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Ants
The main characters of the game.
- After-Combat Recovery: All ant units can recover really slowly when not fighting enemies.
- Color-Coded for Your Convenience:
- Ants have designated colors on various parts of their bodies to show which colony they belong to. In story mode missions, your colony is red by default.
- Brood tiles also have different colors and textures corresponding to their units in one colony.
- Mono Gender Monsters: All ants in the game are female. It is currently impossible to create male alates in the game.
- Signature Move: With the exception of the black ants, every ant species in the game has a unique ability that only that ant possess even if other species in the game would possess them in real life. The Gene Stealers' unique ability is the power to use any other ants' special powers.
- Zerg Rush: Because upgraded ants don't gain much stats, it's more beneficial to focus on quantity over quality for more damage output and more labors. Upgrading is recommended when you have a surplus of food or when level 3 abilities are required.
Gene-thief Ants (Formica ereptor)
Gene-thief ants are the protagonists of story mode and many side missions. They can absorb traits of other ant species to adapt to different challenges. You can bring your customized gene-thief colony from story mode to freeplay mode.- Another Side, Another Story: The opposing gene-thief colony in formicarium challenge 3 is playable in side mission The Other Foot. You have to constantly supply workers for the main colony's formicarium challenge, while surviving even greater challenges that the scientist throws at you.
- Artistic License – Biology: Gene-thief ants can absorb the traits of other ant species to adapt to different challenges. They are completely fictitious and exist only to let you use different ant species in the same colony. There is no species in the Formica genus that has the level of physical variation seen here.
- Character Customization: In story mode, you can use royal jelly to unlock additional abilities for your units and improve their stats. The customization is preserved when you bring your formicarium colony to freeplay mode.
- Divergent Character Evolution: In story mode, your gene-thief ants only have workers at the beginning. You have to use royal jelly to unlock other species as your units. You can only pick one type of wood ants, leafcutter ants, fire ants and matabele ants per colony. The choice is permanent. You can also unlock two additional abilities for each unit, including your queen, which let your colony keep up with the formicarium challenges.
- Leitmotif: A piano piece plays whenever you are in the formicarium. The combat music for the area is simply an alteration of that piano piece.
- The Protagonist: They are the protagonists of story mode. Attempting to be more specific is superfluous since they lack the capacity to understand morality.
- Technician Versus Performer: Formicarium challenge 3 has the player gene-thief colony face off against a rival colony, which is implied to be the one that provided the ants in the previous formicarium challenges. The rival colony is the technician, which focuses solely on strong melee units, while the player colony is the performer, which uses a more variety of units like melee attackers, ranged shooters and tanks, further customized to suit the player's strategy. The performer ends up outmaneuvering and defeating the technician.
- Trademark Favorite Food: They are omnivores, but seeds are often seen as their primary food source. The male scientist feeds them with large numbers of seeds as a reward after you complete a mission.
Black Ants (Formica fusca)
Black ants are playable as a complete species. They are the most basic ant species in the game.- Adaptational Wimp: Real black ants can shoot formic acid. This ability is restricted to wood ants in-game, and devs
explicitly stated that the reason black ants in particular can't use this is to keep them as generic as possible. - The Generic Guy: They have no ability and offer no unique playstyle, as they are meant to get you used to the basic gameplay.
- Jack of All Stats: They have average stats and only gain a bit more stats when leveled up.
Wood Ants (Formica rufa)
Wood ants are playable as a complete species. They are famous for shooting acid from abdomen as defense.- Butt Cannon: Wood ants can shoot formic acid from abdomen, dealing venom-type damage.
- Glass Cannon: The shooters have low health and high attacking damage.
- Mutually Exclusive Magic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between mortar shooters or rapid-fire shooters. Level 3 mortar shooters can do splash damage while level 3 rapid-fire shooters can slow enemies down.
- Shown Their Work: You start mission 2.1 with 3 black ant workers and a dead black ant queen next to your queen. In real life, a young wood ant queen will infiltrate a black ant nest, kill the queen and trick the black ant workers to work for her until the first few wood ants are ready to work.
