Empire of Sin is not great

Ahhh, I really wanted to love this game. But as hard as it tries, and as fun as with the source material, Empire of Sin is a jumble of ideas that it’s not a lot of fun to be there.

Set in 1930s Chicago, it’s a game that attempts to marry management, turn-based combat, and some RPG elements, putting you in the shoes of a local gangster trying to take control of the town by hiring thugs, grabbing shady businesses, and ousting you their rivals.

There is a cheesy charm to the game, especially its voice acting. It is closer to Dick tracy than Boardwalk Empire in tone, with a larger-than-life character cast and alien support cast pulled straight from the drawer labeled “Gangster Tropes.”

I appreciate what it is trying make. Rather than just making this standard management game with a few shootouts, it splits your efforts into several clear play modes. Overall management of your criminal empire is handled from a series of menus and an isometric view of the city, while combat is taken care of by zooming in and breaking down this world into a grid where you can take on rivals or cops. XCOM-style battles.

The RPG stuff, meanwhile, is pretty much everywhere. You don’t just observe your empire in management mode, for example, you exist as an RPG team in the field, and you literally have to move to every building or objective to trigger events. And instead of fighting with your rivals, you can also have encounters with them, where you chat, threaten, and negotiate, the outcome depending on your character’s stats.

As a fan of all this sort of thing offered separately –I even have good memories of the years 1999 Law of the Populace– I was keen enough to sit with it Empire of Sin, but for all its ambition, none of it ever really comes together.

The management aspect of the game rarely rises above following your businesses on a list and pouring money into them to improve them, when combat is just … good? It works, but it’s also way too easy, and the lack of variety of locations or opponents quickly becomes repetitive.

Even the way these elements relate to each other is pretty harsh; everything you can manage, from businesses to the weapons your character wears, can be accessed from the same large menu screen, and I found myself spending too much time bogged down in this mundane spreadsheet job rather than enjoy the views.

He also has difficulty conveying a real sense of position or progress. You’re abandoned in the city and left to do your thing, with the overall goal of taking the place, but the missions and the interface don’t reflect well how it all plays out in relation to your opponents, which sucks the life of your advances and makes you feel a bit difficult.

There are cool ideas here, and it’s got a lot of heart, but my time with it Empire of Sin Left me feeling more like an accountant with a tabletop wargaming hobby than a gangster.