Rise Of The White Sun

A Giant Strategy Sandbox experience set in Warlord China. *Tons of playable factions! *Communist insurgents, * Boxers like rebels, *Greedy warlords, *Mongol riders, *A mad russian baron, *Shanghai gangsters, *And armored trains!

Rise Of The White Sun is a strategy, 4x and turn-based strategy game developed by Maestro Cinetik and published by Gaming at Work and Cinetique.
Released on September 21st 2023 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux in 3 languages: English, Simplified Chinese and Korean.

It has received 570 reviews of which 493 were positive and 77 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.1 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 20.99€ on Steam.


The Steam community has classified Rise Of The White Sun into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Rise Of The White Sun through various videos and screenshots.

Requirements

These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.

Windows
  • OS: Windows 10
  • Processor: 2.5 gz and 2 cores
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Storage: 3 GB available space
MacOS
  • OS: Catalina or higher
  • Processor: i3 or higher
  • Memory: 8 GB RAM
  • Storage: 3 GB available space
Linux
  • OS: Unsure
  • Processor: i3 or higher
  • Memory: 8 MB RAM
  • Storage: 3 MB available space

Reviews

Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.

Nov. 2024
I feel I need to share a bit of story in this review, in order to provide a full view of this game from my perspective. I was doing a university project about China's struggles in the early 20th century, I was researching on Google, and then I found this game, totally out of the blue. As a Chinese, I never understand. Why do people seem only know about D-Day, Battle of Stalingrad, Siege of Berlin. What about the Battle of Shanghai? Battle of Wuhan? We spilled blood for a better world too. There's little to almost no coverage of China in the mainstream Western media. Fair, different cultures after all. But even in China, it's more or less the same. Sure, there are a lot of TV shows about the war, but they are honestly not that realistic and very biased. There is heavy censorship on discussing these topics, and the endless angry comments to drown you when you have different opinions about history than they do? I just feel tired of talking about history anymore. So imagine my surprise when a Western indie developer made a game about one of the most complicated eras of modern-day China. I NEVER seen any game sets in the Warlord Era. The amount of research that has been put into this game must be insane. It has more depth and challenge than I could ever have thought. Some people just saw the grand strategies tag and a big map and immediately associated it with Hoi4, while I love Hoi4, this isn't Hoi4, they have SOME similarities, but they are different games in the core. If you looking for a challenging game with rich historical elements, and you are interested in Chinese history. I would high suggest you try Rise of the White Sun out. However, the UI may be difficult to understand and navigate for new players, but you will get used to it eventually. And once you get used to the gameplay loop, it might be a little stale. But overall, it is really good! Support Maestro Cinetik if you can! He continuously updates this game even though there are not many players, and he still has another game in development. He is very active in his discord too, if you have any questions about the game, come join! I do believe Maestro deserves a lot more praise than he got. There's even a DLC coming, so please support him if you can!
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July 2024
10/10 Will spend another six hours clicking buttons in Shanghai as the communist party. Unironically one of the most fun experiences I've had, great game.
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July 2024
Reminds me of one of those flash games we used to play in class. The gameplay loop is easy to get the hang of and the strategy itself is incredibly chaotic. It feels like every second or so you will be betrayed by your allies or even your own characters. This makes the game (at least, the sandbox mode) ripe for quick sessions of interesting and teeth-clenching gameplay. Updates are somewhat frequent and remedy QoL issues, which is a huge plus. The complexity of the game is both its main selling point and its downfall. A lot of the scenarios feature a great amount of events that showcase a rich understanding of the Chinese Warlord era. Each faction is different in terms of their gameplay experience. There are the warlord cliques (both Beiyang and KMT-aligned) who offer the "core" gameplay experience of building armies and plundering. There are the CCP and KMT themselves who have their own unique actions centered around gathering support for their movements, and there are many more factions such as peasant movements, White Russian remnants and Mongolian raiders who all have their own unique mechanics and events. The bad complexity, and by far the most challenging part of the whole game, is the UI. There are plenty of menus filled with information that need a whole bunch of clicks to get out of. A big example is where some characters may be in specific cities that lay within provinces. When you end your turn, expect to be teleported right back to that city. It becomes really annoying when you're in the middle of