- Signature Move: Formic acid strikes, which are the only ranged attacks usable by ants in the game.
- Stone Wall: The melee soldiers have high health and low attacking damage.
Leafcutter Ants (Atta cephalotes)
Leafcutter ants are playable as a complete species. They are famous for growing fungus from harvested leaves.- The Big Guy: Leafcutter majors are the largest among ant units, even bigger than other species' queen. They are preferably used to take hits from the enemies while the smaller units do the actual fighting beneath them. Their sheer size prevents them from being devoured by spiders and mantises.
- Equippable Ally: Level 3 mediae and majors can get two minims to board them and fend off the annoying phorid flies while they are busy carrying leaves.
- Foil: To the wood ants.
- Wood ants are carnivores while leafcutter ants are fungivores.
- Wood ant special unit is a glass cannon while leafcutter ant special unit is a tank.
- Wood ant missions let you play defensively in your nest while leafcutter ant missions force you to play offensively against opposing colonies.
- Irony: While leaf cutter ants are one of the more herbivorous ants in the game, they're also significantly more aggressive than their predecessors, the wood ants, because they cannot turtle up and eat the enemies trying to raid their nests.
- Mutually Exclusive Magic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between taunt majors or stun majors. Level 3 taunt major gain extra defense at low health while level 3 stun major can slow enemies down.
- No-Sell: Majors are immune to knockback and stun.
- Picky Eater: Leafcutter ants are physically incapable of picking up insect corpses for food a they can only eat the fungus they grow from leaves.
- Signature Move: Beyond the stun/taunt power, leaf cutter majors have immunity to stun and knockback.
- Trademark Favorite Food: Their only food source is the fungus cultivated from harvested leaves. In freeplay mode, choosing leafcutter ants will allow harvestable plants to appear on the map.
Fire Ants (Solenopsis invicta)
Fire ants are playable as a complete species. They are famous for using their own bodies to build rafts and bridges. They can spawn two ants from one tile at level 3.- Adaptational Wimp: Real-life fire ants have the ability to use offensive gaster flagging, just like the little black ants. It has been confirmed that this is to make each species unique and give them different play styles.
- Beware My Stinger Tail: Both fire ant workers and soldiers have stinger on their abdomen. They sting after every few bites, dealing venom-type damage.
- Foil: To the leafcutter ants.
- Leafcutter ants and fire ants hold records for the largest and smallest queen in the game respectively. Leafcutter minims and fire ant workers are also the smallest ant units in the game.
- Both are aggressive. Leafcutter ants are territorial while the fire ants are predatory.
- Leafcutter ant special units are big and expensive soldiers that can take a lot of hits from enemies. Fire ants special units are small and cheap soldiers that can quickly swarm over enemies.
- Leafcutter ants have muscular jaws for cutting up leaves while fire ants have venomous stingers.
- From Bad to Worse: Both of their focus missions involve a bad situation becoming worse, in second through no fault of their own.
- Their first mission sees a newly arrived queen having to deal with a female american bullfrog that lives just north of the her nest. When the bullfrog is finally repelled, it turns out she was repelling a horde of smaller amphibians, which then zero in on the fire ant nest and become the final opponents of the mission.
- Mission 3.2, "A Bridge Too Far", sees a newly mated queen land on a mound of dirt, which is in extreme danger of flooding. Then, midway through her colonies preparations to leave, a giant dragonfly that had previously been skimming overhead attacks them. Of course, taking down the dragonfly provides a much needed extra amount of food.
- Logical Weakness: If a Fire Ant bridge is destroyed, any ants on far side of the bridge will panic and die, as they no longer have a connection to the colony.
- Misplaced Wildlife: This is justified as Solenopsis invicta is one of the most prolific invasive species on Earth. So while the species is native to South America, the missions are set in a swamp in North Carolina, USA.
- Mutually Exclusive Magic: At the beginning of a mission, you are allowed to choose between pervasive soldiers or vigorous soldiers. Pervasive soldiers can hatch for free if they have been incubated for a long period. Vigorous soldiers gain a boost in stats for a short period after spawning.
