A Magnum Opus to Hell-Genre and Political Game deserving to be the indie game of the year;

Of all the games with thematics based on Hell or Christian hell from Heretic's Fork (a roguelike tower-defense deck-building based on Dante's Divine Comedy) to Inferno (an indie sokoban also based on Dante's Divine Comedy), Solium Infernum is really the cherry on the top of the cake.

For the basics, Solium Infernum is a hex-based turn-based tactics political simulation based on Hell with inspiration and easter eggs in-game from world famous literature Paradise Lost By John Milton considered to be the greatest English author, Divine Comedy by Dante Alighieri considered to be the Supreme Poet and God's Demon by Wayne Barlowe.

The game has everything you wish for an armchair Machiavellian, an aspiring Mastermind and an All-For-One villain with edifice complex hungering for a political simulation. All warlocks, demonologists and cultists gathered forth on February 22, 2024 with the advent of this wonderful remake of a 2009 masterpiece indie game with the same name. Kudos to Victor J. Davis for creating that indie game which in turned inspired Anthony and Trent of League of Geeks studio to transform it with a modern take and make it available for everyone. The game might be dark but there is no darkest sin if not to play this game at all.

Abandon all simple IQ gaming and impatience when you buy this game. First definitely you must buy the game. Yes it costs $33.9 USD but fret not for this game has infinite replayability as the deepest abyss itself. This game is easy to learn the few fundamentals but to master and conquer it will take you to the ninth level of hell where you wish one day to meet the Dark Majesty himself. It took me 55 turns to win in the tutorial taking more than a few hours to complete it. Astaroth is the first archfiend I won with by using brute force now I plan to win with rest.

The feeling of any victory in this game is like the salvation of the damned. Yes there are multiple victory conditions in this game in fact If I recall correctly there are 4 ways but it is up to you to learn it by yourself. One I'll give is to be the Power Behind the Throne; ever heard of the tragedy of Tywin Lannister? Yea be that guy in this game, the crownless king just like how he was when all his family was in King's Landing. Though try not to die while playing the game in a toilet bowl.

Needless to say this game has artworks comparable to a gallery in Italian Renaissance, the oil painting done by Dominik Mayer is breathtaking and I would gladly even buy an artbook of this game. Take note devs >:D I don't know about the other artists but for sure they also did excellent works such as the UI/UX designer. Of all the games I bought since 2020 no other UI has better accent than Solium Infernum. You can see the thematic colors of red, gold and black that accentuates the feeling of being an archfiend of hell.

With all the beauty of visual aesthetics, the sense of hearing is not forgotten. The music is epic and an upcoming soundtrack will provide delight to all music fiends. The game music also helps you relax while you fine-tune your strategies. Eternal Nights by Sarah is fitting theme for you play this game in endless nights.

Then for the loremasters, the game has a built-in encyclopedia known as Encyclopedia Infernum a fitting repository of hellish knowledge. The only caveat I have with this codex is that there should be multiple colors for quality of life searching and colorblind. One thing to excite the loremasters is the section of the Praetors, where most of the demons found in the lesser key of Solomon are found. Yes I mentioned those 72 demons; one of them is in the Conjuring movie part 2 and the other is in League of Legends inside the hands/body of a man named Jericho Swain, a champion that would play Solium Infernum before League above all else.

The game despite fully launch has lots of potential to grow even further. The maps are just still 3 imagine if they added new map realms from Heaven itself to other type of hells maybe those inspired from Asian Hell such as Buddhist Hells (Naraka) or the underworld of Shintoism (Yomi). Of course the current 8 archfiends are based on the eight evil thoughts but in hell there are more archfiends than you can imagine. There can be also more game modes and more campaign/scenarios.

The only drawback I have for the game is that it is not a laptop friendly game especially to those who own budget laptops. I'm using an Asus TUF 15 gaming laptop model year 2020 to write this review and play Solium Infernum with all the settings in low and all other effects disabled with a resolution of 1600x400@144 HZ, the game still has optimization issues and memory leak especially in the later parts of the game. Otherwise if you have an above average laptop, my goodness don't miss out on this masterpiece.

I would also love to let you all know on how friendly and hospitable the League of Geeks developers and staff are. Kudos to Trent for helping me in many ways playing the beta and for Chan in reading all my suggestions both in the Steam forums and Discord channel. One of the few developers in Steam that takes community feedback and implement as they can the changes you sought to better the game.

I might have received the game for free but I'm not biased in my review for I also bought my girlfriend this game so we can now enjoy co-op skirmish vs AI or are we even going co-op? Oh yea it is a free for all guess who will win this time? If I have the money like Mammon I would have bought this game 666th time so to all who read my review and to all my dear friends who love decision making, this game is a worthy collection to be played in your game library.

For Steam collectors of community items, I already suggested to Chan and LoG Devs what you may want for as Solium Infernum's point shop items in the discussion thread. Avatars of the archfiends, a game profile, animated backgrounds and emoticons hopefully they will come later.

I leave this review with a cryptic message;

What is Hell? But other people.

What is Solium Infernum? A masterpiece waiting to be in your Steam Library. Just play it.

The Dark Majesty might be coming for you if you won't.