There’s a quote often bandied about by people who wish to stroke their beards while they enthuse about gaming (something I’m very guilty of myself). It comes from the mouth of strategy genius Sid Meier, who stated that games are a series of interesting decisions. If that holds true, there’s one game which represents this ideal to an almost absurdly pure degree – Solium Infernum. A brand new update has just landed for the game, bringing a ton of new stuff to your infernal empire.
Released in 2009 and remade this year to rapturous applause by the beard-strokers of the world, Solium Infernum puts you in the sulfurous boots of an archfiend as you vie over the throne of Hell after the big winged lad himself has gone missing. In most 4X games you’ll have downtime and your empire will expand to a ridiculous size, but Solium Infernum strips the genre back to its purest form. Every decision you make, no matter how small, matters – even if you don’t see the full implications for many turns to come. You won’t have huge armies marching across the map. Instead it mixes together diplomacy, back-stabbing, skulduggery, soul-powered rituals, and your finest Machivellian machinations in order to see your star rise as you climb to take the biggest seat around.
Our Solium Infernum review goes into some depth about how all this works and just why it’s the greatest strategy game of 2024. Add into that some DLC which launched a couple months ago and regular patches, and you can begin to see why this is such an infernal treasure. There’s still no slack from developer League of Geeks, today’s patch refuses to slouch towards Bethlehem and brings a ton of new stuff to the game.
Two new artifacts, Wyrmm Mounts and Skull of the Vile Saint bring their foul magics to bear, the second of which also adds a new ritual – Ashen Aegis – which lets you boost the HP of places of power you control. The Pillar of Skulls enters the game as a place of power, a little treat for any Planescape: Torment fans out there. There’s also a couple of new additional rituals – Blight Wisdom and Raid the Library – aimed at interrupting your opponents’ ability to collect manuscripts.
As developer League of Geeks is currently embarking on a break from game development, this may prove to be the last major update of this kind we see for a while. You can get the full patch notes over on Steam, along with some truly hellish art for each of the new features.
Why not also take a look at our guide to the best Solium Infernum relics, or our picks for the best grand strategy games you can play in 2024.
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