- Signature Move: Stings, spawning two per tile with max upgrades and using their bodies to build bridges. And while all ants can climb titans, fire ants are especially suited to this due to being able to use all attacks and having the numbers to create dedicated groups for swarming enemies and scaling them simultaneously.
- Super Drowning Skills: Downplayed — while they will drown if immersed in water, fire ants used to make bridges will only be at risk of being washed away if the water level suddenly changes. This is in fact a plot point for "A Bridge Too Far", where the fire ants must mass enough of their workers/warriors to build a raft to escape an impending flood.
- Zerg Rush: As ants that can spawn two per tile, you're encouraged to use them to swarm enemies. Their unique powers, however, can skew how best they are used in rushes. This is especially encouraged with the vigorous brood, as it gives a rapidly decaying Status Buff when the ants first hatch, encouraging you to immediately send them into battle. Pervasive Brood ants are best kept in reserve until a later rush, so that they can take advantage of free respawns.
Matabele ants (Megaponera analis)
Matabele ants are confirmed to be playable as a complete species in the 5th set of missions. They are famous for raiding termite nests and taking care of the wounded.- The Medic: The medic units can heal nearby allies every time they hit their attacks. Additionally, downed ants can be carried back to the nest to be healed later.
- Shown Their Work: As opposed to just healing injured ants via their attacks, Matabele Ants can also drag back downed members of the colony to their nests to be brought back to fighting shape. This is accurate to the real ants, who perform triage inside their nests.
- Signature Move: Healing other ants via their attacks.
- Trademark Favorite Food: They are known for eating only termites.
Slavemaker Ants (Formica sanguinea)
Slavemaker ants are only playable as gene-thief ant units. They are famous for stealing larvae from other colonies to raise as their own.- Bandit Mook: Slavemaker ants steal larvae from other colonies. The stealers will sneak past your defense line while the tanky soldiers act as distraction.
- Foil: To the gene thief ants. Both have other ant species in their colonies. However, slavemaker ants steal larvae from other colonies while gene-thief ants outright transform into other species.
- Signature Move: Slavemaker ants can steal brood from tiles, which also temporarily prevents the tile from holding new brood.
Trap-jaw Ants (Odontomachus baurii)
Trap-jaw ants are only playable as gene-thief ant units. They are famous for their immense bite force.- Adaptational Wimp: Real trapjaw ants have stingers. Only fire ants have stingers in-game.
- Foil: To the leafcutter ants. Both have incredibly powerful bite forces. However, the leafcutter ants use their jaws to carve up plants while the trapjaw ants use their jaws to kill preys.
- Signature Move: Launching themselves via their jaws.
- Tactical Withdrawal: These ants can use their jaws as catapults to eject themselves out of danger and heal themselves in the process.
Army Ants (Eciton Burcheii)
Army ants are only playable as gene-thief ant units. They are famous for devastating anything on their hunting trail.- Adaptational Wimp: Real army ants can sting. In-game, only fire ants can do this.
- The Cavalry: In mission 3.2, scouts will occasionally appear on empty lanes. After spotting your ants, they quickly run back to their swarm calling for reinforcement. Killing the scouts can prevent the reinforcement from arriving.
- Foil:To the leafcutter ants. Both have huge majors with powerful jaws protecting their harvesting trail. However, the leafcutter ants are fungus farmers while the army ants are nomadic hunters.
- Power Glows: Majors release orange pheromone cloud when their ability is activated. The pheromone cloud was later change to red glow for better performance.
- Signature Move: Majors can release pheromones that increase the damage their allies inflict.
- Status Buff: Majors can increase the damage of their allies every time they hit their attacks.
Little Black Ants (Monomorium minimum)
Little black ants are confirmed to be playable as a complete species after the swamp missions are released. They are the smallest ant species in the game.- Fartillery: By waving their gasters, they release foul-smelling odor to debuff enemies.
