New Roguelike Game on Steam Pulls a Uno Reverse Card on Hades 2's Premise

The number of roguelike games on Steam is too high to count, but every so often, a true gem appears on the platform. For every popular Steam roguelike like Hades 2, Slay the Spire 2, and Mewgenics that have seen massive success recently, there are hundreds of others that fly under players’ radars. However, the upcoming indie roguelike Sin & Siege sells itself on a unique premise that proves to be the opposite of what Hades 2 offers players.

Although most roguelikes on Steam are really “rogue-lites” by definition, this genre shares common features like the need to play through multiple runs, saving some type of power between runs, and leveling up after each run to have a better chance at success on the next one. A game like Hades 2 has players descend through several zones to reach the House of Hades, fighting through bosses that protect it along the way. Sin & Siege takes a different approach to a similar premise, tasking players with protecting Hell from an onslaught of monsters, having to rebuild structures and defenses every time they fail.

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Sin & Siege Features at a Glance

SINFUL SOULS — Catch the resource and extract Sin and Soul Fragments, the key fuel that keeps the infernal engine running.
SEVEN DEADLY SINS — your greatest allies in rebuilding the underworld. Each sin powers a different branch of your economy.
LOYAL WORKERS — demons who will build and toil, sow and reap, create and train new demons, capture and torment sinners, and help you in your mission in every way imaginable.
CLASH — Battle with the Forces of Light who seek to seize and destroy the Heart of Darkness.

Sin & Siege is a rogue-lite strategy where you must restore the shattered circles of Hell. Harvest and process sinful souls, amass Sins, forge new demons, populate the abyss, and defend it from holy monstrosities.

Drag weapons to fill the grid

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Sin & Siege Charges Players with Protecting and Rebuilding Hell, Rather Than Infiltrating It

A city-sim meets management simulator like Sin & Siege is a rarer breed of roguelite than other offerings on Steam. Compared to an action roguelite like Hades 2 or a deck-builder roguelite like Slay the Spire 2, Sin & Siege puts a unique spin on the genre by requiring players to manage their defenses against incoming attacks. If they fail, players will have to rebuild the infernal circles of Hell all over again, giving players near-endless opportunities to improve their strategy and hone their city-sim and tower defense game skills.

The Story of Sin & Siege

In Sin & Siege, players take on the role of Hell’s Architect and Warden, who must prevent the destruction of the Heart of Darkness at the hands of the Forces of Light. A game where demons are allies and angels are enemies is nothing new; the Bayonetta series features angelic foes, and Diablo even forces players to fight the High Heavens from time to time. But having players actually protect Hell itself from angelic forces makes for a unique premise that supports Sin & Siege‘s gameplay.

Sin & Siege doesn’t have a planned release date at this time.

The Gameplay of Sin & Siege

Sin & Siege is all about cycles and growth, improving Hell’s defenses with each new run. The core gameplay loop of Sin & Siege starts with growing the player’s resource pool by harvesting Sins and using them to build structures to protect the Heart of Darkness from incoming Forces of Light. Creating more demon works will also help improve the function of Hell’s facilities and bolster defenses as players prepare their tower defense-like strategy for the incoming attack. Players will also have to account for the different circles of Hell, each acting as a different layer of the map with its own unique properties that can make or break the player’s defenses.

Scratch & Peek

Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as
possible.

Scratch & Peek

Identify the cover art while scratching off as little foil as possible.

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The Seven Deadly Sins play a major role in Sin & Siege‘s gameplay, with each governing a different aspect of the game’s management loop. For example, Sloth governs farming, manufactories, and quarries, while Lust governs demon breeding, allowing players to raise an army of demonic soldiers to fight for them. Harvesting souls of a particular Sin provides synergy for specific tasks tied to the Seven Deadly Sins, such as Gluttons increasing the productivity of farms, kind of like a twisted version of Stardew Valley‘s Junimo helpers. Permanent upgrades to these Seven Deadly Sins between runs will help the next one go a little bit smoother, so players can’t neglect this mechanic.

How Sin & Siege Flips the Premise of Hades 2 on Its Head

The ultimate goal of Sin & Siege isn’t merely to survive the onslaught of the Forces of Light, but to rebuild Hell into a well-oiled machine of pain and suffering. Although both games place a heavy emphasis on the underworld of their respective mythologies, Sin & Siege takes nearly the opposite stance on Hell as Hades 2. In Hades 2, each of Melinoe’s runs into Tartarus to reach the House of Hades requires players to first defeat the Hades 2 bosses of each previous region: Erebus, Oceanus, and the Fields of Mourning.

In contrast, Sin & Siege puts players essentially in the role of those regional bosses, with the different circles of Hell acting like different regions they must defend. The action gameplay of Hades 2 may be a drastic departure from the city-builder and tower defense gameplay of Sin & Siege, but it’s clear that the two roguelites are mirrors of one another. For fans of Hades 2 that want to see what it would be like to play from the opposite perspective, Sin & Siege may be worth keeping tabs on.