Sins of a Solar Empire II

Forgive me father, for I have sinned. A lot.

While perhaps more like a remaster of Sins of a Solar Empire than a sequel, Sins of a Solar Empire 2 is a robust RTS, and you can play it just fine on the Steam Deck.

Stardock Entertainment and Ironclad Games bring us a worthy sequel which dazzles the eyeballs and challenges the tactical skills of 4X players everywhere. Only the lack of a cohesive and engaging narrative keeps this title from attaining perfection.

Sins of a Solar Empire 2's spectacular space battles are an excellent reward for learning to manage at least some of this complex real-time strategy epic's systems.

Sins of a Solar Empire II has many issues, but it is a fun experience that offers some of the best carnage and graphics in the genre. If you have the money to spare and like the original game, it's a good grab; otherwise, it might not be.

The "real-time" thing may be confusing. This isn't something that moves with the pace of Command & Conquer. Even the small maps are a couple of hours' play. If you want to deal with a multi-star galaxy with ten races looking to be the winner, you're looking at the sort of commitment of time that matches many entire single-player games (or two or three Losts). You can have slower games by reducing the speed, or speed them up instead, but this is a game where the relative ponderousness of what you're controlling is absolutely the point.