The experience of playing Suzerain is that of discovering Wikipedia for the first time, in a very literal sense: Within the first minute of gameplay, I clicked on the first bit of blue text that I encountered to discover that behind the text, there was an entire encyclopedia of knowledge to consume. In an approximately hour-long frenzy of jumping from link to link, desperately wishing that I could open browser tabs as if it was really Wikipedia, it became clear that understanding this web of links was somewhat of a logic puzzle in its own right.

In a sense, it was almost like a social studies test for a reality I’d never before encountered. What was this world, and how did the pieces and players fit together on a geopolitical level? Little by little you can piece this together from the more obvious information provided — you can stumble upon Karlos Marcia’s wiki entry fairly quickly, and from there you can figure out who is the USSR allegory, who is the China allegory, and so on and so forth, building in your head the political relationship map upon which this world is constructed — a task that can be monumental at times, given that you are essentially handed 100 years of international history and tasked to figure out how it all fits together — but a task that is deeply rewarding and satisfying. It was all worth it when, upon meeting the character of Bernard Circas, I immediately was able to place him within the context of Sordland as someone who seems to me to be analogous to a Bernie Sanders figure but half a century earlier (okay, at least a little of this is due to his name) and became an insufferable Bernie Bro in this fictional universe. This is not to say that Suzerain relies upon 1:1 real world analogues — usually there are important reshufflings of overlapping interests in a way that gives the geopolitics of this world the feel of a collage, where each nation has been cut up into slivers and pasted back together in a new and interesting, yet all too familiar, arrangement. For any comparison that I make, I’m sure there’s someone willing to contest it on the grounds that I am emphasizing some similarities too much and some differences too little, or vice versa, and I can’t for certain say that they’re wrong. Unless it’s Karlos Marcia. That one’s just straightforwardly obvious.

It is a key accomplishment of this game that somehow, despite the immense breadth of the political directions in which you can go, it never quite feels as if the game is sacrificing anything to make it happen. In a game that is all about politics, the depth of the politics are what counts the most, and I could not be more pleased with this game than I am on that front. Even my beloved Disco Elysium does not feel as if it has as thorough of a grasp on the systems of ideology that interweave with one another on a national and international scale, despite its marked triumphs in being one of the approximately three games out there that have good writing. (At least one of the others is Pentiment, for the record, and I cannot quite decide on the third.)

And yet the combination of depth and breadth do not sacrifice flexibility in any way: It is easy to feel as if the game railroads you when you are on your first attempt at running Sordland. It is shocking, then, to rewind time and discover that the only thing that railroaded you in any direction were the consequences of your previous decisions. If you appeal to nationalists, the left will trust you less. If you undermine business interests, they will plot against you, even if you later choose to ally with them in other ways. The ripples you cause, as a person with immense power in this newly post-fascist country, will shake and consume you if you do not pay close attention to them — and yet, they are fully the fault of you, and no others.

That is not to say that you have sole agency within the scope of the game’s world. Quite the opposite — every single character and source of information must be approached with an awareness that they have their own goals and agendas, and with the knowledge that there is no such thing as an impartial truth in the world of Sordland’s politics: Truth is a powerful thing, and in the game of politics, power is everything. A monopoly on truth is a monopoly on power, and thus each faction seeks to establish such a monopoly through apparatuses of the press, the party, and the people. (Damn, didn’t think I could pull that alliteration off, but I came through somehow!) It is your job to analyze the plurality of truths and data put out by everyone from the media to NATO — sorry, I mean ATO, the very subtle analogue — to your own governmental reports, and determine who can be trusted about what. This is a point which I feel is likely to trip up players of this game, as it is reasonable to assume that the reports you receive from your own government are just a mechanical trapping to communicate to the player the impacts of their decisions, and of course they play this role as well — but even within this mechanical scope, there is room for bias and subjectivity to be introduced, and as such further muddle the waters of your political decisions and their outcomes.

It is reminiscent of Pentiment in a very significant sense here: There is no external arbiter of truth. Where a lesser game would tell you definitively that your policy was good or bad on a range of various metrics, Suzerain does not let you have an easy out on this front. Did you make a mistake, or is that just what the cryptofash of the NFP want you to believe? Are you about to be invaded and do you need to reinforce your armies, or is that the paranoid blustering of a general used to the former fascist leader’s policy of ruling with an iron fist? Are you failing the people on social reform, or is that just the ever-critical eye of the radical, er, Radicals (I refer to the news outlet here) assuming bad faith on the part of your government where it does not exist? All of these answers are sincerely difficult ones to answer at times as no faction is flat and single-dimensional but instead contain a multitude of material interests that intersect and conflict in sometimes truly spectacular fashion.

