Thank you Sylen Studio for providing us with an Early Access preview code!

Sancticide is adapted from the Polish book series “Komornik" by Michał Gołkowski. It takes place during the Biblical apocalypse. However, due to humanity’s overpopulation and technical advances, the end of the world is not going as planned since the four horseman’s chariots cannot outrun modern vehicles. Divine forces sought a solution by appointing apocryphal angels to take over humanity’s extinction. These angels were uninspired and lacked proper guidance to do this and decided to entrust this task to a select few humans called Sin Collectors.

You’ll play as a Sin Collector named Ezechiel who is given the choice to work under the angel Azrael or die. Sinful humans have zero respect for Sin Collectors and are often hostile towards them. Religious folks are more supportive and willing to share information. Kosherness plays a factor in how talkative people will be with Ezechiel. Modern technology is considered un-kosher and if you have guns equipped you’ll be greeted with silence or anger. You can use your kosher radar on individuals to see how sinful they are and intimidate them into cooperating.

Sin Collectors have many divine powers like the ability to use a Jedi-like Force push, slow down time (while you move at normal speed), and healing yourself as needed. In combat, Ezechiel can attack, block, parry, or kick his enemies. The enemies can do the same so you’ll have to watch their moves and respond accordingly. You’ll rarely find an enemy by themselves so be prepared to take on a crowd. The paths will often be blocked until you defeat all of the bad guys so running away is not an option. There are a decent amount of healing stations to replenish your health after tough battles.

Even more plentiful than healing spots are treasure chests. Inside of these chests you may discover better weapons, ammo, and various collectibles. Many of the items in the treasure chest are sexual in nature including condoms, vibrators, birth control, butt plugs, pubic hair shavers, and urethra wideners. It’s a messed up world for sure!

Even though Sancticide has the option to disable gore, there’s still plenty of blood and gross bits shown in the cutscenes and during gameplay itself. Language is very harsh with F-bombs being dropped every few minutes. This is not a good game to play near young children!

As I’m writing this preview, Sancticide has mixed reviews on Steam. There were complaints about AI voice acting, performance issues and a short amount of gameplay. I wanted to stream this game, but wasn’t able to do so without the recording or stream turning into a slideshow. There is definitely room for improvement when it comes to optimization.

New areas have been added and they look great. However, I was still able to get as far as I could in roughly three hours. I hope more content will be added to justify the $17 price tag. Despite there being room for improvement, I did enjoy my time playing Santicide. I would recommend picking it up on sale if the violence, language, and weird sexual loot items don’t bother you.