- Signature Move: Little black ants can gaster flag enemies, which can inflict confusion.
Big-headed Ants (Pheidole morrisii)
Big-headed ants are confirmed to be playable as a complete species after the swamp missions are released. The super-soldiers possess huge heads with powerful bites, which however make them quite clumsy.- Signature Move: Not necessarily a move, but they can produce soldiers with gigantic heads that are clumsy yet devastating in close combat.
- Waddling Head: Downplayed in that they have visible bodies, but the heads of their specialist warriors are far too large for their bodies.
Driver ants (Dorylus)
Driver ants are confirmed to be enemies in the 5th set of missions. They are known for devastating everything on their hunting trail.- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: Only time will tell, but their behavior in real-life in analogous to army ants.
Bullet Ants
Bullet ants are confirmed to be playable only as the last gene-thief ant units in story mode. They are known for their huge size and incredibly powerful stings.- Contest Winner Cameo: They are one of the kickstarter rewards and are set to be the last gene-thief ant units in the story mode.
Arachnids
They are the developers' favorite type of enemies. The beach wolf spider is even the protagonist of its own missions.
- Spiders Are Scary: The arachnids are depicted to be menacing forces. They are usually the strongest and fastest in their environment.
Funnelweb Spiders (Segestria florentina)
Funnelweb spiders are enemies that build funnel-shaped nests in the log missions.- Chest Monster: Their nests are filled with delicious insect remains. Any small creatures stepping on the webs will be slowed down and then captured by the fast spiders.
- Fragile Speedster: They have low health and high speed.
Beach Wolf Spiders (Arctosa littoralis)
Beach wolf spiders are nocturnal enemies in the beach missions.- Dungeon Bypass: Any wolf spiders entering your nest can run pass your defense to a random brood chamber.
- Final Boss: Some adult female spiders act as the final opponents in Rising Tide.
- Hyperactive Metabolism: Adult spiders can devour small creatures to replenish their health in battle.
- Lightning Bruiser: The adults have high health, speed and attack.
- Status Effects: Large spiders can occasionally inject venom to enemies, damaging them over time.
- The Protagonist: A beach wolf spider is the protagonist of the holiday missions. It's voiced by the community manager Mike.
Harvestmen
Harvestmen are common surface enemies in the rainforest missions.- An Arm and a Leg: They drop one leg as distraction and run away at low health.
- Cowardly Mooks: They avoid groups of insects and tend to attack lone ones.
- Status Effects: They can constanly stun multiple enemies at once, making them
annoying to deal with.
Jumping Spiders (Psecas viridipurpureus)/ Magnolia Green Jumper (Lyssomanes viridis)
Jumping spider variants are diurnal enemies in the rainforest and swamp missions.- Cowardly Mooks: They avoid groups of insects and tend to attack lone ones. They run away when surrounded.
- Dungeon Bypass: Any jumping spiders entering your nest can run pass your defense to a random brood chamber.
- Fragile Speedster: They have low health and high speed.
- Underground Monkey: Magnolia green jumpers are variants of jumping spiders, with different models, stats and abilities.
Whip Spiders (Heterophrynus batesii )
Whip spiders are nocturnal enemies in the rainforest missions.- Blade Below the Shoulder: They have huge pedipalps covered with large and sharp spines, which help impaling and immobilizing any prey within their range.
- Final Boss: A huge whip spider act as the final opponent in Aggrandise.
- Mighty Glacier: Whip spiders have the high health and attack. However, they have low speed and need to constantly reposition themselves in battle to make use of their long pedipalps.
- Optional Boss: A huge whip spiders can be found in Frontline, hidden under a log. It will emerge after some time has passed, depending on difficulty. It guards some of the largest harvestable plants on the map.
- Status Effects: The adults have various attacking patterns to deal with different situations. They can either knock enemies back and stun them or cause all nearby enemies to bleed, damaging them over time.
