I doubt I’d be much cop at counting cards in Vegas, but I have just counted every single item on the patch notes for Precinct, the latest update for Romero Games’ prohibition-era kingpin sim Empire Of Sin. There are over 350 of them, from making gangsters less flirty to giving Al Capone his cigar back on the character select screen. It’s no act of Capone-worthy self-mythologising, then, when game director Brenda Romero describes the patch list to me as “monstrous”.
“Once we put out the immediate flames, we prioritised feedback,” says Romero “Chris [King, senior systems designer]'s hair was fully black when we launched this game. It’s all gone fully grey. I think we were awesome on launch. Incredibly responsive. The team worked their asses off.”
Thankfully, the launch of the Make It Count DLC - and the accompanying free Precinct update - has been a lot smoother.
]]>Turn-based crim sim Empire Of Sin's first DLC, Make It Count, and free Precinct update will both arrive on the same day, November 18th. The free update adds new subdivided neighbourhoods as well as new victory conditions, while the paid DLC adds a new crime boss and more.
]]>Mobster strategy game Empire Of Sin recently dropped some details about mod support and the Precinct Update coming this year. During the Paradox Interactive event today, Romero Games announced that they'll also be releasing the game's first DLC at the same time. The Make It Count DLC is going to bring a new racket, five "fixer" gangsters, and their boss Meyer Lansky. Make It Count will launch alongside the free Precinct Update later this year.
]]>Mobster strategy game Empire Of Sin will add mod support later this year as part of an update named 'The Precinct', publishers Paradox Interactive announced today. That will also introduce new ways to streamline running your criminal empire. This future news comes alongside the launch of a more bug-focused patch today.
]]>You know how your parents will invite you over for that one meal that's best when they make it, letting you totally stuff your face before telling you there's dessert too? That's this month on Xbox Game Pass for PC. Microsoft have already packed the service full of some favorite Bethesda games just last week. But wait, they're serving up even more good games for their subscription library before March is over. Please, Microsoft, I can't eat another byte.
]]>I come to you today with important news: there is in fact more than one video game out this month.
Yes, that one video game is quite a biggie, and it's definitely the one most will be picking up this December, but that doesn’t mean everyone is champing at the bit to play it. Maybe you’re not interested in the Deus Extra RPG that is Cyberpunk 2077. Perhaps you want gangsters, underwater puzzles, two-headed dogs!
So, if you’re one of those people, and you're looking for a new game to play over the festive period, look no further than this list of the top 10 video games to play on PC this December.
]]>They love him, Buggy Malone. It's low hanging fruit, but it's a pretty accurate pun to describe Romero Games' new strategical crime romp, Empire Of Sin. It came out earlier this week, and while players are having fun with it, many have been plagued by pretty bad bugs ruining the experience. From mission progress getting stuck, to not being able to back out of the game, there are a lot of problems that need addressing. Hopefully things will start to improve soon, though, because game director Brenda Romero says updates are "coming your way".
]]>It's almost time to make a start on your 1920s gangster career, because Empire Of Sin comes out today. The new strategy game from Paradox Interactive and Romero Games will plonk you in the shoes of a Prohibition-era crime lord to do what crime lords do best: shoot people, manage a criminal empire, and wear a fedora (cigar-smoking optional).
]]>Welcome to Chicago in the 1920s; the last known time that fedoras were actually cool. The city is dry, thanks to prohibition, but there’s a rich underworld of gangsters ready to sell you dodgy spirits on the sly. Amid the cigar smoke and whisky-breath, notorious criminals go to war over every street and every establishment.
Speakeasies, casinos, and brothels are the money-makers of the moment. Empire Of Sin lets you take the role of one of 14 criminal masterminds of the time - some real, some fictional - to take control of the city in XCOM-style turn-based combat. I’d do the game an injustice to describe it as gangster XCOM though. Empire Of Sin blends combat with detailed business management, and moonlights as a roleplaying game when your chosen kingpin has a face-to-face sitdown with a rival. You can pay your rival off; intimidate them with some ‘20s tough talk; or pull a gun and wade into their headquarters with a ragtag band of gangsters to take the place by force.
