Team17 and Piraknights Games have announced Sintopia, a god game where you play as the devil. Wait… It’s a management game where you manage Hell. That’s better. It’s set to release in Early Access sometime in 2025.
The trailer and press materials don’t really do a great job of explaining what goes on in Sintopia, but I’ll do my best here. It has two sides to its gameplay. There’s Hell, where you gain profit by punishing people for their sins. They’re eventually resurrected back to Earth, where you then influence them to sin more, then when they die, you can punish them all over again to make more money. I hope I’m describing this right.
The trailer depicts something that looks like a game Bullfrog or Lionhead would do back in the ‘90s. The overworld reminds me of Dungeon Keeper (though the game itself looks nothing like it). The Hell segment of the game have a bit of a Startopia or Theme Hospital look to them, but also the souls you’re punishing look to be on a conveyor belt, perhaps. I’m intrigued.
I’m also curious about the overworld. The trailer shows off a succubus seducing an army and a building catching fire. It seems like there’s a balance you need to keep regarding influx and sins. As in, you can’t just get greedy, push everyone to sin, then kill everyone for massive gains. In one of the press release’s more lucid statements, they say:
“Make sure your souls go through an effective “re-education” to avoid a buildup of their Sins across many lives… no one wants to face the demonic invasion that will inevitably result from having too much corruption in the world.”
I’m interested. As I said, it looks like a Bullfrog game, and while a lot of those games would deliver on ambition but often fumble parts of the execution, the fact that there was nothing really like them makes them memorable. And that could be the case here, but I wouldn’t know, there’s a weird dearth of information.
We’ll no doubt learn more as Sintopia approaches its early access launch in 2025.
Published: Oct 30, 2024 01:00 pm