There is a certain thing that the game does that must be emphasized — it is a vital point that cannot be overlooked that the game, as with the various parties and outlets and people within it, holds its own set of political biases and beliefs. It is deeply easy to forget this given how flexible the game systems are politically and how naturally the systems within this world fit together. It is also, paradoxically, harder to notice this broader scope of bias because of how explicitly the game narratively and mechanically draws your notice to this bias in the more cramped scope of the in-game entities. We know that the biases of "Geopolitico", the neoliberal internationalist pro-capital news outlet, exist — but that news outlet’s text (and set of biases!) comes from a team of writers that are themselves just as subject to bias as any else. At times, I think you can start to feel the impacts of this on what is viewed within the realm of possibility.

However, I mostly emphasize this so as to swing right back around and say that I think the writers do an excellent job of legitimately allowing a plurality of politics to arise naturally as the player engages with the game, in a way that feels as if immense effort went into trying to avoid undue ideological encroachment upon the world of Suzerain. Look, much of what you are tasked with doing is to figure out the goals of each faction and organization within the politics of the game, and evaluate with that knowledge whether you can trust what they have to say on an issue. Apply that same process to the writers of this game, and I think it is clear that this game is a fantastic good-faith effort to faithfully reproduce the infinite complexities of our real life geopolitical situation in a fictionalized frame that gives us the unique opportunity to recontextualize our own politics within a world free of the easy mental shorthands which have been ingrained into our minds. This game makes you grapple with your own politics conceptually and practically, and it seems equally likely that on any front you might come out convinced of your wrongness or convicted of your rightness.

Who knows — perhaps the fascists and/or social conservatives out there that played Suzerain might disagree with me on all that. Regardless, the fact that this game exists in concept, let alone was executed to such near perfection, is an absolute anomaly in the field of media that is gaming. The prose and dialogue are often understated as compared to other text-heavy games, yet feel consistently high-quality in their restraint. It gives me a significant amount of hope for the medium: Between this, Pentiment, and Disco Elysium, it seems more and more that we are getting text-heavy games just on the fringe of the mainstream indie scene that are competently written, with an eye for politics, systems, and narratives alike. If any of these things are interesting to you, it is hard to think that playing Suzerain is something you could possibly regret, even if you do not ultimately love it like I do. For my part, I played this game obsessively, a full 10 hour run in one setting, and at 6:45 am, when I was finally released after 9 years of unjust prison and the author of my biography revealed her name, I could not hold back the tears.

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As an endnote, let me caution you to stay far away from any online forums where people discuss this game. Due to its proximity to games like Europa Universalis etc, the fanbase of this game is largely made up of polcomp types, i.e. reactionaries who mostly understand politics as a choice between equally valid aesthetics, i.e. the most insufferable people on this planet.

Great political visual novel, if you want to play a politics game, this is the only game that has depth and quality. You really do feel the burden of being a president.
Suzerain has very good worldbuilding, heavily inspired political climate from Turkey and it's still getting developed as a dlc is on the way.
Issues come from its replayabilty. Normally it is a heavily replayable game with lots of different endings and stuff you can do in game. However it's simply a big hassle to replay. There are chapters in the game but you can't use them as checkpoints and therefore you want to go the past, you replay the whole game. You replay the whole game, you can't skip tons of lines and get to your choices. It's a hassle but it is still worth to replay.

TL;DR: I greatly recommend this game to anyone that may be interested in how it feels to be the president of a country, not just the political decision making aspect of it but as a whole. I'll admit that when I first bought the game, I was expecting only the first part, but trust me, the personal aspect is a very welcome addition. The only reason I didn't give the game a full score is because the soundtrack kinda made me sleep. I recommend muting in-game sounds and opening uh... idk classical music.

Great visual novel with huge replayability. The setting is very well constructed (It's not just a one-on-one copy of irl people or events but creative mixes of different personalities and situations), and as a president, your every decision matters. You need to carefully manuever your way in the maze called politics, and if you could not read the situation correctly, you will quickly find yourself deposed. However, if you are successful, you can shape the country in your own vision, or just leave it as it is and fill your pocket with bribes. Of course, you don't only deal with internal politics, but also with foreign relations. Again, you are completely free in how to act, but they inevitably affect your rule, and wrong decisions could lead to disastrous ends. In this way, the game offers many roleplaying options, and naturally, the game has different endings too.

Other than political decisions, the game also focuses on the personal life of the president. As expected at this point, you have numerous decisions about your relationship with your family and friends, however, they are not isolated from the rest of the game. These actions could potentially help or tarnish your reputation in politics. I'd say this is what makes Suzerain a great and unique game: It shows itself like a country leadership sim, but because it is also very narrative-driven, it focuses on all aspects of a politician's life.

Oh and as a last note, the game has autosave feature, so no save scumming. You have to live with the consequences of your decisions, Mr. President.

This game is currently in the Humble Choice for April 2022, this is part of my coverage of the bundle. If you are interested in the game and it's before May 3rd, 2022, consider picking up the game as part of the current monthly bundle.

A visual novel mixed with a country simulator.

