Earlier in August 2024 I was lucky enough to do a sneaky preview of ‘Sumerian Six’, this action-packed strategy game developed by Artificer and published by Devolver Digital takes you on a sneaky journey through an alternate history as a group of the world’s greatest scientists hellbent on stopping the Third Reich’s dastardly plans. Since I last played there has been an update with some hot fixes to small bugs with enemies so it should be even smoother. Let’s dive right in!

During World War II an elite group of scientists known as the Enigma Squad set out to embrace the unlimited energy of a mysterious substance known as Geiststoff. Blood, sweat, and tears went into the project, however, the task proved too dangerous, and the project was scrapped altogether. All members of this illustrious squad disbanded and agreed that Geiststoff was too powerful, all but one… Hans Kammler, this dastardly fellow secured a new patron and went onwards to unleash Geistsoff and ensure victory for the Nazis by creating super soldiers and wonder weapons (Wunderwaffe).

Along come the Sumerian Six, a rag-tag team of commando scientists consisting of Sid Sterling, Isabella Sterling, Rosa Reznick, Wojtek Galica, Alistair Sterling, and last but not least, Siegfried Von Adelsberg. This unlikely team is determined to find out what Hans Kammler is up to and ultimately stop it using their special abilities and sneaky skills.

The controls were super easy to get the hang of such as double clicking on an area and your character will run to it or clicking on one of the abilities at the bottom and then on a target to take them out.

Thankfully, you can use combinations of your keyboard and mouse to click things so if you forget a button in the middle of a stressful situation you can still quickly use your mouse to get the job done. Q and E rotate the map while moving your mouse around will move the map in whichever direction you need so overall the controls are simple, allowing you to focus on the task at hand. In the preview, we briefly spoke about some of the abilities of the starting characters Sid Sterling and Isabella Sterling, so this time we’re going to dip into some of the other characters, Rosa Reznick, and Wojtek Galica.

Starting with one of my favourites Rosa Reznick. Rosa has a super cool ability in that when you kill an enemy, thanks to her chemical weapons and compounds, it completely dissolves said enemy. This is super handy, as you don’t have to hide the bodies in stress-induced situations thus avoiding setting off the alarm. Wojtek Galica is another one of my favourites. Due to Hans Kammler using Wojtek as a guinea pig for Geistsoff experiments, Wojtek can turn into a werebear. This is super handy when you start to encounter some super soldiers that are hard to kill with normal melee attacks, however, his werebear melee ‘Bestial Strike’ makes light work of these super soldiers.

Wojtek also has an ability called ‘Go Beserk’ that allows you to take out groups of weaker enemies but does limited damage per enemy. While I can sit here and chat for ages about the other two characters, Alistair Sterling, and Siegfried Von Adelsberg, I’d be spoiling the intriguing storyline, so I’ll leave that for you to discover. There are multiple ways to complete or clear each level, some paths are less guarded, while others are heavily guarded, but have more skill upgrade crates, you don’t have to eliminate every enemy, so the choice is all yours in how you want to play.

Sumerian Six has a high level of detail on each level, with nice blends of colours in a cel-shaded animation style it depicts real places and events around World War II superbly. The landscape on each level is something you’d expect from a triple-A title, but Sumerian Six does it easily and was an ultimate joy to experience. Players will thoroughly enjoy basking in the glorious landscapes while sneaking around while laying waste to those Nazis.

Likewise, the sounds were also a very well-done feature. Every time I raised the alarm my heart would race with what decision I needed to make, and the intense backing sounds added to the stress. The sound changes depending on what situation you are in, for example, if you set an alarm off it becomes intense but when the suspicion is lowered, and enemies go back to normal it then changes to a soft tone. The dialogue is also worth mentioning thanks to the intense emotion and detail that each character showed, which further pulled me into the intriguing story.

Sumerian Six is a highly detailed strategy game suitable for all play styles with its intricate levels, engaging story, unique style, and flexibility in gameplay, I am confident that it sets a high standard for future games in this genre. Go out there and prevent the Nazis from winning the war!

Written by: Larry