Sintopia Early Access (p)Review – A Bureaucratic Hell You’ll Actually Want to Run
Welcome to the Afterlife’s Worst-Run Office
If you’ve ever daydreamed about running your own afterlife empire, not as a halo-wearing angel or fire-and-brimstone overlord, but as a clipboard-wielding administrator with a knack for paperwork and chaos, Sintopia has your name on it. Developed by Piraknights Games and published by Team17, this is a management sim with a wicked twist: your job isn’t to save souls, but to process, punish, and profit from them. Perhaps this is the true end game of capitalism.
Do not let the theme make you believe it is all Dante's Inferno, as the game comes in a delightfully cartoonish package that makes Hell feel less like eternal torment and more like a quirky, slightly mismanaged theme park, complete with imps, paperwork, and the occasional “accidental” lightning strike.
What Is It – Management Sim Meets God Game
At its core, Sintopia feels like a fusion of two distinct genres: the hands-off manipulation of a god game and the nuts-and-bolts efficiency tuning of a management sim. Neither of which I am particularly good at by the way. If you’ve ever played Black & White and wished you could run its villages like Two Point Hospital, or if Dungeon Keeper had you wishing for more bureaucratic humor, this is the mash-up you’ve been waiting for. Sintopia melds these together and then folds it together in a larger loop between two realms.
The world is split into two realms:
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The Overworld – Home to the Humus, adorable chickpea-like humanoids ( the game says they are actual made out of chickpea, not sure what to make of that) living their daily lives, blissfully unaware that you can smite them at will.
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Hell – Your fully customizable workplace of torment, where sins are scrubbed away in specialized facilities and Purgadollars keep the infernal economy rolling.
Both realms are linked in a looping cycle: Overworld citizens sin, die, get processed in Hell, and, if you’ve done your job, are resurrected to start the whole thing again. Mess up and the Chickpeas, who have a knack for sinning( and ba-doinking, so much ba-doinking ) might turn into horrible abominations that can ruin your whole ecosystem.
Gameplay – From Chickpeas to Charred Souls
Managing the Overworld
Up top, the Humus work, trade, fight, and reproduce and generally go about their business. Their behavior is shaped by the personality of their king, randomly generated each coronation, which can skew society toward greed, war, building projects, or other priorities. Don't worry if the king does not suit your needs, just kill him/her and get a new one.
You can’t directly tell citizens what to do, but you can nudge events in your favor with a modest arsenal of spells. Push, Fire, Lightning, and Resurrection all have multiple uses, from influencing construction to causing… well… mass casualties. The fun here is in creativity, turning a small spark into a citywide fire or “accidentally” removing a king you don’t like with a thunderbolt.
Sins in the Overworld are tracked individually, covering all seven deadly varieties. Circumstances shape them, no home boosts Envy, unemployment raises Sloth, excessive wealth fuels Greed, and letting them spiral can lead to epidemics or, worse, citizens turning into demonic incarnations of their vice. Clearly you do not want these little delights to be too comfortable and happy.
Running Hell
Once a "Humu" dies, their soul takes the most metal bus ride imaginable, courtesy of the Reaper Bus, straight to your gates. From there, you decide their fate and of course syphon of the delicious sin. This takes planning and a little engineering. A series of tools become available for you through a pretty robust tutorial.
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Build & Staff Facilities. Construct general punishment rooms or specialized chambers for specific sins. Staff them with imps and keep them happy with rest areas (or don’t, but expect slower work). This is a lot like you see in games such as Theme Hospital and there are some hilarious and detailed options available.
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Queue & Route Souls. It is important to get the right sin to the right facility for most efficiency and a clever logic system provides a way to direct sinners based on their sin levels, ensuring Lust-heavy souls head to Lust facilities, while the Prideful get their own wing. I did have a little trouble getting my head around this system and I felt it was an area the tutorial was a little lacking. I can do simple IF/THEN logic but was not sure if and how I could combine a few different status options to make them more efficient. Most likely that is just me being me though.
