GamerEscape

If there’s one thing you need to know about Sumerian Six, it’s that you can have a werebear sneak up and maul nazis. If that doesn’t convince you, I suppose that’s what the rest of the review is for. Of course there’s plenty more than just mauling that goes into a game, so today we’re seeing just how well Devolver’s latest holds up.

Sumerian Six was developed by Artificer and published by Devolver Digital. It was released September 2, 2024 for Switch.

The Power of Ghost…Toffs.

In the wake of World War 1, a group of scientists called the Enigma Squad uncovers a potent energy source called geistoff. Originally intending to use its clean, unlimited energy to help rebuild a wounded Europe, they dismantle their research once it becomes clear the substance is too dangerous to work with. But one member of their number, Hans Kammler, decides to sell the research to the nazis in order to use it as a weapon of mass destruction. The others decide to stop their research from being used to commit atrocities, and that leads us to the start of the Sumerian Six.

It can be said that no idea is original when boiled down, and certainly fighting nazis who are using supernatural powers and mad science to fuel their war machine is about as tried and true as it gets, but as always what makes a work unique is the finer details that set it apart. For starters, the personal connection our heroes have to the villains adds a bit of nuance not usually seen with the usual allies vs the nazis. Kammler was a colleague of theirs, and some of the nazis they’re fighting against were neighbors and students. Not that it earns them an inch of sympathy from the team.

The other way it differentiates itself from other similar plots is, as the name implies, the use of Sumerian myth as the root of the more supernatural elements, rather than the more Abrahamic origins typically seen in other works. I imagine for most folks it’s a bit less familiar, and that novelty kept me invested as I wondered where things would go.

Things aren’t perfect however. As much as I praise the viewpoint the titular six have, the characters themselves are fairly flat for the most part. Sure, it means you kinda grasp their whole deal rather quickly, but at a certain point they become almost predictable since they’re just voicing what their archetype will be. Still, even at its worst it’s simply ok. I just feel there was an opportunity to do more with them is all.

The Perfect Plan

Sumerian Six is another in the relatively new genre of tactical stealth, combining controlling a varied team in an isometric perspective with the puzzle-like focus on passing encounters unseen.

As the game’s name implies, there’s a total of six characters to play as, each of them with their own gadgets and skills making them more or less suited to specific approaches. Some skills have a bit of overlap in how they function, like Sid’s flash bomb or Rosa’s paralytic dart both allowing you to make sure one guard doesn’t spot you taking out another guard, but others are quite a bit more unique like Wojtek’s ability to rip a panzerwolf apart with his bear hands.

Each chapter also has access to different members as the plot dictates, and there were so many times I knew one ability in particular would be *perfect* for a given situation, but sadly it belonged to someone who wasn’t there. Of course, that’s where the challenge comes in: You don’t always have the perfect tools for the job, so you have to make do with what you’ve got.

As far as how it controls in particular, it reminds me a LOT of the works of the recently closed Mimimi Games (whose work I’ve covered in the past), to the point that I wonder if there was some overlap between the two developers. Notably, it has enemy sight cones divided into two regions (a solid region where they’ll always spot you or suspicious things like bodies, and a shaded portion where they’ll only spot you if you’re standing or doing extremely visible things like attacking) and a system to pause and queue up multiple actions to go off at the same time, allowing you to do stuff like distract a guard with a bottle while another character sneaks behind them. Other than that you’ve got your typical isometric point and click movement and a hotbar of actions for each character, fairly typical stuff we’ve seen since the 90s.

Where Sumerian Six really excels is in the little details. Your actions having a cooldown time isn’t usually a problem in a stealth game, but each level has various challenges you may want to hit including a time limit so there’s encouragement for learning how to go fast. Your actions also level up as you take out guards or find caches, which is partly just your normal RPG mechanics every game has these days but it also encourages not going for a perfect run on your first playthrough and saving that for later when your skills work better. Lastly and most importantly is the quick save and quick load. Lots of games have these, and for stealth games in particular they can help you experiment and try risky strategies while still allowing you to get that perfect undetected route. What I found unexpected is that the quick load is perhaps the quickest I’ve ever seen in a modern game. It’s pretty much immediate with no loading screen whatsoever, easily taking a LOT of the frustrating aspect out of the stealth.

A Comic Book Finish

Sumerian Six has a subtly brilliant graphic design. It largely opts for a realistic approach, but the colors are vibrant wherever possible and just about everything has a definite thin border around it. UI elements are presented with just one color and typically minimally shaded for a more cartoony look. The end result is a comic book style that keeps everything detailed and thematic while still making important elements distinguishable at a glance. There’s even a highlight mode to color interactables and enemies for even more contrast. I’m also a huge fan of the character design, leaning into the mad science angle, very teslapunk.

I have similar praise for the sound work. The soundtrack is quite hummable, there’s plenty of care taken with the audio cues, and there’s some excellent deliveries from the voice actors. If I had one criticism, it’s that it’s easy to tell the voice lines are in bite-sized chunks, leading to noticeable unnatural pauses, but it’s a minor nitpick all things considered.

An Epic Conclusion

While there are the occasional small flaws here and there, Sumerian Six is easily one of the best stealth games I’ve played. It’s easy to fall into a trap of making your stealth too easy or too frustrating, but generous player tools and the puzzle-like encounters help it ride that fine line to perfection.

While I’m aware stealth games aren’t for everyone, and tactical stealth is a niche of a niche, if any of this appealed to you, Sumerian Six makes a great entry into the genre.

~ Final Score: 10/10 ~

Review copy provided by Devolver Digital for PC. Screenshots provided by reviewer.