Green Lynx Spiders (Peucetica viridans)
Green lynx spiders are the largest true spiders in the game. They are enemies in the swamp missions.Six-spotted Fishing Spiders (Dolomedes triton)
Six-spotted fishing spiders can walk on water to attack fire ant bridges. They are challenge mode enemies in the swamp missions.- Walk on Water: Their legs afford them enough weight dispersion to avoid breaking water surface tension. This allows them to be a direct threat to fire ant bridges.
Sun Spiders
They are confirmed from Liam's stream to be enemies in the 5th set of missions. Other Creatures
The various creatures you need to fight to survive.
Woodworms
Woodworms are harmless beetle larvae in the log missions.- Harmless Enemy: They are incapable of doing any damage.
- The Woobie: They can only crawl away in fear when attacked.
Devil's Coach Horse Beetles (Ocypus solens)/ Green Rove Beetles (Phanolinus auratus)/ Blue Rove Beetles (Plochionocerus fulgens)
Rove beetle variants are common underground enemies in the log, beach and rainforest missions.- Mooks: They are the most common enemies you face in the game.
- Status Effects: The adults can release a foul-smelling gas from their abdomen that damage and disrupt nearby enemies.
- Underground Monkey: They are variants of rove beetles, with different models, stats and abilities.
Woodlice
Woodlice are harmless crustaceans in the log missions.- Harmless Enemy: They are incapable of doing any damage.
- Heavily Armored Mook: At low health, they can cling to the ground to gain extra resistance.
Mole Crickets (Gryllotalpa gryllotalpa)
Mole crickets are challenge mode enemies in the log missions.- Dungeon Bypass: These crickets invade your brood chambers from above. There is no way to prevent this from happening.
- Final Boss: An Uber mole cricket acts as the final boss for Excavators.
Beach Tiger Beetles (Cicindella dorsalis)/ Six-spotted Tiger Beetles (Cicindella sexguttata)
Tiger beetle variants are diurnal enemies in the beach and swamp missions. Beach tiger beetle larvae are challenge mode enemies in the beach missions.- Antlion Monster: Beach tiger beetle larvae bury themselves underground. Unlike antlions, they have to leave their burrows to attack, exposing their soft bodies.
- Lightning Bruiser: The adults have high health, speed and attack.
- Status Effects: The adult beach tiger beetles can stun multiple enemies at once.
- Underground Monkey: Six-spotted tiger beetles are variants of tiger beetles, with different models, stats and abilities.
Hermit Crabs
Hermit crabs are nocturnal enemies in the beach missions.- Heavily Armored Mook: At low health, they can retreat into their shells to gain extra resistance and heal themselves in the process.
- Optional Boss: In Babysitting, an Uber hermit crab can be found hidden under a log. Killing it is not required to beat the mission. It was left there as a joke during a developing stream.
Root Aphids
Root aphids are one of your primary food sources.- Helpful Mook: They constantly secrete honeydew and repopulate, making them a reliable food source for your colony.
Ladybugs
Ladybugs are obstacles for harvesting honeydew.- Bandit Mook: Ladybugs will occasionally swoop down to eat your aphids. They will fly away at low health.
Spiny Devil Bush Crickets (Panacanthus varius)
Spiny devil bush crickets are nocturnal enemies in the rainforest missions.- The Spiny: They are covered with short spines that can damage any enemies making direct contact with them.
- Status Effects: The adults can cause all nearby enemies to bleed, damaging them over time.
Leaf-mimic Praying Mantises (Pseudoxyops perpulchra)
Leaf mimic praying mantises are diurnal enemies in the rainforest missions.- Hyperactive Metabolism: Adult mantises can devour small creatures to replenish their health in battle.
- Stealthy Mook: They cannot be seen on the minimap. Their health bar can only be shown in battle.
Phorid Flies
Phorid flies are challenge mode enemies in the rainforest missions.- Airborne Mook: Phorid flies swarm above harvestable plants, far from leafcutter ants' reach.
- Chest Burster: An example involving the head — phorid flies lay eggs in the heads of leafcutter ants (and only leaf cutter ants), which hatch into larvae that slowly turn the ant's innards into mush. While this will eventually kill the ant in question, the more pressing concern is that afflicted ants suffer massive debuffs that make them worse than useless for anything. This can be an absolute death sentence for the player in "The Harvest", since you need to race against another colony to collect the most leaves.
