ENDLESS Legend™ 2 Guide — Factions

ENDLESS Legend 2 is a turn-based 4X strategy game from Amplitude Studios, published by Hooded Horse, set on the ocean world Saiadha after the events of the first Endless Legend. This guide is the fastest route into it: what changed since 2014, how the Tidefall reshapes the map mid-match, what each faction expects from you, and how the narrative victory paths decide who wins. The 1.0 release arrived on September 17, 2026, alongside PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions.

What ENDLESS Legend 2 changes from the first game

Like the 2014 original, ENDLESS Legend 2 drops you onto a hex-based, procedurally generated map with a faction that has its own mechanics, and you expand by claiming regions. You establish camps to take control of a region, then grow them into cities with influence. Curiosities, minor factions and quests still drive the early and middle game, and every faction has its own unique gameplay mechanics rather than sharing one template.

The biggest mechanical break is combat. Wikipedia notes that combat is more involved than in its predecessor and that players issue commands to units and position them manually, with the system drawn from Amplitude's earlier work on Humankind. That turns each battle into a small tactics problem rather than a single resolution roll.

Tidefall: the ocean leaves and the map opens up

Saiadha is defined by tidefalls, a phenomenon in which ocean levels recede and open new areas to explore. Amplitude designed the mechanic specifically to encourage late-game exploration, because one common pitfall of 4X games is that players stop exploring once the map feels solved. The team also rejected the mirror-image version, rising water that reclaims cities and destroys units, on the grounds that players would not appreciate losing hard-earned progress that way.

In practice that gives the map a time dimension. A coastline you ignore in the first hundred turns can become a corridor later, and the land that surfaces is not empty, because dangerous creatures sealed beneath the waves come with it. Expedition armies need escorts and supply lines rather than a single scout.

The ENDLESS Legend 2 factions and how they differ

Faction asymmetry is the series signature, and the sequel leans further into it. Two names are confirmed to be returning: the Necrophages, and the Broken Lords, who now appear as the Last Lords after escaping Auriga before its destruction. Wikipedia also documents the Aspects, whose coral hivemind spreads coral spores onto hexes belonging to other factions and uses them to infest opponents' minds.

Faction	Documented identity	Where it is documented
Aspects	Coral hivemind; spreads coral spores onto rival hexes and uses them to infest minds	Wikipedia, citing Rock Paper Shotgun
Necrophages	Returning faction from the first Endless Legend	Endless Legend wiki (wiki.gg)
Last Lords	The Broken Lords under a new name; escaped Auriga before its destruction	Endless Legend wiki (wiki.gg)
Tahuk	Described by Amplitude as a dogmatic faction; builds Observatories	Amplitude community, State of the game - February 2026

That table is deliberately incomplete. The full game is stated to feature six factions, but several are not individually documented in the public sources used here, so treat the remaining names as not documented yet rather than guessing at them.

Narrative victory paths: Worship, Impress or Master the Lost

A large part of the endgame is the planet itself. Saiadha has a Lost at its heart, and where the spirit of Auriga was mostly benevolent, the spirit of Saiadha rages against its prison. As the Tidefall proceeds you meet characters with different agendas and decide how to deal with it. Amplitude has framed the three stances as Worship the Lost, Impress it, or attempt to Master it, and each unlocks different victory content.

Those paths are not cosmetic and not private. Amplitude has said that all players receive a bonus based on how many players chose the path they selected, so joining the popular stance in a multiplayer match shifts your diplomatic and economic position, while picking a lonely one creates pressure to defect to the crowd. Faction-specific victory quests, so that the same world event reads differently for each faction, were announced as a later addition rather than a launch feature.

Combat, the endgame and the Keeper of the Depths

Manual battles sit alongside an Instant Resolve button for low-stakes fights, which is useful once you know what an army can beat. Amplitude has described an endgame event in the last roughly thirty turns of a match: a final, visually distinct monsoon that signals the world is ending and spawns the Keeper of the Depths, described as the most powerful unit in the game, travelling with an army of Doomwraiths. Diplomatic relations are meant to sour at that stage so existing alliances get tested.

The public test branch also previewed Retaliation, in which most units counterattack once per round, explicitly to create attrition so that no army can steamroll a war untouched. Treat that as a future change and check the live build before planning around it.

Where to go next

• ENDLESS Legend 2 walkthrough for the opening order and early expansion.
• ENDLESS Legend 2 tips for the mistakes new players repeat most.
• ENDLESS Legend 2 wiki for the official and community reference pages worth bookmarking.
• ENDLESS Legend 2 release date for the early access and 1.0 timeline.