Solium Infernum is a turn-based strategy game by League of Geeks that pits you against the archfiends of hell in a pitched battle of intrigue for Hell’s throne. Read our review to see what it did well, what it didn't do well, and if it's worth buying.
Solium Infernum Review Overview
Solium Infernum Pros & Cons
| Pros | Cons |
|---|---|
 Art Direction is Insanely Good A Uniquely Hellish Experience Complex But Not Confusing |
Takes an Eternity to Play Not for the Faint of Heart |
Solium Infernum Overall Score - 92/100
Solium Infernum is one Hell of a fun time for a game built around backstabbing, boasting, and general belligerence. The game’s features and mechanics flow like the Acheron and its infernal art direction goes harder than the walls of Dis. Despite having a literal encyclopaedia’s worth of things to learn before you can ascend to the throne, nothing ever feels overwhelming and there’s always a way to win even if you’re on the back foot. I must say, Hell’s never looked so enticing.
Solium Infernum Story - 10/10
Solium Infernum’s premise is incredibly simple, although the setting and characters at play during every playthrough are anything but. Every single thing has flavor text hinting at a larger story a la Dark Souls but with a Hellish undertone that contributes to the game’s presentation greatly. I’m always up for a round of Inferno, Purgatorio, or Paradiso when I’m craving Alighieri’s work, but this game’s lore would do in a pinch.
Solium Infernum Gameplay - 9/10
The devs promised a no-holds-barred bid for power against other Hellish entities for Solium Infernum and that’s exactly what we got. I’ve never felt the true freedom of achieving victory through any means until I tried Solium Infernum. Treachery, diplomacy, and military might; all are equally viable in this infernal struggle and not mutually exclusive either. You have complete freedom in how you wish to climb Hell’s hierarchy and it’s honestly refreshing to do so with this game’s smooth-as-Styx mechanics.
Solium Infernum Visuals - 10/10
Solium Infernum’s depiction of Hell is both traditional and stylized, drawing from a plethora of literary sources and adding a hefty pile of creative liberty on top. It’s refreshing to see how intricately detailed everything is without ever being visually exhausting. The character designs for the archfiends, praetors, and legions are insanely creative, with Mammon’s design being my absolute favorite. I might just take a day trip to Hell for sights.
Solium Infernum Audio - 8/10
DOOM (2016) and DOOM Eternal have pretty much cornered the market for Hellish ambiance but Solium Infernum is coming out of the eternal gates swinging. I’ve never felt so damned in my life than when this game’s infernal chanting and rituals began to play. I will concede that full-voice acting would have elevated this game to archfiend status, but that’s a minor nitpick in an otherwise amazing auditory experience.
Solium Infernum Value for Money - 9/10
This game is practically a steal for a little bit over $30, with countless hours of fiendish diplomacy and infernal debauchery awaiting you in the rings of Hell. This value is increased eightfold if you manage to gather your own circle of f(r)iends to play with. Just keep this game’s playtime in mind and you’re as golden as Mammon’s treasury.
Solium Infernum Review: One Hell of a Strategy Game
I’m rather fond of narratives taking place in Hell because the mythology and scripture of Abrahamic religions always look and sound the most interesting to me. I mean, it was certainly enough for the great artists of the Renaissance to paint and write about, much less a gamer like me who just really liked EA’s hack-and-slash game from 2010 about a certain scythe-wielding crusader.
Although I’m no Hieronymus Bosch, Solium Infernum still proved itself to be quite The Garden of Earthly Delights — tempting me with great gameplay, killer art direction, and perhaps the most unabashedly treacherous premise on this side of the Acheron. Ladies, gentlemen, and devils of every kind, let’s dive right in.
Let’s just get the surface-level comparisons out of the way. Despite how it looks, Solium Infernum is not a 4X game, at least not in the way we’ve come to know the genre. There are no settlements or tech trees to go through as your species advances, nor is there civilization for you to oversee. Simply put, Solium Infernum is a strategy game framed as a bloody and heretical bid for Hell’s throne. As an archfiend, you control one of Hell’s domains and are eligible to ascend by winning the Trial of the Throne.
You’re not the only archfiend vying for the position, however, as the other archfiends won’t be surpassed so easily. Through treachery, politics, and unspeakable bloodshed, your domain and prestige will expand, granting you Hell’s crown by the end of the trial if you manage to reign above all the others. With a premise like that, you can expect a lot of demonic shenaniganry to occur, and — boy, let me tell you — they sure do!
