We've been spoiled for city-builders and institutional managements sims in recent years, but successors to the Peter Molyneux-style god game have been considerably thinner on the ground. Molyneux himself has whipped out his giant, disembodied hand for one last grab at glory in Masters of Albion, but PCG writer Joshua Wolen's wasn't convinced by it in our recent preview.
However, there is now another project aiming to rekindle the glory days of Dungeon Keeper and Black & White, and that's Sintopia—a hybrid of management sim and god game published by Team 17. It's arriving around the same time as what is purportedly Molyneux's last game, too, having just settled on a release date for the middle of next month.
Sintopia essentially takes Black & White's concept of overseeing an idyllic settlement of miniature people, then builds a Dungeon Keeper style management sim in the basement. The premise casts you as an omnipotent being overseeing a community of "humus", watching them from above and occasionally wafting your big floating palm to help or hinder them in their lives.
But the meat of Sintopia revolves around when those humus die, and their spirits descend into Hell to be punished for their sins. In Sintopia's infernal bowels, you establish an elaborate infrastructure dedicated to processing these wayward spirits, building cruel and unusual punishment contraptions and hiring demons to extract all the precious sin from them. Once a soul has been sufficiently tortured, you then send it back into the realm of the living for reincarnation, where the whole cycle starts again.
It's a fascinating blend of two of the god game's biggest touchstones, and our initial impressions of it were promising. Elie Gould checked out an early build last year, discovering plenty of opportunities to exercise their demons within the game's devilish toolset.
"There's so much room to perfect Hell's production lines with intricate layouts," theywrote back in September. "Then there's everything that can play out in the overworld, like killing kings who don't inspired their subordinates, fighting off rogue groups, and having to deal with an end-of-the-world type scenario."
It sounds like exactly the kind of experience I've been craving from this genre. There isn't much longer to wait until we find out whether Sintopia can deliver on its promises. The game is out on April 16.
