Reigns (video game)

Reigns is a 2016

A sequel, titled Reigns: Her Majesty, in which the player acts as a queen consort, was released in December 2017. Reigns and its sequel were released for Nintendo Switch, under the collective title Reigns: Kings & Queens, in September 2018.^[1] A third entry in the Reigns series, Reigns: Game of Thrones, was released in October 2018. A fourth game for Apple Arcade, titled Reigns: Beyond was released in 2020. A fifth game, titled Reigns: Three Kingdoms, was released for Netflix subscribers in November 2022.^[2]

Gameplay

Reigns is a strategy video game.^[3][4] Players control a medieval king and must make decisions to make their tenure as monarch last as long as possible.^[5] Various advisers represented by cards approach the player with petitions and questions. The player chooses between two responses to the supplicant by moving their card to the left or right.^[3] Each decision has an effect on the power of one of the kingdom's four aspects: the army, people, church, and wealth.^[3] These facets are represented by meters that are filled and emptied based upon the player's decisions.^[4] For example, the player can provide assistance to a witch to fill the meter representing the people, at the cost of the church's power.^[5]

If any of the four meters becomes completely filled or empty, the player's reign ends and they experience a game over.^[4] After death, the player starts again as a new king and begins another reign.^[4] Completing tasks in each reign allows the player to unlock new cards,^[6] and some of these cards have effects that last over time, such as a crusade that is continued across multiple reigns.^[5] To win the game, the player find a way to break a curse created by the Devil, who visits the player over several centuries; if the player does not find a way to break the curse before the Devil stops his visits, the game resets.^[5]

Plot

The player character, an unnamed King, meets a ghost called the Spirit of the Fallen. The spirit tells the King to be a wise and pragmatic ruler and to reign for as long as possible. After the King dies, he is reincarnated as a new ruler and encounters the spirit again, who tells him that they are both cursed to be reborn after death. After several reigns, the King is visited by the Devil in the year 666; the demon taunts the King, revealing that the monarch traded his soul centuries beforehand in exchange for eternal power, though the Devil was able to manipulate this wish by trapped him in a cycle of death and resurrection. The Devil reappears in 1332, telling the King that there is no end to this cycle, and that he will visit the King a final time in the year 1998. Before that date arrives, the King meets a noblewoman called the Senator who knows of the bargain he made with Devil. She tells him the only way to annul the deal is to force the Devil to perform a task that he cannot fulfill.

The Devil arrives in 1998 and casts an enchantment on the King as a "parting gift" before disappearing forever, causing the next person to whom he says "Yes" to suffer a gruesome death. The ending depends on the character that the player uses the curse on. If the player uses the curse on the Spirit of the Fallen, the Devil reveals that the ghost is a reflection of the King's own soul and memories, and condemns the monarch to spiritual death by sending him to Hell. If the player uses the curse on any other mortal character, the spirit remarks that the cycle will never end and the King becomes trapped forever. However, if the player performs several optional tasks, the King can use the curse on an undead skeleton; the Devil discovers that it is impossible to kill the already-deceased monster, and is forced to release the King into the afterlife.

Development

Reigns was developed by the London-based games studio Nerial. Developer François Alliot was considering leaving the games industry after several failed projects, and pitched the game's concept to publisher

According to Metacritic, Reigns has garnered "generally favorable" reviews. Reviewers praised the simplicity of its control scheme, noting its similarity to the "Swipe" interface in social app Tinder.^[17][15] However, Alex Hern from The Guardian found certain choices in the game "nonsensical", and of unclear consequences.^[15] TouchArcade praised the scope of the title, saying it did a good job "making a game that’s inherently about simple binary decisions feel like something bigger". Rock Paper Shotgun enjoyed the way the player would change their approach as the game went on, "First time or two around, perhaps like me you'll be an idealist, striving to do whatever's best... My moral conscience eroded steadily over time, as my focus shifted to keeping the plates spinning".^[19]

The game won the international competition at the 2017 Ludicious convention.^[20] It was nominated for "Best Mobile Game" of Unity Awards 2016, and "Use of Narrative" of Develop Awards 2016.^[21][22] In 2017, Reigns was nominated for "Mobile Game of the Year" at the 20th Annual D.I.C.E. Awards.^[23]

References