This game prides itself on the amount of hot garbage you can throw at your enemies and it managed to live up to my expectations. Being a thorn in your enemy’s side is a legitimate tactic in this game because, despite all the bloodshed among your countless legions, killing another archfiend isn’t an option for most of the game. The best you can do is hinder them with red tape, ransack their vaults, and outbid them in the bazaar for resources important to their ascension. That’s not even a quarter of what you can do to mess with your fellow demons, and yet this game manages to keep itself succinct and easy to digest.
It does so through its great tutorial, encyclopaedia — yes, that’s how it’s spelled — and its intuitive gameplay. Although Solium Infernum presents itself as a grand strategic orchestra with many moving parts, a lot of its underlying mechanics are easy to understand and apply. Take this game’s combat for example. All legions, places of power, and strongholds have three stats: Ranged, Melee, and Infernal. When fighting another legion, place of power, or stronghold, those three stats are compared in that order, with the greater combatant dealing the difference between the two values to the lesser one. Once you witness this a couple of times, you’ll have understood it well enough to take the fight to another archfiend.
What about its bazaar? It’s not quite a simple shop where you can pay and be on your way since everything is auctioned. Just outbid every other archfiend and that legion, praetor, artifact, or scroll is yours. Diplomacy? Spend prestige to hurl insults or make demands of other archfiends and reap the rewards of their impulsiveness. Rituals? Just pay for one and resolve its effects. Each mechanic is a piece of the puzzle — simple, yes, but important to the bigger picture nonetheless. You needn’t master all of these to win, although knowing how they work is half the battle, and Solium Infernum isn’t one to make learning difficult.
That’s one of the reasons why I enjoyed this game so much. The other lies in the game’s heavenly — or Hellish, rather — art direction. It’s like playing a strategy game on a Renaissance painting. Everything is so deeply stylized, yet I can still discern the game’s clear inspirations with every legion and praetor bought. The true extent of their work’s effect on Solium Infernum isn’t known to me now, but Milton, Alighieri, and Cabenel would be proud of what artistry their depictions of biblical mythology have wrought.
The game’s audio is on point too, consisting of demonic chanting and rattling chains that evoke just the right amount of existential dread to be entertaining. Granted, some voice acting may have done this game some good, but you can’t really complain when you’re jamming out to some ritualistic tunes. More than anything, I just want to hear how putrid Mammon’s voice would sound.
And that’s the end of our Hellish tour around Solium Infernum. It’s a solid game with stellar graphics, amazing art direction, and simple game mechanics that comprise a complex network of interlocking systems. What negative aspects I can find are closer to wasted opportunities rather than actual sins, so I’m absolving this game and giving it a seat in heaven among the greats.
Pros of Solium Infernum
| Things Solium Infernum Got Right |
|---|
|
Art Direction is Insanely Good A Uniquely Hellish Experience Complex But Not Confusing |
Art Direction is Insanely Good
I am at a loss for words with how heretically beautiful this game depicts Hell and its denizens. From the darkened spires of Pandemonium to the blood-flecked blades of Astaroth’s legions, this game’s visual identity and art direction just oozes Paradise Lost. I just love how plainly John Milton’s work inspired everything about this game’s visuals and lore, including archfiends themselves, their domains, and their tendencies as individuals.
Alexandre Cabanel’s “The Fallen Angel” painting seems to have been a major inspiration as well, with much of the game’s portraits for legions, praetors, artifacts, and events evoking the same wrathful petulance through oil-brushed strokes. Solium Infernum also drew from Dante Alighieri’s Divine Comedy, although it’s to a much lesser extent, being alluded to by theme and design only by way of Hell’s numerous biomes.
Despite all these overlapping inspirations, Solium Infernum managed to be creative as well, depicting the archfiends with unique 3D designs not seen or described elsewhere. I’m a big fan of Mammon’s chest hole and golden flourishes as well as Murmur’s Sauron-esque dark iron plating. All in all, it’s a uniquely entrancing visual aesthetic that I can only describe as an infernal Renaissance.
A Uniquely Hellish Experience
One would think that a bid for power in Hell would be a bloody ordeal that would kill countless souls and tear major swathes of landscape asunder and…you’d be right, it is. It’s also treachery by way of politics, however, and Solium Infernum melds both concepts into a uniquely Hellish experience that I haven’t seen captured as creatively anywhere else.