- Puppeteer Parasite: Although infected ants don't lose health and can still follow orders, they receive multiple debuffs, which drastically hinder their harvesting ability, and die after a short period.
Velvet Worms
Velvet worms are centipede-like creatures that can shoot sticky liquid to defend themselves. Due to their complex movement and the overhaul of movement code, they are put on the back burner. The developers want to keep them in the game in the future.- Early-Bird Cameo: Somewhat - they are first mentioned by the narrator during 3.1, but wouldn't be added into the game until over a year later during the "Adventure" update (which, to be fair, did include them in level 3.1).
- Giant Mook: Like most non-beetle arthropods, adults are merely upscaled juveniles and lack any special models or moves.
- Status Infliction Attack: Enemies hit by their goo attack are slowed.
Bombardier Beetles (Brachinus altenans)
Bombadier beetles can shoot a powerful stream of scalding liquid from their abdomens. They are enemies in the swamp missions.- Butt Cannon: They shoot scalding liquid from their abdomen.
False Bombardier Beetles (Galerita bicolor)
False bombadier beetles can shoot formic acid from their abdomens like wood ants. They disguise themselves as true bombardier beetles for protection. They are enemies in the swamp missions.- Butt Cannon: They shoot formic acid from their abdomen.
Checkered Beetle (Enoclerus rosmarus)
Checkered beetles are diurnal enemies in the swamp missions.- Divergent Character Evolution: While they are analogous to the rove beetles faced in previous missions, checkered beetles have several differences stemming from how, like the tiger beetles, they're in a different beetle family. First, they are much slower than the rove beetles, with both larvae and adults relying on stronger bites and armor to compensate. Second, they don't have any abdomen gas attacks, as that goes to the Bombardier Beetle and False Bombardier Beetle. Finally, as part of a developer paradigm shift, grubs and imagos drop far less food than the rove beetles, meaning that losses against them can rapidly add up.
- The Generic Guy: They don't have any ability or gimmick.
- Suspiciously Similar Substitute: While lacking in the Fartillery department, the grubs and adults act as the swamp version of the rove beetle enemies faced in previous maps.
Velvet Ants (Dasymutilla occidentalis)
Velvet ants are socially parasitic wasps that cannot fly. They are enemies in the swamp missions.- Beware My Stinger Tail: At low health, they can retaliate using their long venomous stinger.
- Non-Indicative Name: They are socially parasitic wasps, not ants. They disguise as ants for protection.
- The Spiny: Their bodies are covered with thin spines that can damage any enemies making direct contact with them.
Wasp Mantidfly (Climaciella bunnea)
Wasp mantidflies are enemies in the swamp missions.- Exactly What It Saysonthe Tin: They are flies that have mantis-like forelegs and wasp coloring.
Great Blue Skimmers (Libellula vibrans)
Great blue skimmers are titan enemies in the swamp missions.- Airborne Mook: They stay in the air most of the time and only swoop down to attack.
- Giant Flyer: They are flying titans within the scope of the game.
- Screw This, I'm Out of Here!: Once she's taken enough damage, the skimmer will take to the air, fly for a bit, and land at a different part of the outcropping you're on. If you don't press that assault again, she will fly away again, this time for good.
- Skippable Boss: If the player manages to reach the required number of fire ants for "A Bridge Too Far" before night 4, they can complete the mission without ever fighting the Skimmer. Note that if the Skimmer does land, defeating it effectively becomes mandatory, as she will actively slaughter your ants until killed/repelled.
Termites (Marcrotemes bellicosus)
They are the world's largest termites, which are known for building massive mounds. They are confirmed to be enemies for the 5th set of missions. They will have a food processing system similar to leafcutter ants.Predator Plants
Venus flytraps, pitcher plants, and sundews are enemies in the swamp missions.- Chest Monster: Both plants produce an edible nectar-like substance that your ants can collect, but they carry a percentage change to be trigger, killing the ant harvesting them. The nectar is a valid food source, though, and not just bait, so the player must ask themself a question — ignore the food supply or risk losing your ants in the harvest?
