Satellite Reign
Contains the game, original soundtrack, 'Satellite Reign: Reboot' e-book and 'The Art of Satellite Reign' e-book. Co-Op Multiplayer Play the entirety of Satellite Reign with your friends in co-op multiplayer. Up to four players can each control their own agent, opening up a whole new level of strategic and co-ordinated play. With full drop-in/drop-out support, LAN and Internet play, and customisable agent assignment, get ready to experience Satellite Reign like never before. Strategic Cyberpunk Action Satellite Reign is a real-time, class-based strategy game, set in an open-world cyberpunk city. You command a group of 4 agents through rain-soaked, neon-lit streets, where the law is the will of mega-corporations. Use your agents to sneak, shoot, steal, and sabotage your way up the corporate ladder, and take control of the most powerful monopoly of all time.
Steam User 9
Amazing game. I'd been wanting to play a modern version of Syndicate for years so I was incredibly excited to try this game and it fit the bill perfectly. This game kept me busy for weeks and it's one of the few I've played in recent years that actually has a great deal of replay potential. I hope a sequel will be released one day, I'll buy it no hesitation. Great job, devs!
Steam User 6
It's not too often that a game comes around which offers multiplayer isometric co-op in an open world. The setting is wonderfully atmospheric and it's a lot of fun to romp around pulling real-time heists with your friends. No complaints.
That said, this is not a deep game - the loop is simple: Execute heist, upgrade equipment, pull another one. Rinse, repeat.
For my money, 100% recommendation, even at full price.
Steam User 5
I played this games years ago when it first came out but didn't get very far, and recently jumped back in as I remembered enjoying the gameplay. For a kickstarter project that had limited funding, this game is quite good, the gameplay is real time (with optional pause) squad based combat in a semi open world that is focused on various heists you perform to move the story forward and get upgrades for your squad. Combat is actually the least interesting part of the game for me as the stealth, and various methods of bypassing obstacles and enemies are all what I enjoy the most, for example you can highjack enemy soldiers with your hacker and have them open gates or scout the enemy base for you, and you can even use highjacked bodies to upgrade your squadmembers.
All in all it still holds up today in 2024 and there really arn't any other games quite like it which is a shame because while it is enjoyable you can see that it was limited in scope due to its budget. I would absolutely love a modern take on this game that fleshed out more mechanics and had a bigger, more interactive world, but this game is worth checking out.
Steam User 4
very very fun game. i don't know if i'd enjoy playing it solo, but pairing up with a friend or two is a great experience. very fun coop game.
Steam User 31
Satellite Reign is a worthy spiritual successor to Syndicate and Syndicate Wars, as it keeps everything that made these games such great cynical cyberpunk experiences, while adding modern gameplay ideas that meaningfully expand on the formula: Satellite Reign is set in a mostly contiguous open-world-ish city environment filled with lots of interactive environmental features that combine to create very dynamic gameplay scenarios. There are vents to use as shortcuts, power generators you can hardwire to deactivate connected devices, hackable computers that can turn turrets into allies, and much more. The game also gives you plenty of tools to interact with the world, from explosives and EMP grenades to portable invisibility generators. There’s a stealth system and a cover system, and in true Syndicate style you can research new gear, weapons, and implants or kidnap civilians to upgrade your drone agents.
Satellite Reign feels a lot like a top-down immersive sim, as these systems combine to give you lots of freedom to approach any given situation the way you want. The game supports this with its open-world-ish structure, with most missions only giving you a set goal (infiltrate a specific building in a restricted area of the city), and then letting you figure it out from there. You can pay informants to acquire useful information on your target (“there’s an electrocuted zipwire that’ll get you easy access to the area if you can first deactivate the power generator”) or do side quests to gain advantages (“assassinate a specific civilian to get the access codes to a door in the target area”). Once you feel prepared enough, you can make your way to your target in whatever way you wish, as the large open maps are all designed to allow for many different approaches. But naturally, the hard part is getting out of the lion’s den after the deed…
As far as I’m concerned, this is what makes Satellite Reign such a brilliant successor to Syndicate Wars. After the initial tutorial, the game is entirely player-driven. You’re just given an idea of useful targets in the cyberpunk city and you can decide whether to go for it or do something else. Need some money to fund your research? Just rob a bank (in the game!) or hack ATMs to siphon off a regular income. You’re planning to infiltrate a big military base and you just know you won’t be able to stay stealthy? Use your hacker to mind-control a bunch of cops, then use them to attack the guards in another area of the base as a distraction. Or just provoke the different factions of the city into fights with each other.
What’s perhaps most telling in regards to this open, player-driven design is that you could theoretically just walk straight from the tutorial area to the endgame area and finish the game, because there are no hard progression stops in the game, in the sense of “you have to do quests X and Y before the endgame area becomes accessible”. Sure, there will be tons of turrets, mechs and cybered-up guards in the way, but if you’re good enough, you might be able to bypass them even with the starting equipment. The game won’t artificially stop you from doing things like that, it’ll just have you face very challenging gameplay situations to entice you to prepare better for the final showdown.