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Earn & Spend Purgadollars. Every processed soul earns cash, which you reinvest into better infrastructure, research upgrades, and more efficient hellish bureaucracy. The important part of the loop
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Resurrect or Retain. Once a soul is cleansed enough, you can send them back to the Overworld or keep them on ice for… “further processing.”
For those who crave more structure, an included Challenge Mode offers Mandates, unique rule sets that reshape your goals. Completing them earns Prestige Points, which can be spent on Boons granted by the deadly sins themselves.
Boons offer powerful perks, like faster economic growth or starting with advanced buildings, but always come with a catch. One might give you great income but remove access to a key facility until you earn it back, forcing you to adapt your entire strategy. This meta-progression system seems clearly intended to keep Sintopia fresh run after run.
Presentation – Hell Has Never Looked This Charming
As you can see in the screen shots, Piraknights opted for a bright, stylized aesthetic over grimdark visuals, making Sintopia a fun game that provides plenty of laughs and smiles. even when you’re knee-deep in torment. Every building is packed with animated details, and imps bustle around in a way that makes micromanaging oddly satisfying and the wildly dopy Humus as fun to push around.
The game comes with a full 360° camera and generous zoom to give you total control of your view, whether you’re watching your entire Hell run like clockwork or zooming in to see the guilty expression on a single sinner’s face.
Sound design keeps the mood playful. The soundtrack is upbeat without becoming repetitive, packed with some fun voice work from the in game "co-workers" that help you learn the game and reach your goals. And the ambient noise make Hell feel like a bizarrely cheerful open office. Even the Overworld’s gentle hum of daily life feels alive, making the contrast between realms all the more striking. (lighting striking of course )
Parental Advice
While Sintopia uses a humorous and stylized approach to the afterlife, it still features themes some parents may want to be aware of. The core loop revolves around punishing souls for their sins, which includes cartoonish depictions of the seven deadly sins. Violence is mild and played for laughs, think “slapstick Hell” rather than horror, but the game does involve death, references to lust, and the option to cause deliberate harm to characters.
There’s no graphic gore or realistic violence, but the tone is darkly comedic and leans into mischievous cruelty. Reading and menu navigation are important for gameplay, so younger players may need assistance. At this time there is no ESRB rating available, which I guess will end up upper teens or even M but here at GVG we’d suggest Sintopia is likely best suited for older teens and up, particularly those who can appreciate its satirical take on morality and management.
Final Thoughts
Sintopia does not feel like just another management sim, it’s a clever hybrid that thrives on the push-and-pull between godlike meddling and bureaucratic optimization. For someone like me who sometimes needs to not think while playing a game it can get a bit heavy on the thinking despite not being a deep strategy type game. The Overworld and Hell feed into each other in ways that keep you tinkering with systems, trying new strategies, and occasionally setting things on fire just to see what happens.
I feel the game is very welcoming for newcomers, yet offers enough depth and variety for sim veterans, and has a personality that turns even its repetitive moments into lighthearted chaos. If you’ve ever wanted to be the boss of Hell and run it like the world’s most inefficient office, Sintopia makes that dream a reality, and you’ll be laughing all the way to the underworld bank.
Sintopia launces into Early Access September 4 2025. We will have to see what tweaks, and additions we can expect as it grows to full release but Piraknights and Team17 look to have a fresh new game to bring to the sim genre.
Title: Sintopia
Developer: Piraknights Games
Publisher: Team17
Platforms: PC via Steam
ESRB Rating: Not officially listed
Release Date: September 4, 2025 (Early Access)
MSRP: unkown
About the writer: DadGeek (Rob) is the co-founder of GeeksVsGeeks. He is a product of the eighties and never let go of his geek interest and hobbies no matter how often someone told him to stop. His love for gaming and all things geeks has been part of his parenting style and permeates throughout the whole family. A family of Geeks vs Geeks
