Rise Of The White Sun on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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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 610 reviews of which 531 were positive and 79 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.2 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.
System 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
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Bought this one as a guilty purchase, because I had a craving for warlord era China content. I have an unhealthy fascination with that time period and I thought that a game about it could do me no harm. Boy, was I wrong. A 100 hours later in and now not only is my obsession growing, I can't get enough. The game is so much better than it seems that it's uncanny. It dragged me in for weeks and now I must have more. It's grip on my mind is worrying. I am now as loyal as Feng Yuxiang, as noble as Zhang Zongchang and as content as Cao Kun. I am also a member of both the CPC and KMT plus I sell drugs on the side to fuel my growing desire for rifles. I hate Japan. I love Japan, but on the side I cheat on Japan with the UK. Goddamn, I'm great. The game's better than opium. Speaking of, I gotta earn some cash for the rest of MC's games, so I gotta bounce. Buy the game.
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Credit where credit is due: The dev addressed a lot of what i wrote in this review quite promptly and without fuss. Some things in this review are still true, but I'm quite impressed but how much was actually done in such a short amount of time I still think more should be done, but hey, it seems like it will. If things are continually updated at a reasonable pace (note dev has other projects as well) then it may well become what it could be [ OLD NEGATIVE REVIEW - LEFT FOR FULL DISCLOSURE ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the biggest disappointments in my steam library, mostly because it could be great. This game had immense potential but it is so incredibly flawed that I have given up hope on it being fixed. It is a very interesting, underutilized scenario, and the developer is not wrong about opening up the door to westerners to the very interesting time period and place. The game also has some pretty unique mechanics that are fun and have potential to be immersive. (Though it can feel a bit spreadsheet-ey) Unfortunately thats where most of the positive ends. Youll see that many negative, and even positive, reviews harp on the interface/UI. Bruh, it's worse than you think. This isnt just a case of too many clicks and annoying, tedious window switching (and believe me its horrible in this regard). Its a case of the developer clearly having no unified vision before designing this atrocity. Example: Your characters need to have intel on other character in order to know the resources they have (cool) but some information panels will literally provide you this information separately. You can search for characters, and for some reason this window will also display their resources, independent of the intel mechanic. Stupid. This (cumbersome) interface to search for characters will also be needed since other parts of the interface that display characters will, for some inexplicable reason, not allow you to just click on said character to see them (Government screen for example). Oh and when it comes to characters: Good luck trying to find what traits the characters have. Think you could just click on a character? Come on now dont be silly - that screen just gives you actions you can perform on the character. Why would i want to know their traits in the same window that allows me to interact with them, right? To actually see character traits you have to.. and i cant believe this, know which province the character is in, move to the province, click the province info button, click on the show character button, and mouse over the character in question. Fun fact: Mousing over provides SOME but not all of these traits. At some point this starts to feel insulting. Nevermind that this is literally a game built around its characters and their personalities. Why in gods name isnt this information more readily available. Btw this province screen also shows you present characters even though this is also supposed to be reliant on the intel mechanic.... Goodbye immersion Its so bad that I have difficulty even finding out what the name of my faction is mid game. This may seem strange but note that most of us playing will not be chinese, and we will easily forget the names of even our own characters due to unfamiliarity of the language and setting. I dont understand how it was made this cumbersome. It almost seems intentional. If you want to guide people to an interesting setting then holy hell make it easy to get engaged. So thats scratching the surface of the interface. Its trash. But the game has other issues. Many of the mechanics seem rushed, and you arent provided with the feedback you need to not only play the game well (not super important to me) but to get immersed (very important to me). A lot of calculations are done under the hood, and you are left wondering "just how realistic is the game trying to be" - Does recruiting into a low moral army affect my recruitment numbers? Does province size matter? What defines province size? Is it agriculture output? Is it province type? Is it province traits? Is it an invisible value? Does it even exist? No fucking idea. Maybe the information exists somewhere but I can't find it, and Im done searching The game is riddled with these types of things. Combat is "interesting" in that a lot of cool things seem to affect it (cavalry, moral, traits, etc) but its all so opaque that it just leaves you guessing. Ai is also trash. Each factions does have its own goals and behaviour, so some of the high level decision making may be due to the setting (this explanation often seems like a cop out honestly), but its very very clear that the AI does not know how to use the games mechanics like avoiding army starvation, even in cases where its a no-brainer. There are also other brain melting design decisions. Apparently there is a tacked on, real time mode for uprisings in shanghai or whatever. Now i havent messed with that , so take this with a grain of salt, but the fact that this is even in the game just blows my mind. I imagine: "This is so cool and out of left field!" - Nah it sucks even in theory. With all that said, the dev is responsive, and this is obviously a big plus. He's also fairly open to criticism. Unfortunately I also think he thinks that "people just need to learn how to play it", but nah. A lot of people that stop playing know whats going on and they have just learned that the game is very flawed. It isnt that difficult to grasp for seasoned players. Its just opaque in its mechanisms and tedious. Just because X information is technically available on Y random screen, or Z makes sense because of opaque unclear mechanic W doent mean its acceptable. Again this is a disappointment precisely because it had so much potential, so maybe its worth messing with when on sale, but I think most people will go through the same steps I did which is why I am giving it a negative rating: 1. Interesting lets give it a go 2. Hmm ok i see potential 3. Fuck this interface dude 4. Christ, this interface 5. Ok i have learned how things work, i think i can handle the interface 6. Man really cool game, im so immersed, warlord china is awesome and more games need to use it 7. Wait wtf is this 8. Shit makes no sense 9. Uhm ok what is the AI doing, and why is this particular thing scripted like this 10. Fuck this other part of the interface that i actually need to play 11. My immersion is dwindling 12. Ive had enough With that said I did get it on sale and I will still mess around, but my time would probably be used better elsewhere edit: Non windows builds are also updated later and the dev seems to have a "meh" attitude around this which I think is concerning edit again: This is fairly minor but the game tries to be immersive when it comes to china, but all of the help windows etc are very informal and feel like the developer needed a reason to inject his own (western!) personality into the game. Maybe this is a taste thing but i find it a bit obnoxious. More time should have been spent on providing actual information (which does exist in the form of admittedly good guides outside of the game). Examples of this are also found in the options screen with setting like "Make my eyes bleed" with no explanation. Bro just tell us wtf your shitty option does
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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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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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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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Last Updates| Steam data | 15 April 2025 01:10 |
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| Steam price | 15 April 2025 04:49 |
| Steam reviews | 15 April 2025 00:01 |
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Online players
22
Developer
Maestro Cinetik
Publisher
Gaming at Work,
Cinetique
Release
21 Sep 2023
Platforms