Solium Infernum Review: Better to Reign in Hell Than Serve in Heaven

In Solium Infernum, you take the role of a scheming Archfiend competing to become the next ruler of Hell. The Prince of Darkness has vanished, leaving eight possible successors to pursue the Infernal Throne through legions, sorcery, insults, political manoeuvring and carefully regulated violence.

The 2024 release is a reimagining of Vic Davis’s 2009 cult strategy game. I had been curious about the original for years, but League of Geeks’ modern version finally gave me an excuse to enter Hell’s bureaucracy.

What makes the game distinctive is not simply its setting. Solium Infernum treats warfare as something that must be prepared politically before it can be pursued militarily. The real contest is often not whether you can defeat an opponent, but whether you can create the conditions under which you are permitted to attack them.

Game logo: Solium Infernum, developed and published by League of Geeks. Used for purposes of review and commentary.

Grand Strategy Without the Usual Expansion

Solium Infernum sits beside the 4X tradition without fitting neatly inside it. The map is a wraparound hex grid, with opposite edges connecting, and everything is visible from the outset. There is no fog of war to clear and little sense of discovering an unknown world.

The traditional “explore” element has therefore largely disappeared. Expansion also matters less than it does in most 4X games. Territory, Places of Power and military position are useful, but covering the map is not the purpose of play.

What remains is a simultaneous turn-based grand strategy game focused on position, timing and anticipation. Every Archfiend submits orders without knowing exactly what the others have chosen. A plan that appears safe when issued may become disastrous once every rival’s actions resolve.

This structure shifts attention away from constant tactical reaction. You are trying to understand what the other players believe will happen—and to arrange matters so that their apparently sensible choice becomes the wrong one.

Hell Has Rules About Warfare

Warfare exists, but it is deliberately constrained by the Infernal Conclave. You cannot ordinarily march into another Archfiend’s territory and begin destroying whatever happens to be nearby.

Instead, insults, demands and other diplomatic provocations can produce vendettas. These are limited conflicts with declared objectives and a restricted duration. They create a formal arena in which prestige can be won or lost.

A blood feud is something more serious. It removes many of the protections imposed by infernal diplomacy and allows an Archfiend’s stronghold to be attacked. Capturing that stronghold eliminates the rival entirely.

The effect is to make aggression feel consequential. Open conflict is not the genre’s default background activity. It must be manufactured through political interaction or entered at considerable risk.

This is one of the game’s strongest ideas. Diplomacy does not merely provide an alternative to warfare. Diplomacy determines the legal and political form that warfare is allowed to take.

Gameplay screenshots from Solium Infernum, captured by the author. Game developed and published by League of Geeks.

Prestige, Rank and Competing Uses of Power

In a conventional Conclave game, the eligible Archfiend with the most prestige is elected to the throne. Warfare, schemes, diplomacy, sorcery and control of important locations can all contribute to that total.

Prestige is not simply a score that accumulates harmlessly in the corner of the screen. It can be wagered in political actions and spent to purchase higher Infernal Rank. Rank brings meaningful benefits, but the prestige used to acquire it is no longer available to secure an election victory.

This produces a pleasing tension. Promotion may improve your income, influence and resistance to hostile rituals, yet climbing Hell’s hierarchy can temporarily move you further from winning Hell itself.

Prestige is not the only route to victory. An Archfiend can abandon the Conclave’s procedures, seize Pandaemonium and attempt to hold the capital as a usurper. Doing so replaces infernal politics with open hostility from every rival. The alternative exists, but it is deliberately dramatic rather than merely another point-scoring strategy.

The Tyranny of the Order Slot

The other major constraint is the action economy. You begin with very few Order Slots, so every turn involves abandoning several things you would like to do.

Demanding tribute, improving a Power, moving a legion, conducting diplomacy, bidding on an item and performing a ritual all compete for the same limited capacity. The game is filled with elaborate systems, but you can engage with only a fraction of them at once.

Raising any of the five Powers—Wrath, Deceit, Prophecy, Destruction or Charisma—to level four grants an additional Order Slot. That makes the choice of which Power to develop important not only because of the abilities it unlocks, but because additional actions increase the value of almost everything else you possess.

A Wrath-focused Archfiend may become formidable in open battle while remaining vulnerable to theft, destructive rituals or political isolation. The systems refuse to stay in separate compartments. Military strength is only useful if you can protect it and obtain opportunities to deploy it.

Atmosphere and Accessibility

The game is wonderfully atmospheric. Its visual direction draws heavily on infernal painting, grotesque religious imagery and the bureaucratic grandeur of a Hell that appears to have continued functioning after Satan disappeared.

The interface initially presents an intimidating quantity of information, but the game makes a serious effort to explain itself. The tutorial provides a workable introduction, while the in-game Codex is unusually valuable and gives detailed explanations of the systems and terminology.

This does not make Solium Infernum simple. The rules are intertwined, and understanding what an opponent might do requires knowledge of diplomatic procedures, rituals, powers, units, relics and prestige incentives. The Codex makes that complexity legible rather than removing it.

An Old Board-Game Echo

The premise vaguely reminds me of an old board game I knew as The HellGame, in which rival demons also competed for power in Hell. The resemblance is more atmospheric than mechanical, but it may explain part of my long-standing curiosity about Solium Infernum.

The digital game feels far more coherent. Its systems reinforce the same central idea: Hell is not lawless. It is governed by malicious rules, and mastery means learning how to exploit those rules without becoming trapped by them.

Early Impressions

So far, I have mostly experimented with a war-focused Archfiend. Even then, the game has repeatedly pushed back against a purely military approach, forcing me to engage with diplomacy, ritual defence and political positioning whether I wanted to or not.

That resistance is a large part of what makes the game compelling. A strategy that succeeds in one dimension creates vulnerabilities somewhere else. Armies, prestige, Powers, rank and Order Slots form a network of competing priorities rather than a ladder with one obviously correct direction.

Solium Infernum is therefore not a game about conquest for its own sake. It is about manipulation, restraint and choosing the moment when the political cost of action becomes lower than the cost of continuing to wait.

Most strategy games ask how efficiently you can expand. Solium Infernum asks whether you can persuade your rivals to make the first mistake—and whether you will recognise it before someone else turns yours into a path to the throne.