- Additionally, pitcher plants have spiders living on/in them that will try to eat your ants.
- Note that only the pitcher plants' nectar is real, though — the material produced by flytraps and sundew is bait.
Pine Woods Tree Frog (Hyla femoralis)
Pine woods tree frog are enemies in the swamp missions.American Bullfrog (Lithobates catesbeianus)
American bullfrogs are titan enemies in the swamp missions.- Always a Bigger Fish: Introduced eating a narrow-mouthed toad. This ends up being important, as once she flees, a whole horde of newts and toads she was keeping away descend upon the fire ants.
- Kaiju: They are the largest creatures in the game.
- Know When to Fold 'Em: Once she's taken enough of a beating, the female bullfrog fought in Mission 4.1 flees, leaving players to fight the horde of amphibians that were too afraid to face her.
Narrow-mouthed Toad (Gastrophryne carolinensis)
Narrow-mouthed toad are enemies in the swamp missions.- Violation of Common Sense: While most enemies that invade your nest are best defeated by trapping them in bottlenecks, not only can the toad dig through your nest (which makes a bottleneck impractical), but they can also eat multiple ants in one bite, encouraging you to instead face them in open areas and attack them from all sides.
Dwarf Salamanders (Eurycea quadridigitata)
Dwarf salamanders are enemies in the swamp missions.- Aquatic Mook: Like all amphibians, they can swim, and are introduced swimming.
Rainbow Lizards
They are confirmed from Liam's stream to be enemies in the 5th set of missions. The Humans
The Scientists
Two scientists observe a colony of Formica ereptor in their lab.- Confess to a Lesser Crime: Following the second formicarium challenge, the male scientist told his colleague that the gene thief ants successfully repelled forty wood ants, much to her alarm, as she only wanted at most thirty to be sent against the colony. By this point, your colony should have fought three tiger beetles, ten wolf spiders, and well over one hundred ants from three different colonies.
- Crazy-Prepared: The third formicarium the ants are moved to has several mosses growing out of its highest level (and if you take the time to look, all of them have labels). Given that when the scientist hides the ants in a cupboard, a light comes on, its heavily implied that he was planning to disguise their new home as a moss-growing experiment, where he could then brush off the ants being in there as contamination.
- Evilutionary Biologist: The Male Scientist delves into this on occasion, what with him creating the Royal Jelly and using it to power up the ants. Fully steps into this role during Formicarium Challenge 4, where he uses said jelly to create nightmarish hybrids to challenge the ants with.
- The Faceless: Only the male scientist's hands are visible in the game.
- Jerkass Gods: The scientists might as well be gods compared to the ants, and the male one tends to go out of his way to make the ereptor colony's life more difficult purely for his own amusement. He even refers to his finger crushing the ants as 'the hand of god'.
- Mad Scientist: The male one is a downplayed example even though the developers have literally called him "Evil Scientist". He's more interested in amusing himself by having the gene thief ants fight other creatures in increasingly more elaborate battles rather than giving them reasonable challenges. He's also the one responsible for providing the gene thief ants with royal jelly, something the female scientist doesn't approve of. Other than that, he doesn't really act like a typical mad scientist. He finally comes into this role in full during the Fourth Formicarium Challenge, where it's revealed that his royal jelly can hybridize any two species, resulting in the hybrids.
- Narrator: They narrate for the gene thief colony. Their opening dialogue following a completed mission will reflect whatever resource you chose to receive extra amounts of for completing the mission. They have unique dialogue following the completion of the formicarium challenges.
- One-Hit Kill: In formicarium challenge 3, the male scientist uses his own finger to crush your ants if you try to fight in the open.
- Only Sane Man: The female scientist prioritizes getting results from research over personal amusement, forcing the male scientist to avoid doing anything too stupid around her. She also wants the colony disposed of once the tests are completed, since she's probably aware of the damage they could cause if they were released into the wild.
