Sumerian Six is primed to fill the stealth tactics-shaped hole

Announced at the 2024 PC Gaming Show, Sumerian Six is a brand-new game from Showgunners developer Artificer. Taking the turn-based tactics design they’ve worked with and now applying it to the real-time stealth genre, The Sumerian Six looks prime to fill the void left by the departed Mimimi Games.

The stealth tactics genre is here to stay. It’s not far off: Sumerian Six is slated to release later this year.

The trailer depicts a group of six nazi hunters. The year is 1944.  The crux of the story is that a high-up general of the nazi army is looking to make powerful super soldiers. Occult scientific weapons and ancient Sumerian artefacts are within their grasp. Naturally, you must put a stop to it all, going on a foray across multiple continents, tackling tombs, nazi encampments and the like. Artificer and publisher Devolver Digital generously announced you can get a taste of that already with a demo out now that spans the opening two chapters. We got to experience this demo early and in all metrics it looks like Sumerian Six is shaping up to be the goods.

The opening mission begins with a pair of siblings, infiltrating a nazi facility on the hunt for some key documents. Situated in the Alps, you’ll scale the facility walls, wading through snow and cobblestone. The name of the game is all about vision cone dodging, working as a team to despatch enemies, completing your objective and getting out.

This of course is where the skills come into play. The siblings bounce off of and complement each other well; the sister is more primed for running interference as she can throw a scientific crystal to distract a guard, or even swap places with an enemy, moving a target to somewhere more secluded to be taken out by whoever their partner of a given mission is. Meanwhile, the brother is all about reach. His gun allows him to avoid close-quarters exchanges. If he needs to be in the thick of things, he can possess enemies, letting him slip right under the nazi’s noses. Similarly, he can briefly blind enemies to dodge a vision cone. Before long, he’s halfway across the map. All along the way, the pair engaged in good old-fashioned sibling banter. It’s a royal good time.

This slideshow requires JavaScript.

So far, Sumerian Six doesn’t exactly seem to be reinventing the genre. It’s got the crucial real-time pausing to map out actions for several characters at once, mastered in Shadow Gambit: The Cursed Crew. The most original thing the game has going for it so far is that there aren’t any skill trees, just upgrades to your preset skills, found organically in missions in boxes. I like this approach; instead of rewarding skill through challenges (something that not all will be able to fulfil), Sumerian Six rewards players for being studious and patient. It feels like it’s patting you on the back once you successfully map out how to get to a given crate tucked away in a corner.

Sumerian Six’s other characters include a chemist who can do away with enemies with acid, eliminating the need for hiding bodies. They have a mentalist who can hypnotise and manipulate the enemy’s mind. They’ve even got a shape-shifting Werebear that can transform to double the size of a human. All of that sounds like pure insanity and a fun set of skills to tool around with. I can’t wait to see how it all works come full release.

Sumerian Six releases this year. We can’t wait to check it out.