I've played Thea for nearly 25 hours, plus a few more on console, and I still don't have much of a clue how to describe it. It's a...turn based strategy RPG? 4X where the first X only partly exists? Survival game? Party-based card battler RPG? King of Dragon Pass having a baby with D&D? All wrapped in a roguelike blanket?

Thea is an ecclectic mix of genre-blending that tasks you, a deity, with managing a small village of post-apocalyptic survivors, surviving and thriving in a dark fantasy world based on slavic mythology. You must gather resources to supply your villagers with food, going out on expeditions to find new resources, fight monsters, find new allies, and undertake quests to discover why the world ended and what to do to revitalise it.

Your village is made up of individual villagers, all with their own stat sets, ultimately creating an adventuring party that needs to be balanced and prepared for every eventuality. Out in the world, you encounter natural disasters and creatures, and depending on the adventuring party that are in that situation, they can fight their way out or possibly undertake an alternative challenge - social, hunting, stealth, testing magical knowledge, and so on. These challenges all take place as a simple card battle drawing on the stats of the characters involved. See what I mean by genre-blending?

You will make mistakes in Thea. You will lose characters. Runs will end in disaster. And that's where the wider game comes in. Every game that ends gives the god you played as experience points which unlocks buffs for subsequent runs, varying from god to god as they lean to different playstyles. You'll learn a little with every loss, how to craft, how to hunt, the shapes of different encounters, how to build your strength to face the world that gets stronger with time. This roguelike wrapper feels like the one true sharp edge on Thea - after 25 hours, I've come nowhere near making good main quest progress, let alone finishing the game. Maybe I'm learning too slowly. But a single game of Thea can last as long as a game of Civilization, and the hours the game demands to see all its mechanics might not be reasonable.

With that said, I'm happy with my 25 hours and I'm ready to - eventually - put in many more and try out the sequel. Thea is truly unique, and its weirdness brings some growing pains and a tricky learning curve, but I absolutely recommend you try it and support unique strategy games.

I've played Thea for nearly 25 hours, plus a few more on console, and I [i]still[/i] don't have much of a clue how to describe it. It's a...turn based strategy RPG? 4X where the first X only partly exists? Survival game? Party-based card battler RPG? King of Dragon Pass having a baby with D&D? All wrapped in a roguelike blanket? Thea is an ecclectic mix of genre-blending that tasks you, a deity, with managing a small village of post-apocalyptic survivors, surviving and thriving in a dark fantasy world based on slavic mythology. You must gather resources to supply your villagers with food, going out on expeditions to find new resources, fight monsters, find new allies, and undertake quests to discover why the world ended and what to do to revitalise it. Your village is made up of individual villagers, all with their own stat sets, ultimately creating an adventuring party that needs to be balanced and prepared for every eventuality. Out in the world, you encounter natural disasters and creatures, and depending on the adventuring party that are in that situation, they can fight their way out or possibly undertake an alternative challenge - social, hunting, stealth, testing magical knowledge, and so on. These challenges all take place as a simple card battle drawing on the stats of the characters involved. See what I mean by genre-blending? You will make mistakes in Thea. You will lose characters. Runs will end in disaster. And that's where the wider game comes in. Every game that ends gives the god you played as experience points which unlocks buffs for subsequent runs, varying from god to god as they lean to different playstyles. You'll learn a little with every loss, how to craft, how to hunt, the shapes of different encounters, how to build your strength to face the world that gets stronger with time. This roguelike wrapper feels like the one true sharp edge on Thea - after 25 hours, I've come nowhere near making good main quest progress, let alone finishing the game. Maybe I'm learning too slowly. But a single game of Thea can last as long as a game of Civilization, and the hours the game demands to see all its mechanics might not be reasonable. With that said, I'm happy with my 25 hours and I'm ready to - eventually - put in many more and try out the sequel. Thea is truly unique, and its weirdness brings some growing pains and a tricky learning curve, but I absolutely recommend you try it and support unique strategy games.