smart historical 4X that doesn't quite match the inventiveness of the studio's best" when we reviewed it in 2021 Amplitude will announce other future plans at its Amplified event next January Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team. ContributorJon Bolding is a games writer and critic with an extensive background in strategy games he can be found playing every tabletop game under the sun the street that houses Amplitude Studios is a uniform block of contemporary cafés But stand on the eighth floor balcony and the first thing you’ll notice is the 1930s The concrete dome of the Église du Saint- Esprit glints under a Parisian sun and beyond stands a strange urban mountain the artificial peak of the Parc Zoologique de Paris Sega’s new Civ rival from the makers of Endless Legend.  “The reason we created Amplitude was to make Humankind,” says studio head Romain de Waubert de Genlis and you need to learn to climb other mountains first.”  making its debut with an interstellar empire builder perfecting turn-based expansion across a hexagonal land The studio dabbled in roguelikes and tower defence for the spin-off Dungeons of the Endless and developed a shared universe to encompass all of its games It established a rare reputation for storytelling in the strategy genre and for meaningfully involving fans in design decisions And then Amplitude signed away its independence to Sega.  “We had to find a partner that would be the big brother to protect us from distractions,” says de Waubert de Genlis “That would give us the means to make this huge game.” The Sega acquisition has allowed Amplitude to grow in size and to work with studios like Creative Assembly on animation and mo-cap The developer is aiming for a release in 2020 Humankind has that ambient beauty that makes a good 4X such a comfortable place to occupy for hundreds of hours this is no flat board but a topographic map in which altitude will influence everything from fog of war to mineral deposits and city defences a naturally undulating landscape that takes dramatic curves from sea level all the way up to high plateaus.  it is a green and unspoiled ‘Garden of Eden’ You can see the wildlife on the tiles beneath the feet of your tribespeople the mammoths you might take down as a hunting party you can split your tribe to cover more territory—but then stand a greater chance of being gored on a tusk an ignoble end to the founding members of a new society.  you have choices to make—whether to welcome and learn from the other tribes you come across or hoard food to grow your population free from outside influence Quickly establishing your first city might give you a headstart but wandering the world to find wisdom could win you better starting traits granting your civilisation stronger core DNA.  Transformation comes the moment the prehistoric era ends It’s here that you’ll first pick a culture and that trait will stick with you even as everything else changes.  “What’s crazy when you look at history is that you don’t really have a civilisation which has existed from the beginning until the end,” says de Waubert de Genlis is a succession of cultures that together form civilisations They’re always merging together or reappearing as part of other cultures all the countries that exist today are from that melting pot of history And that’s what makes them unique.” you’ll pick another great civilisation for the following era The Nubian mastery of commerce might blend particularly well with You can optimise your route through history this way or you can potter along and enjoy your own story A new era might hit when you’re looking to move on to another part of the map in which case a nomadic society would suit just fine.  you’ll shape your nation like the protagonist in an RPG seeing what kind of people history turns you into—while always remembering where you came from.  That latter point is made easy by Humankind’s art direction which does a marvellous job of conveying a civilisation’s journey so far You can see each culture literally layered in the cities of your rivals—the straight streets and long roofs of modern Germany giving way to the occasional pyramid or Forbidden City-inspired palace Amplitude has built a clever modular system that combines patterns and paints procedurally so that you can tell a country’s path through the past at a glance.  that also means you can know in advance what you’re up against Just as civilisations carry forward unique traits and buildings from their progenitors and the Romans the Praetorian Guard that can fend off far more advanced units thanks to a powerful adjacency bonus Even a regiment is a multicultural celebration in Humankind a greatest hits of all your identities through the ages.  their units spread out across nearby tiles to create a turn-based battlefield where tactical manoeuvres can win the day The Praetorian Guard might protect a well-placed rocket cart on high ground but their defence could be circumvented by cavalry anyway—Amplitude isn’t ready to show a fight unfold yet But it has assigned a dedicated dev team to battle design which is an important break from form.  battles were partly automated and designed to last no longer than two minutes The intention was to prevent military strategy from dominating every other aspect of empire-building the way it has in most 4X games to date.  “The thing is,” laughs studio brand director Max Von Knorring “all our players just asked for tactical battles But Humankind is no conqueror’s playground This is not a 4X in which you aim to fill the map with your colour by the end of the game that’s not what happens,” says de Waubert de Genlis It’s not about who will be there in the end.”  Humankind is as much about being remembered as growing your territory You acquire stars when you do anything memorable like building a megalopolis or fighting a momentous battle the points are totted up to determine a winner is that fame can be gathered in huge amounts at any point during history moving the focus away from the endgame.  You’ll need seven stars to advance to the next age But there are a potential 21 stars to earn in each era so it might make sense to go all in while you’re the most powerful empire on the board mopping up as many stars as you can before moving to the next phase.  