Kneel to Your Overlords: Ruinarch Review

Whether you create lightning storms, heatwaves, or hurl brimstone at unsuspecting villagers, Ruinarch is the go-to overlord simulator.

Camisha

August 6, 2024

1–2 minutes

OVERVIEW

Ruinarch is an evil overlord simulator that allows you to take control of the narrative, and create conflicts as you invade procedurally generated worlds. Players can choose their overlord playstyle and invade human and elven villages discreetly or indiscreetly. I have had the opportunity to play the demo and the game at launch and it has definitely become a favorite.

Developer: Maccima Games
Release Date: August 24, 2023
Price: $24.99
Platforms: Steam

Gameplay in Ruinarch

In Ruinarch, players use powerful spells and afflictions to create obstacles and conflicts, and ultimately toy with the lives and relationships of the inhabitants of various villages and camps in a sandbox environment. Gather mana as you cause minor or major chaotic happenings and build demonic structures, that can help you further corrupt the world.

Players can choose from three overlord archetypes: Ravager, Puppetmaster, Lich; each offering unique skill tree options to unlock. While you can cast spells that impact the environment around your region’s inhabitants, players are also able to manipulate the relationships between villagers with afflictions. This is exceptionally valuable if you want to avoid your threat meter reaching one hundred too quickly (be prepared when it does). Cause inhabitants to fight amongst themselves, and collect those oh-so-sweet chaos orbs.

Final Thoughts on Ruinarch

Overall Ruinarch is a great sandbox game, and once you realize just how many different playstyles you can use you won’t be in any rush to complete the main objective. Though you aren’t punished if you do opt for quicker playthroughs—so long as you watch that threat meter. I can definitely recommend this to simulation and management game fans, especially those who enjoy playing a chaotic evil role. The art style combines pixel animations with amazingly detailed icon illustrations. The game is visually appealing, which is a plus when you plan on spending hours becoming the ultimate Overlord.

A PC copy of Ruinarch was provided to ChromaGlitch for this review.