The Narrator
He was planned to be the scientist who studies the migration of gene thief ants in the wild. Currently, he is only the narrator for the missions of story mode and freeplay mode. Spoiler Characters
Hybrids
Hybrid creatures created by the Male Scientist using Royal Jelly. Unmarked Spoilers Ahead!- Body Horror: Using the royal jelly on incompatible hosts (read:anything not an ant) makes it possible to fuse together animals that should not be able to hybridize in real life. The first one is a hybrid between a hermit crab and a scorpion, the second is actually a pair of whip-spider and mantis hybrids, while the third is a misshapen combination of tarantula and dragonfly.
- Boss Rush: All four of the hybrids are faced in succession during the Fourth Formicarium Challenge.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: They're hybrids of two different arthropods, albeit misshapen ones that clearly would not be able to function in real life.
- Outside-Context Problem: While the ereptor already demonstrated weird powers from Royal Jelly, these creatures take it to a completely different level — all of them a frankenstein's monster-esque abominations created by the Male Scientist using Royal Jelly, and from his comments, it's implied that he actually did this by fusing together live arthropods as opposed to breeding them. Gameplay wise, these creatures have unique powersets that no other creature in the game has, with two of them even having parts from creatures that aren't even in the game yet!
- Power-Up Letdown: While each hybrid gets new powers and abilities from the animals they are fused from, this also comes with drawbacks. Beyond the ones listed with each individual hybrid, the Male Scientist notes that none of them will survive longer than a day.
Hermit-Scorpion
The first hybrid created by the Male Scientist, it is a fusion of a hermit crab and a scorpion.- Beware My Stinger Tail: Has a scorpion stinger tail hidden under its hermit-crab shell. Damage done from mounting will cause the shell to break faster, exposing the tail sooner.
- Power-Up Letdown: Its two different parents impair its ability to attack and defend properly — it can't use its tail while its snail shell is still intact.
- Turns Red: Taking enough damage to its snail shell causes said shell to shatter, allowing the hybrid to use its tail to attack.
The Twins
A pair of whip-spider and mantis hybrids. They do not like each other.- Cain and Abel: The two of them do not like each other, and try to kill each other before the scientist throws them into the formicarium. Players can exploit this by luring them into attacking each other, saving you time and ants killing them. Justified considering that they are not actually siblings but rival predators who had body parts swapped with each other.
- Dual Boss: You fight both of them at the same time. That being said, they hate each other, so you can easily trick them into killing one another and saving you time and food.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: One has the body and head of a whip spider with the arms of a mantis, while the other has the body and head of a mantis with the arms of a whip spider. It's implied in the dialogue introducing them (and the accompanying sound effects) that the scientist actually used the Royal Jelly to surgically transplant their arms onto each other.
- Set a Mook to Kill a Mook: The optimal strategy for defeating them is to manipulate them into fighting each other so that they wear each other out, optimally ending in one killing the other.
Dragantula
The last of the hybrids fought in the Fourth Formicarium Challenge, it is a fusion of a dragonfly and a tarantula.- Body Horror: It has spider legs on one half of its body and dragonfly legs on the other, a spider's cephalothorax attached to a dragonfly's abodomen, and its wings do not look like they were meant for this kind of animal. Oh, and it has its dragonfly head on one of its pediapalps.
- Final Boss: The last enemy that must be slain in Formicarium Challenge Four.
- Outside-Context Problem: Beyond being a hybrid, this creature incorporates parts from tarantulas, which not only haven't yet shown up in the game as normal enemies, but have not been implied to be enemies the player will fight at all.
- Power-Up Letdown: It may have combined the strength of a tarantula with a dragonfly's speed and flight, but those wings were NOT meant to hold up something that large - it will often stun itself after launching a powerful attack.
- Wings Do Nothing: Justified and Downplayed — while the dragantula has dragonfly wings, these are not meant for an animal of its size, so it only uses them for a few attacks (one of which leaves it stunned).
