Reigns: Three Kingdoms

The turn-based card battler Reigns: Three Kingdoms may not be exactly what you think when you first start, but it's a good game worth adding to your deck-building library.

Reigns: Three Kingdoms adds plenty of new ideas and frustrations, but anyone looking for a bit of regicide on their Steam Deck could do far worse.

Like its predecessors, Reigns: Three Kingdoms does a good job of taking a simple and easy-to-understand mechanic and making it a big part of a very substantial adventure. The change to a real historical setting is nice, but the original story is much more interesting to follow and uncover. The balancing act for card selection is simple but fascinating once you understand meter management. The battle system follows the same "simple but good" philosophy of the main game. If you're a fan of the previous titles, Reigns: Three Kingdoms is worth checking out, especially given the game's low price of $2.99.

The clever card-based strategy series is back, this time with a new setting and some new tricks up its sleeve

Ultimately, I wanted to like this game more than I actually did. The pacing is excellent, the systems are deceptively deep, and the interface is well-crafted. Plus, your consequences for failure are expertly balanced, giving you a lot of freedom to fail. On the other hand, the constant repetition is exhausting. It feels like the roguelike treadmill set to a dead sprint. And while you’re forgiven for failure, you’re also not pointed to success. I had to poke, prod, and muddle my way to any sort of goal. You can absolutely succeed, but the road to that point is a long and meandering one. If you’re looking for a unique take on Chinese history, you’re in luck! But be warned: many pitfalls and dead ends await you.

Fans of the previous Reigns games will enjoy this new title, which improves on certain aspects of its previous entries and adds new mechanics to keep the series fresh. With new deeds and goals to reach, Reigns Three Kingdom will cause players to spend countless hours completing every task at hand as they live through the final years of the Han Dynasty... If they manage to live that long.

Reigns: Three Kingdoms is a worthy successor to the Reigns throne. As a mobile game it can feel awkward on a PC, but it has a nice minimalist style and offers some solid storytelling and world building.