]]>There are two, pretty obvious, factors by which I judge strategy games: how immediately satisfying they are to play, and how well that satisfaction holds up in the long run. Success in the first respect is often a trade-off for success in the second, as the things that dazzle on day one become dulled by the cumulative effect of small design problems. It's hard, then, to take the measure of a big ol' strategy game during a limited preview play session.
But after just a day with it, I have high hopes that Empire Of Sin, the extraordinary prohibition gangster simulation coming from Romero Games on December 1, is going to hit the big time on both fronts.
]]>Pack an extra-thick trenchcoat and woolly fedora, readers. Empire Of Sin, the tactical prohibition crime spree from Romero Games and Paradox Interactive, is preparing to hit the streets this December. As I hear it, Chicago winters are real rough - but what better time to start extorting, shooting and smart-talking your way to the top than under the cover of a roaring blizzard?
]]>Romero Games celebrated Mother's Day yesterday with an ode to one seriously badass mother in their upcoming tactical gangster game Empire Of Sin. John Romero's actual great grandmother Elvira Duarte was apparently a brothel owner who they're making an homage to as one of the game's crime bosses. Despite being of advanced age, she's got a pretty gnarly special ability, they say in a new developer video.
]]>Stick the fedora back in the closet, gang. Empire of Sin, Romero Games' prohibition-era mob operation won't kick off its roaring spree for a few months yet. No, John and Brenda Romero haven't been taken outta the picture by a rival studio. The long arm of the law hasn't finally shuttered their backroom dealings. The devs just reckon they'll need a little more time to put their perfectly respectable business together, delaying Empire of Sin until autumn 2020.
]]>Over the break we had a chance to do some serious scientific study of this business we call games, and it turns out that games are actually good. 2020 in particular has a healthy mix of big budget bonanzas and smaller indie plates to suit everyone's discerning tastes. And, as you know, the RPS treehouse is the most discerning, so to make it easier for you we've got a big ol' list of the games we're most looking forwards to this year. It's traditional.
]]>In Romero Games' Empire Of Sin, you play a prohibition era crime lord in Chicago, organising your rackets and engaging in turn-based combat with rivals. It's an era developer Brenda Romero has always been fascinated by. She grew up in a town in New York state called Ogdensburg, which hadn't, historically, had a lot going for it until US prohibition started in 1920, triggering 13 years in which getting hammered was basically illegal.
In a happenstance which perfectly demonstrates how ridiculous border control can be, Ogdensburg is right smack on one side of the St. Lawrence river. On the other side, is, um, Canada. Armed with the knowledge the river isn't that deep and that it freezes over during the winter, a man could make thousands of dollars by getting the right cargo across it.
]]>The mob, for all their terrible, terrible crimes, are the perfect set-up for a tactical game. They have a structure, guns, and are in continual conflict with just about everyone, including themselves. Off the top of my head, I can’t think of a game that’s done the organisation justice (that’s for the police to do, aha!) from a top-down level, but with Empire Of Sin on the horizon that could change.
]]>Ronnie O’Neill is a scumbag. But that’s okay. In about 20 minutes he’ll be dead, slumped on the tarmac next to a black truck. That’s what happens when you mess with Al Capone, you filthy mutt. At least, this is one way things can go in upcoming mob strategy game Empire Of Sin. It’s part mobster management, part turn-based tactics, with a splash of the personality-driven pettiness of Crusader Kings 2. Which probably explains why Paradox are publishing it for Romero Games.
]]>Spit-shine your spats, dust off the fedora you hid in shame, and prepare to give some goombas the ol' rat-a-tat-tat in Empire Of Sin, a 1920s mobster strategy game announced this week at E3 by Paradox Interative and Romero Games (the studio of those Romeros, Brenda and John). We'll get to do crimes and build a gang of toughs with excellent names including Dotty Bacon, Zee Zee, and Two-Ton Clyde Malone. No joke, those names are in screenshots. Making pals with cool nicknames is surely 90% of the motivation behind engaging in organised crime.
]]>