Suzerain takes a bit to start. The first half-hour has you playing the backstory of your character in a visual novel style while making choices to define your character. Do you stand against tyranny or avoid conflict? Do you want to become a lawyer, economist, or history professor? Each of these helps define your character.

Then one day you become president and the real game begins. You’re in charge of a vast country and now need to bring the country out of the current recession, fulfill promises made to the populace, and navigate the waters of the presidency. This is done through a lot of visual novel style discussions complete with the player asking questions, and choosing different answers depending on the situation. These answers should likely change the course of the country or the game, but I didn’t have enough time to see this. There are nine different endings and even more sub endings so it’s very likely what you do will matter throughout the game.

Pick this up if you like the idea of a visual novel that’s focused on running a country, rather than trying to date random waifus. It’s a unique take and the writing is well done, but it’s also a lot of writing. It is an interesting concept though and I’m curious as to how far it will take the story.

If you enjoyed this review or want to know what I think of other games in the bundle, check out the full review on or subscribe to my Youtube channel: https://youtu.be/FeCvVH50kas

There are some great and interesting aspects to Suzerain, but many of the flaws run too deep for those strengths to fully overcome them.

The fundamental issue with Suzerain is the lack of proactive decision making on the part of the player. While I understand there are constraints on the developer's end, I feel the inability of the player to take action except when specifically offered the option by the game undermines much of the choice-driven storytelling that Suzerain does so well.

Do you have a deficit in your budget that needs to be dealt with? Well, you cant actually raise any new revenue until the game gives you the option to do so. When will the game give you that option? Who knows! Unless you're replaying the game, you get little to no advance notice of what policies you'll have the chance to enact later on. I ran into such an issue in my first playthrough. Having just gotten two of my signature policies enacted in a row, I had a budget deficit that I needed to deal with. "What's the harm?" I thought at the time. "The economy is doing great so I'll be able to raise some more revenue without any issue." But, alas, that opportunity never came. Stuck with a deficit, the game didn't give me a chance to raise enough money to fix it and the economy spiraled further and further into crisis as I was unable to repay the debt I had undertaken. All because I made the mistake of anticipating that the game would give me the sensible option of raising a little bit more revenue.

In addition, the lack of variety in how the story progresses makes replay value a lot more limited that what I believe the developers intended. No matter what you do as President, the vast majority of the crises and events that take place will remain mostly the same. The initial conditions never change either. Whether I set my character's background to be a corrupt authoritarian or a democratic reformer, I will always start with the exact same cabinet ministers with little to no chance of replacing them with somebody aligned with my character's views. From one playthrough to another, not enough about the game actually changes to make multiple runs an engaging experience.

Suzerain has some great elements. I enjoyed my first playthrough quite a bit and was excited to see how things would change. But the more I played, the more apparent the flaws became. After 4 runs, each one going for a significantly different approach, it seemed to me that Suzerain wasn't able to live up to its ambitions. As disappointing as it is, I hope the developers are able to continue their work and make something better. They've shown promise here and, while this game may be flawed, it is redeemable enough that I would have high hopes for future projects.

Suzerain is a text based adventure about the president of a young, struggling republic. The stereotype of a political game is that they are vehicles for poorly disguised propaganda, so I'm glad this one actually manages to represent the subject matter in a mature and fairly realistic manner. Particularly the fact that, just like in real life, it's impossible to please everyone.
The story is also generally well written and it can change a whole lot depending on the player's choices, although I think some events may be semi-random. Apart from that, there's not much else about the gameplay as it's a text adventure after all, the player is limited to picking dialogue choices and ticking boxes every once in a while.
On the topic of limitations, one would think a game with so many possible story paths would have a lot of replay value, but sadly I believe this isn't the case because of the mandatory ironman mode. I think that's fine and a completely valid design choice for the first playthrough, but it's annoying to be made to repeat the entire first chapters every time. It doesn't help that some actions have dumb consequences, such as a tax on imported sumptuary goods instantly shrinking the economy of a developing nation by 20% or how refusing to ban a violent organization doesn't have any negative repercussions for public order.
Overall, Suzerain has my full endorsement for the first playthrough, but I'm somewhat disappointed by the lackluster replay experience.

I enjoy choice based games but until Suzerain I always thought that the limits of game design and resources would mean that they would forever be constrained to illusions, slight of hand, and retcons. The amount of options this game provides are staggering, and the game doesn't pull punches about the consequences of your actions either, forgoing the pampering of the player that so many video games stoop to. You're going to face harsh criticism, no matter what you do, and in some cases trying your best can still lead to disaster due to unforeseen circumstances. With its inexorable auto-save system and detailed depiction of a volatile status quo, Suzerain forces you to cast the die and let the chips fall where they may, and in-doing so encourages deep reflection about the issues that plague our past, present, and future. A pretty remarkable feat for such a small title.

Also, skimming wikipedia articles while in cabinet meetings about your failing country is straight up one of the funniest things you can do in a video game.