Shadows of Forbidden Gods

Take on the role of a Dark Elder God and lead your agents to bring about an apocalypse in a fantasy world. Work in the shadows, avoiding the heroes who will try to stop you, as you bring about plague and famine, ice age and volcanic destruction, madness and never ending night.

Shadows of Forbidden Gods is a strategy, simulation and god game game developed by Bobby Two Hands and published by Forbidden Oak Games Limited.
Released on July 15th 2023 is available in English only on Windows.

It has received 858 reviews of which 798 were positive and 60 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.7 out of 10. 😎

The game is currently priced at 16.79€ on Steam.


The Steam community has classified Shadows of Forbidden Gods into these genres:

Media & Screenshots

Get an in-depth look at Shadows of Forbidden Gods 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 7
  • Processor: Intel i5-2500 or equivalent
  • Memory: 1024 MB RAM
  • Graphics: Integrated Graphics
  • Storage: 1 GB available space

Reviews

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

Nov. 2024
The game looks like absolute shit. The UX is terrible and it is not quite clear what things do. But man is it very original in its take on an strategy game where you play as the evil eldritch god. My only complaint aside from how rough the UI is that the meta tends to sort of shake out the same. Most gods, even if their mechanics and personal abilities are different, still end up playing into slowly building up, avoiding shadow like the plague to avoid threat, and then quickly rushing enshadows to win on enshadowing everyone. Maybe I just suck, but trying to popkill or getting factions to kill each other rarely works without already having high shadow, by which point you don't need to popkill or in-fight since you want the shadow to spread and passing agents to enshadow too (plus giving heroes and agents something to do that isnt killing you).
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Sept. 2024
It is incredibly rare that I will play a game for a few sessions at launch, come back to it a full year later, and then completely lose track of time for 3 hours straight. The simplest description I can give is the AI is playing a grand strategy game like Crusader Kings. You however are different. You're playing a dark ancient evil god trying to carefully puppeteer your way to victory. You don't have much direct influence (at first), but you have loyal followers who carry out your will across the world. The level of depth here is pretty astounding, and it can be a bit overwhelming on your first game. I think going in expecting to lose the first time is a good policy. I really didn't have a full grasp on what I was doing for most of the first game, but I was so fascinated I played a few more. Honestly a banger, also the art if BEAUTIFUL.
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March 2024
It's a map game (EU4, Hearts of Iron, Crusader Kings) but instead of directly controlling a nation you just control a handful of dudes that run around causing mischief. The game-play consists mostly of selecting an activity to do and then spamming the end turn button until it's completed. It sounds boring and it mostly is, but there's something compelling about it. I play for a bit get bored and quit, only to open it up a few minutes later. I lose a game, uninstall, and then lie awake in bed thinking about it. I even have dreams of playing it. I guess this truly is an Eldritch nightmare. Even though i think i hate this game, it consumes my every thought.
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March 2024
Sometimes you come across games that are clearly works of passion. These games typically feature an idiosyncratic style that places emphasis on particular aspects while the remainder are merely serviceable, they exist only to support the execution of the dev's fascination. This is one these, and it is excellent! What this game really is underneath the window dressing is a highly simulated agent driven sandbox world set up as to be very vulnerable to cascading failure. It's quite transparent about it, you can click on any character and see exactly what they are thinking and why. Every modifier tells you what it does and how it's trending, all the numbers are just there for you. To make it concrete: say you're trying to start a deep one cult and condemn a bloodline into becoming fishy friends. The nascent fish cult has a menace, and a range that this menace is visible from. A nearby hero keeps going all spanish inquistion on your arse and wont leave, but their home is under threat by bandits so maybe you can use that. Except they're a coward... bummer. Ok so you slap them around in a fight and taunt them, so they grow a spine. Now they love combat and danger, then you take the agent that slapped them around and you go raid the farms around their home city plunging it into chaos. Just to top it off you fund some bandits to make them more dangerous. Now you can see in that hero's motivation that they are going to bee line it over to their home city to stamp out the chaos and maybe kill the agent behind it all, so you slip in to the cult and make them all hush hush. The hero wont be able to see the cult's threat anymore and you're in the clear for now! Except, ah, it looks like while you were doing this the chosen one put up some wards around the leader of the most powerful kingdom, you can't corrupt them with shadow anymore but what's that? docks in the city? perhaps there's another way in... Most people are probably of the sane sort and this sounds hellish but there's a certain kind of person which is probably intrigued and if that is you then I am here to tell you that this game is a masterpiece.
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March 2024
TLDR: Buy this game if you love turn based strategy, but find Civ/Stellaris/TW to be stale and predictable. It exceeds the AAA competitors in meaningful ways. This is an incredible strategy game. Perhaps not the most visually impressive game, but this game stays installed while others like Stellaris, Civilization, and Total War come and go from my desktop. The game play is unique and the art and writing are excellent. Compared to the other AAA games I mentioned, Shadows is the superior game in two major ways. First: your god's mechanics are completely different from your opponents, so the game doesn't 'cheat' to be harder. In most other games, you're using the same mechanics as the AI and so on harder difficulties the AI simply gets to do more for less. Second, and most importantly: you don't steamroll in this game. The challenge isn't all front loaded. Civ, Stellaris, and TW all get more predictable and less exciting as the game goes on, and your victory becomes more assured. Shadows feels more like playing Jenga, where the tension builds as the game advances and every turn feels more critical than the last. If you love strategy games, but hate how they become predictable and boring over the course of a game - then do yourself a favor and give Shadows of Forbidden Gods a try.
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Last Updates

Steam data 21 November 2024 12:10
SteamSpy data 17 January 2025 13:01
Steam price 22 January 2025 20:50
Steam reviews 21 January 2025 08:04
Shadows of Forbidden Gods
8.7
798
60
Online players
18
Developer
Bobby Two Hands
Publisher
Forbidden Oak Games Limited
Release 15 Jul 2023
Platforms