Literally the only thing I can see potentially becoming an issue for some players here is the fact that the game can be a bit micro-management heavy and the controls may take some getting used to. Unlike the original Syndicate, your agents won’t eventually become unstoppable killing machines to the point where the game effectively plays itself – Satellite Reign still requires you to play well to succeed. When you get into fights, you not only have to take positioning and cover into account, but also stop your agents from shooting at nothing because their AI doesn’t realise there’s a wall between them and their target (the attack move command is much more reliable in this regard). There’re also lots of active abilities you can unlock via the skill system (the soldier can draw enemy fire, the infiltrator can turn invisible and so on), and you’ll need to make good use of them, because it’s very easy even for hardened agents to get overwhelmed as they’re spotted by a security camera and all the guards in the area start converging on you. If you don’t like that kind of pressure, the developers have patched in a way to start the game with the support agent’s time-slowing skill fully unlocked, so you can effectively play the game like a ‘real-time with pause’ game in the vein of Baldur’s Gate.
I’ve loved Satellite Reign every time I’ve played it since release, as it’s one of those games that’s built from the ground up to put you in charge, just like the original Thief or most other games on the immersive sim spectrum. In a typical gameplay session, you’ll buy information about the tech you can steal from the local corporate headquarters, infiltrate the area through a hacked backdoor, deactivate the CCTV system and get your prize. But then, a guard spots you on the way out and raises the alarm, which wakes up a nearby mech standing between you and your exfiltration point. So you get out your guns and improvise an escape plan, as more and more guards start putting the pressure on you. You finally blow up a gate at the exit of the restricted area which your hacker isn’t experienced enough to hack yet, only to find yourself getting spotted by cops and cameras on the city streets. So you have your hacker hijack a guard or two and use them as disposable puppets to cover your escape. In Satellite Reign, pulse-pounding shootouts and thrilling stealth infiltrations happen not because the developers scripted them into the game, but because of how you chose to approach the situation and how you used the game’s systems. That makes it incredibly satisfying to pull off a dynamic heist or even a flawlessly silent infiltration, knowing you’ve got no one to thank for it but yourself.
If you have a love for Syndicate and Syndicate Wars, or just enjoy systems-centred, player-driven gameplay in mechanically believable microcosms, there’s no excuse not to at least try Satellite Reign. By now, it’s old enough to frequently be on sale with a significant discount, and I promise you: Even at full price, this game is still well worth it!
Steam User 7
Great spiritual successor to the classic 90s Syndicate. Top down isometric with a cyberpunk atmosphere. Love what they did here.
Steam User 2
TL;DR: An incredibly atmospheric cyberpunk real-time tactics game. While obviously designed for singleplayer, I had a good time playing it with friends. The gameplay loop is solid and satisfying if somewhat repetitive after a while.
Satellite Reign is a game that knows what it wants to be and pulls it off successfully. Like many other spiritual successors, they know what vibe they’re going for. And it shows in the quality of the product – the developers obviously knew what they were doing when designing this game. I never played Syndicate, but I can still feel what they were trying to achieve.
First of all, let’s talk about the (visual) atmosphere. There’s several areas with their own lighting and architecture, and this makes those areas feel fleshed out and real. The world is sizable and filled with all kinds of establishments. Satellite Reign really does its best to make you feel like you’re in a corporate-run cyberpunk dystopian city. Unfortunately, most of the world is just there to separate the mission-relevant secure compounds, and you cannot interact with random buildings. It would have been nice to send your guys over to a hotel or restaurant or strip club or something, but that isn’t possible. Nevertheless, these places do add to the atmosphere. It feels more like a city than a level.
The music is quite good and fitting for the aesthetic they’re going for. I can’t complain about the sound effects, but they weren’t remarkable, either.
Often overlooked in video games, the writing in this game actually does add to the flavor of the game. There is plenty of text that shares lore or mission context and adds to your sense of purpose. There are also a lot of optional notes that you can read through if you’re so inclined. But for those who dislike reading, the main mission objectives are always highlighted in a sentence or two.
Going from atmosphere to actual gameplay – the gameplay loop is solid. First you become familiar with a section of the city before gathering information about possible objectives there. After that, you infiltrate (or blast your way into) increasingly secure compounds. Each class can contribute in their own unique way and that does make them feel different. The main downside is that there is little variety in mission types, and the core gameplay loop does get a bit repetitive over time. But so long as you enjoy this core, it’s probably still entertaining enough. The level/secure compound designs are generally laid so that you can engage with them in several ways, and that feels satisfying.
To sum it all up – I had a great time playing this in multiplayer. The atmosphere is great in terms of visuals, audio and writing. It’s very immersive. The gameplay loop is solid. There’s very little for me to complain about. I might even try it in singleplayer just to spend more time with the game and world. I hope we’ll get to see a sequel.