The choice to extend the glory years of your civilisation is available during the passage to a new era too—where you can decide not to become a new culture but instead double-down on the identity you already have The trade-off might even mean you struggle to compete with more advanced civs in the late game—but if you’ve judged it right You can watch your territory diminish afterwards as your enemies ally against you knowing you’ve built an empire that will live on in memory “The Mongols had this huge empire that spanned from China to Europe to northern India,” de Waubert de Genlis points out “And although Mongolia is a small country today is amazing.” While fame is only added up at the end a game of Humankind can effectively be won at any point in history It’s a system that reflects the timelessness of human achievement—China and America might be the great imperialists of our modern era but it’s the Roman Empire that we remember Amplitude believes that its system solves the predictability that plagues the genre’s late game Lead designer Maxence Voleau sums up the issue “You’re in the endgame of a classic 4X but you still need to do the last steps.” In the final turns of Humankind great empires may be dwindling having long since traded progress for fame—and there’s always time for a new upstart to leave the largest impact on history I wonder whether 4X fans are ready for a game that doesn’t hand them the Earth by the end of a campaign—that might see you occupying a modest corner of the map instead PC gaming has been changed by the success of XCOM and Dwarf Fortress—games that have taught players to prize a brilliant anecdote over a boring victory.  “We’ll give you markers along the road,” says de Waubert de Genlis and you’re entering the sixth age as the most interesting country What you want to do is make sure you survive the last age and make sure we’re still talking about you at the end.”  It feels like a shame for the writers at Amplitude to hand the pen over to players in Humankind The Endless universe is full of funny and fascinating cul-de-sacs But it makes sense to have great storytellers in charge of the systemic story of history will pick out the triumphs to remind you of—chronicling your path through the world in a way that leaves you proud.  you’ll be very sad,” says de Waubert de Genlis “But some years later you’ll be able to dig it up and find all this knowledge from the past You know you’ll come back for it.” It’s an approach that taps into a fundamental human desire for legacy There’s a genre neighbour looming over Amplitude as it expands outwards “It’s a game that made us want to create this game,” says de Waubert de Genlis But there are so many things we could do that we couldn’t wait for anyone else.” The same reverence that has ensured Civilization’s place at the peak of 4X for decades is also its greatest restriction While Sid Meier has made a point of passing custody of the series on there’s no getting around the fact that Civ has a formula Firaxis must adhere to Amplitude is not bound by the same rules the players will go crazy,” Von Knorring notes “We have the chance of having that blank page.” Not for nothing is Humankind’s logo a handprint It’s the studio’s play to leave its mark on the genre it loves “It’s the reason we created Amplitude,” says de Waubert de Genlis “I would love it to be the game we’re remembered for That’s why we’re sending all our troops into battle Jeremy Peel is an award-nominated freelance journalist who has been writing and editing for PC Gamer over the past several years His greatest success during that period was a pandemic article called "Every type of Fall Guy which kept the lights on at PCG for at least a week He’s rested on his laurels ever since story-driven simulations by submitting monthly interviews with the designers behind Fallout He's also written columns on the likes of Jalopy You can find him on Patreon as The Peel Perspective How Amplitude Studios is creating a 4X with personality The Lumeris are Endless Space 2's trading faction They're masters at generating Dust—nano-elements created by an ancient race now the currency of the galaxy's more primitive inhabitants An hour into my session with Amplitude's 4X sequel An aggressive minor faction sends a fleet of ships in my direction you'll be familiar with Amplitude's asymmetrical approach to factions The differences go beyond units and bonuses—each has its own specific purpose the Lumeris don't send big ships filled with millions of people to colonise planets they spend Dust to instantly construct an outpost it's a case of growing the outpost's size until the planet is declared fully colonised If another species starts construction of a colony ship destined for that planet or another Lumeris faction builds a rival outpost The Vodyani are the second new faction of Endless Space 2's early access release Uplifted by the ancient and powerful Endless they live in giant Ark ships that can leech resources from the planets they orbit Their terrestrial home was destroyed by the overexploitation of its resources and now they're keen to prevent the same from happening elsewhere planets tend to have a more renewable resource that they can harness: the populations of other factions Amplitude wants losing even one of them to be a big deal They're on a crusade to annihilate intelligent life but will also harvest lifeforms to increase their own population—a process that can lead to the new citizens inheriting traits from the people they've absorbed "We all agreed that it would be better to have an unbalanced game with crazy faction all being different than to have a perfectly balanced game with all the factions looking alike," says Romain de Waubert de Genlis That's not to say Amplitude /wants/ an unbalanced game but they're using early access as a means to discover how far they can push each faction "It's a time to experiment," says de Genlis "It's not a time when your game should be finished." Two returning factions from Endless Space will join the Vodyani and Lumeris to complete Endless Space 2's early access roster each faction will have an accompanying questline based on their culture and ultimate goals "Each storyline you have for each faction branches out several times but also to different gameplay that you unlock," says de Genlis Amplitude uses quests to add texture to the underlying strategy—fleshing out the world Amplitude is pushing its quest design even further for Endless Space 2 and now have a dedicated designer working full time on creating new missions and events "The other day we looked at the number of words "it's closer