Sumerian Six fills a very niche hole that few developers have capitalized on. Its six characters and complex maps give players a wealth of options to creatively take out power-hungry Nazis, where careful planning is the best reward.
When I played a demo of Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines in the late 90s, I had no idea what I was doing. At the time, I was a kid primarily playing single-player action games on the Nintendo 64. My PC was used for the internet and a handful of games I still have stashed somewhere in jewel cases in a dusty closet. Because I didn’t have much money and birthdays and Christmases were the primary driving forces behind new game acquisitions, demos were gold.
For some unknown reason I probably spent a dozen hours on a demo for some baseball game. Not because I played the sport or was a fan… I just did? No matter how hard I search my brain, I couldn’t tell you why I would have played Commandos outside of the fact it was a free demo possibly on a CD that was attached to a gaming magazine. Honestly, I was kind of miserable at the game. The constant scream of Nazis shouting “Alarm! Alarm!” when I was discovered. The interface was confusing. I constantly died. But I kept playing with renewed determination.
Looking back, part of me wonders if the demo could actually be beaten or if I was simply that terrible. I could never get the Commando that could swim. Maybe there were too many Nazis to actually avoid. But again, I was probably just a kid that was used to polygonal platformers and my brain merely wasn’t grasping what laid before me.
Sumerian Six captures the essence of what I remember loving about Commandos: Behind Enemy Lines. Despite a deep love for a demo I could never beat, that style of game always stuck with me. And, if I’m being honest, I don’t think I’ve ever played any games in this particular brand of tactical stealth, not even the Commandos series. Yet elements were there I would eventually grow to love: punishing deaths, careful planning, knowledge through struggle. Guess that’s growing up.
Developer Artificer is undoubtedly taking cues from several games in the genre, ones I’ve never touched and a few I’ve heard tale of. For me, however, Sumerian Six feels almost like an introduction to a work I know very well. All its parts make sense to me. I understand the goals and the challenge and why others would love it. Few genres actually feel niche anymore because there are dedicated fans who always remember the good times they have with certain games and always craving something new, if not entirely different.
Using Nazis as the eternal boogeymen is never a bad idea. The bastards did enough damage to the timeline to be permanently etched as villains across any form of media. In its premise, Sumerian Six isn’t anything all that surprising if you’ve watched enough Indiana Jones or played Wolfenstein or Black Ops Zombies.
A scientist named Kammler is dabbling in a spooky substance named Geiststoff that is tied to all kinds of mythical mumbo-jumbo. And he obviously brings his findings to Adolf Hitler to further the gains of the Nazis. Our gang–the Sumerian Six–fight across the land foiling the plans of Kammler and unfolding the mysteries behind Geiststoff and what it is being used for.
Tonally, Artificer nails the pulpy vibes that its inspiration also borrowed from. It characters are quippy and light but know when to buckle down for exposition and serious moments. The first half of the game serves as a slow roll of all six characters, introducing players to their abilities and strengthening the foundation for the plot as it ramps up into more science fiction and mysticism.
Does the story take any drastic or unexpected surprises? Not necessarily. Are there deep moments of pathos and catharsis? Nah. Sumerian Six is built on providing players with a heroic jaunt that dabbles in campy humor, B-movie insanity, and genuine historical settings. More so, it allows the player to experience a genre in which patrolling soldiers make sense but then incorporate stranger units that truly test the suite of abilities on display.
My favorite aspect of this genre is that each mission and map feels like a sandbox heist of possibility. Ultimately, the goal is to wipe out every bad guy. Doing so requires somewhat careful planning in the early levels but delicate thought and consideration as the difficulty grows. These massive maps are cut into different sections, each presenting a different kind of challenge.
While Sumerian Six and other games like it somewhat boil down to wiping out patrols, it isn’t any different from complex puzzle games that require the player to use their brain. Enemy AI here can be a bit brain-dead at times but it’s done in service to not put too much pressure on the player. Plus, the difficulty can be tuned to max to increase the number of enemies and increase their ability to see the player.
There’s a distinct joy in the player being able to look at the entire map and have a sense of how the level is going to play out for them. Sumerian Six originally released on PC and is now rolling out to consoles. The port work done makes using a controller feel relatively effortless. I had to get used to which directional button to press to enable certain things like showing off vision cones, enabling the free camera, and entering a mode that pauses time to enable each of the Six to pull off an action at the same time.
Artificer doesn’t place too many hurdles in the player’s way. The challenge here should be in executing a smooth operation, not in fighting the camera or figuring out what the game is trying to tell you. Enemy sight cones can be a bit tricky to plan out, usually focusing on the closest enemy to the selected character. But it’s easy to tell how obscured the player is whether through crouching or low-visibility.
New enemy types are thrown into the mix that require certain methods to dispatch. Officers can’t be distracted by lures and double agents need to be kept alive. A handful of different objectives that aren’t simply “kill” present themselves to require advanced coordination.
The best part of Sumerian Six is obviously the six characters that are controlled over the course of the game. Each one is crafted with thoughtful skills that make them feel distinct but similar. Sid can shoot a pistol and take a ride inside patrolling guards. Isabelle can literally swap places with a guard or go invisible. Rosa is a chemist who can melt enemies with poison so the bodies don’t have to be hidden. Alastair uses lighting to hit multiple people or trap them. Siegfried can turn himself into a spirit or cast invisibility zones on others. And finally, there’s Wojtek, who can turn into a werebear and claw some of the sturdier brutes to death.
Playing calculus with these six characters in varying combinations is an absolute thrill. With such a massive suite of skills there are multiple ways that players can tackle a single section of Sumerian Six‘s levels. And while it took me some time to understand how to manipulate the method of setting up multiple actions at once, watching it play out was like seeing an elaborate domino set up fall.
Over the course of the game, players can discover and earn XP upgrades that will further expand the capabilities of skills, usually increasing their range or duration. The palpable sense of progression makes the harder levels feel less daunting, even when players continue to die or merely screw up. The 30-second alarm triggered when seen isn’t always a death sentence and gives some breathing room.
This isn’t a tricky genre to execute but it’s certainly one that’s difficult to do right. Tactical stealth often is reduced to third-person hiding behind boxes and crouching in the shadows. While Sumerian Six has some of that, its various challenges feel more like a chess game than merely waiting out enemy patrols. Usually taking out one Nazi means having to keep track of several others, hoping they won’t react. Artificer has done an excellent job carrying the torch of several developers and games that have come before it and I hope to see more games like Sumerian Six in the future.
Sumerian Six fills a very niche hole that few developers have capitalized on. Its six characters and complex maps give players a wealth of options to creatively take out power-hungry Nazis, where careful planning is the best reward.
