Solium Infernum

Play it on: Windows (Steam Deck YMMV)
Current goal: Rule the underworld

Solium Infernum was a strategy game about rival hell fiends by Cryptic Comet that originally released in 2009. This year, League of Geeks released a remake which I’m told updated the graphics but also made some of the underlying gameplay a bit deeper and a bit more accessible. I didn’t play the original, which was a cult favorite at the time. I’ve been playing a lot of the latest version, however, and I’m completely obsessed. Unlike most strategy games in the 4X mold of the Civ series, Solium Infernum ditches resource management and military upkeep in favor of focusing primarily on diplomacy and leveraging specific events, spells, and hellworld minions to reach the win conditions.

It’s much more like a tabletop game in which everything’s been streamlined for top-level decision-making rather than fumbling around with menus and branching tech trees. Explaining it that way might give the impression that Solium is shallow, but that’s not the case either. At any given moment you’re trying to analyze the tradeoffs and turn delays associated with everything from consolidating resources in limited inventory slots to whether you can commission and upgrade lieutenants fast enough to maintain the balance of power as one rival consumes another. I haven’t yet played it with other humans, which is apparently where the real fun actually begins. For the moment, mastering the basics against AI opponents has been enough to keep me glued to my computer until 2:00 in the morning. — Ethan Gach

And that wraps our recommendations for this week. Happy gaming!