Red tape is as much an enemy to your budding regime as any red imp wielding a pitchfork and this game makes sure that you remember as much. Hurling insults may seem childish, but that might just be the impetus your fellow archfiend needed to wage war and fall right into your ploy. No method is ever out of the question so long as it contributes to your prestige gain; a sentiment as true to the game’s setting as the morning star. I’ve said it before, but if you’re looking to experience Hell for what it is, don’t give an Italian poet a call, Solium Infernum’s got you.
Complex But Not Confusing
Solium Infernum’s myriad ways of attaining infernal chiefdom are bound to involve equally plentiful game mechanics, and they do. What sets Solium Infernum apart from other strategy games, however, is its effective and interactive tutorial, as well as its intuitive Order System. The former presents the game’s systems in a very endearing way, framing it as a welcoming instruction from Belial, a fellow demon.
The latter is what takes the game’s myriad ways of reaching Hell's throne and turns it into a digestible concept. The Order System (unofficial name I gave it) limits you to two Orders per turn, which could be anything from moving troops to plotting schemes. This forces you to limit your thinking to what is useful, despite there being countless ways to move forward. I think this is a great way to keep things simple for newbies while also helping with the game’s abysmal pace — more on that later.
Cons of Solium Infernum
| Things That Solium Infernum Can Improve |
|---|
|
Takes an Eternity to Play Not for the Faint of Heart |
Takes an Eternity to Play
You’re gonna need an afterlife to play this game, especially in multiplayer. Solium Infernum does a lot to keep the momentum going but still edges forward at Belphegor’s pace. Apart from the slow animations that can’t be sped up, there really is just a lot to do in this game. The Order System helps you limit your choices, but it also prevents you from blitzing forward however you want. Doing this in multiplayer will take much longer because you and your fellow players have asynchronous turns.
The devs themselves tell you that this could take hours and that a notification system is built into the game to let you know it’s your turn if you ever tab out in boredom. There’s a lot to appreciate about this game’s mechanics, its pacing and general speed are not one of them.
Not for the Faint of Heart
I mean, it’s Hell. I don’t know what you were expecting. Although not readily explicit, this game does tackle mature themes and imagery that not everyone, especially those of faith, might find appropriate to view or play. That much is certain from the get-go because the game was never pretentious about how hellish it is, although the true extent of your fiendish machinations isn’t abundantly clear until you’re already deep in the flesh pits.
If you’re the type of person who prefers to be cooperative, or perhaps someone who doesn’t like underhanded tactics in strategy games, you best move along from Solium Infernum because that’s all you’re going to do.
Is Solium Infernum Worth It?
Worth Every Coin in Your Treasury
Oh yeah, this game’s worth emptying your domain’s treasuries for…not that you have to, of course. For a mere $35, you’re going to be up to your ankles in Hellfire and brimstone courtesy of League of Geeks. Solium Infernum has plenty of replayability and good multiplayer to boot. Some games were just made to be played with friends and I can’t think of a better candidate than one where you stab each other in the back for the fun of it.
| Platform | Price |
|---|---|
 Steam |
$34.99 |
Solium Infernum Overview & Premise
Solium Infernum is a story about an intense power struggle between the archfiends of Hell, each with their claims to the domain’s infernal throne. While there is no strict narrative governing the game’s proceedings, your actions as an archfiend will be written in the annals of Hell’s history. Whether you triumph or not remains to be seen, but some fiend somewhere is going to be crushed underfoot in your pursuit of the throne.
Hell’s throne lies empty, will you be the one to claim it?
Solium Infernum FAQ
How Many Archfiends are in Solium Infernum?
Solium Infernum currently has 8 playable archfiends, each with their own starting legions, specialty, and Dark Art. The following list consists of all playable archfiends in Solium Infernum:
● Astaroth
● Andromalius
● Beelzebub
● Erzsebet
● Mammon
● Belial
● Murmur
● Lilith
Which Archfiend is Good for Beginners in Solium Infernum?
Astaroth is the easiest archfiend to play in Solium Infernum, at least for newbies. His playstyle is very simple to grasp, and his Dark Arts paired with his starting legion's melee stats make him great for gathering power in the early game. He does fall off somewhere in the mid-game, however, once Vendettas come into play.
Solium Infernum Product Information
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| Title | SOLIUM INFERNUM |
|---|---|
| Release Date | February 22, 2024 |
| Developer | League of Geeks |
| Publisher | League of Geeks |
| Supported Platforms | PC |
| Genre | Turn-based Strategy, Indie |
| Number of Players | Single-player, Online PvP |
| ESRB Rating | TBA (mature content) |
| Official Website | Solium Infernum Website |