conquering a province and you're suddenly dragged away from the action because the game forces you back into the city where your faction leader is. UI issues like these make the gameplay feel clunky and break your focus. Also, the uprising mode is a tad bit confusing. It is a real-time strategy mode which uses the "arrow" movement of the game's turn-based mode. In the Shanghai scenario, it is incredibly confusing to navigate through this mode as it's very unclear where your troops can actually go. For instance, you can't just go up because there's no arrow available to click up, you need to go around the entire city of Shanghai. I wish that this mode was better implemented, perhaps as a turn-based mode instead of a real-time mode, or perhaps with free movement rather than the "arrow" movement. Despite all of that, Rise of the White Sun managed to suck me in for nine hours of gameplay, and there's nothing more I can ask for when it comes to strategy games. While there are some issues with the UI, it didn't stop me from enjoying the game and the chaotic world of the Warlord Era. The developer is also active on their Discord, which I recommend joining if you buy the game as they are more than glad to help anyone starting out.
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May 2024
So: Backstory for how/why i got this game: I have a friend who is really into obscure/janky or otherwise niche games, and he happens to be big into the Chinese Warlord era (the 1920s versions that is). After he was uninterested (he is playing it now however), I decided to give it a spin instead. At the time of writing this review, I have effectively finished my first campaign as a standard Warlord faction. So what is Rise of the White Sun? For me, it a mixture of Kings of Dragon Pass and Hearts of Iron. Its at its heart a rather straightforward turn-based management game with abstracted combat and province management married with a strong focus on relationships. With a limited number of actions each turn, you are trying your utmost to maximize your gains, build up your resources and income, and trying to maintain your stranglehold on your provinces. This game has a lot of good things going for it: It’s setting is suburb and well-presented, with a great deal of research and passion going into the major players of the era. Its district management interacts really well with army management, forcing you to divide your attention and thinly stretchered resources. The fact that your own characters can, and will, backstab you and join other factions is not only historically accurate but also really funny and anger inducing in a right way. The game also sports a ridiculously amount of factions, from tiny irrelevant warlords to the biggest players of the era. While many of these play similarly to each other, some, such as the Russian Cossack's, have unique mechanics. I have yet to try all of them, but the few that I have have been well thought out. Now for this games problems: You can tell that it is still quite early in its life span. Its interface is sometimes hard to read, information can be hard to find, and you can easily miss things that really should be more in your face. A good example is when you attack, you get a proper combat screen, but when you are attacked, you don’t even get a pop-up unless you select the attacked army. In bigger wars, this will be hard to manage. With so much hidden information, you can also get blindsided, which is part of the fun, but can also be frustrating. Combat calculations in particular can be a real coin toss, as your well-trained troops get dashed by a smaller, more lightly armed unit, because of a bunch of hidden factors. So at the end of the day, I am going to give this a thumps up, but with a few caveats: This is not a game for everyone. There is a lot of reading about obscure historical characters that many in the West have no idea about, and the gameplay is classic Spreadsheet gaming. You will be repeating a lot of the same actions over and over again, and some of the abstraction might be too much for certain players. But if you enjoy older games such as the aforementioned Kings of Dragon Pass, enjoy role playing, reading insane events where your top general smoked too much opium so that he lacks energy to move his armies and if you are dying for a game set in a very underrated and interesting era of modern history, then you should at least give this game a try. The developer is active on his Discord channel and steam discussions, and is working to improve this product passionately. I find this game very enjoyable.
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Jan. 2024
I brought peace to my province, eradicated Opium use within it, conquered 4 others, and now am on the way to overthrowing the government and trapped in a forever war in Fujian and Anhui. The ui isn't impossible to catch on to and the gameplay loop is fun. Though you may grow to despise your "allies" as much as you destroy your enemies. Highly recommend if you enjoy the journey rather than the end result, because it will be a journey to whatever you plan to do.
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Last Updates

Steam data 04 January 2025 00:34
SteamSpy data 08 January 2025 17:09
Steam price 14 January 2025 04:49
Steam reviews 14 January 2025 05:59
Rise Of The White Sun
8.1
493
77
Online players
34
Developer
Maestro Cinetik
Publisher
Gaming at Work, Cinetique
Release 21 Sep 2023
Platforms