to an RPG than a strategy game It's pretty unbelievable." Quests can come from multiple sources: exploration Each quest could also be part of a chain—something that you won't realise until Each quest decision will have underlying strategic benefits even if you're not playing to progress the story there are still benefits for completing missions Amplitude is even using its quest design to shake up the political landscape of your playthrough "We're working on cooperative and competitive quests," says de Genlis "You have people banding together to obtain a common objective or competing to reach another objective." The hope is to make alliances more fragile but also encourage temporary ceasefires against rivals "Maybe a friend of today could be an enemy of tomorrow but another friend for something else," says de Genlis "It's very interesting all these links and bonds you can create especially when they're multi-empire quests." Much of Endless Space 2's design is an evolution of systems from Endless Legend "We have some strong common links with Legend but then we add a layer of modification to take that idea to the next step," says de Genlis "That's one of the things about our games I really like is we're building layers of 4X and trying to inherit from the good stuff from one game to the next." developing the original Endless Space was a process of figuring out how to make a 4X game they're returning to the concept with more knowledge "At the end of Endless Space … all we had in mind was Endless Space and how to make it better," says de Genlis we can look back from a distance and look at the mistakes we made and the good things we did." The core focus of Endless Legend was the terrain the planet is the hero of the game … she has a soul," says de Genlis "We created a whole storyline around a living planet." A space 4X can't utilise terrain in the same way but it was important for Amplitude to have a core idea that informs the a player's decision making we still want that strong focus and unique thing We always try to take population into account Population should always be at the heart of your decisions." In most 4X games population is simply the measure of your empire's size Each population cluster has a political alignment and these ideologies have a voice in your senate Choosing which party to support will be an important aspect of your empire's strategy It's possible to pass laws that can give bonuses to certain play styles – such as significantly reducing the cost of military ships – but doing so requires the support of the relevant ideology Should you find yourself the victim of Vodyani aggression it may be in your best interest to support the militarists and enact their laws But doing so will upset other voices within your empire "I think in many ways it is what an emperor should feel," says de Genlis You need to have a big population to be the biggest emperor in the universe." I get a bit carried away with buying out minor factions my senate—once perfectly pacifist—is filled with different ideologies My session isn't long enough to see the fallout from this but it's clear that internal diplomacy is going to be a big thing Having the right party in power at the right time could give you a great advantage Diplomacy between factions will function similarly to Endless Legend "The idea with the pressure system is how can you conquer without drawing a gun?" asks de Genlis "How can I intimidate you into doing what I want Whether you are an AI or a player—it should be the same." The plan is to focus on the disparity between factions of different strength "I reach a point where my economy is strong and you look at me like a demigod," says de Genlis "I can come and build pressure over time until you tell me Then the pressure goes down and we're friends again." In order to mitigate building pressure factions will need to find friends to counteract the stronger faction Many of these systems won't be fully implemented in time for Endless Space 2's early access release and much of what's to come is reliant on the feedback Amplitude gets from the community "Sometimes we see the community reacting and we'll change our priorities," says de Genlis We want to know what's good for them." As for what's to come de Genlis lists some of the major milestones I'm hopeful Amplitude has another great 4X in the making Endless Space 2 will launch on Steam Early Access in September Phil SavageSocial Links NavigationEditor-in-ChiefPhil has been writing for PC Gamer for nearly a decade starting out as a freelance writer covering everything from free games to MMOs He eventually joined full-time as a news writer before moving to the magazine to review immersive sims but still sometimes finds the time to write about his ongoing obsessions with Destiny 2 he's checking out the latest tactics game or dipping back into Guild Wars 2 He's largely responsible for the whole Tub Geralt thing Want to know how to complete Genli’s Home Cooking side quest in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom While Tears of the Kingdom has a fascinating… you must catch a specific fish to receive a delicious Biting Simmered Fruit meal recipe with the Cold Weather Attack effect we are here to help you and tell you how to complete Genli’s Home Cooking in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom To accept Genli’s Home Cooking side quest go to Rito Village in the western part of the game world Go to the west village part and approach the general store The Slippery Falcon (one of the observation decks of Rito Village) you will meet a green Rito named Genli and accept Genli’s Home Cooking quest but getting some of the ingredients is not easy This time she wants to cook a delicious fish meal and she lacks only one ingredient – Staminoka Bass To complete Genli’s Home Cooking side quest in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom you must catch just one Staminoka Bass and bring it to Genli But finding this fish is quite problematic you can catch Staminoka Bass in the waters around Rito Village Although Staminoka Bass spawns in this lake So you have at least one more reason to visit this place once you’ve caught the Staminoka Bass bring it to Genli to complete Genli’s Home Cooking She will be glad you completed her task and will reward you with the Biting Simmered Fruit meal recipe Although this meal only restores two and a half hearts of HP you also gain a Cold Weather Attack effect for 5 minutes.