This world-ending dark fantasy strategy game is like playing Baldur's Gate 3 as the mind flayers

Shadows of Forbidden Gods
(Image credit: Bobby Two Hands)

I finally jumped into Baldur's Gate 3 yesterday and it's kick-started my desire to play through the campaign with multiple characters. The game feels like it's missing one perspective though - what if I don't want to remove the mind flayer parasite? What if I want it to take over from the get-go and start absolute chaos?

This is what I would do for a totally unhinged and evil character in Baldur's Gate 3, but I might not have to get through my first character in order to live out my dreams of dark domination.

Shadows of Forbidden Gods is a strategy fantasy game where you play as a dark god. The aim is to bring about the apocalypse by sending minions to infiltrate various settlements. From there, they gather support for you, converting people into your followers and reducing stability. This could be by raiding farms to cut off food supplies, assassinating political leaders, or spreading a deadly plague to cause unrest.

As your minions cause all sorts of problems for society, AI heroes will appear to try and bring back peace. The more trouble your minions manage to start, the more infamous they'll become though, meaning heroes will try to hunt them down.

It's a lovely game of shadowy subterfuge where you move around your pawns and get them to do your evil bidding, all while trying to avoid detection from the heroes. The final goal is to instate a dark empire which can be achieved by increasing your influence over all the rulers in the world, or convincing them to go to war with each other and letting society wipe itself out.

Shadows of Forbidden Gods is available on PC via Steam, and it has a free demo you can try out if it sounds like something you're interested in playing.

We have plenty of suggestions of the best strategy games if you're looking for something else in the genre to play.

Freelance contributor

I'm a freelance writer and started my career in summer 2022. After studying Physics and Music at university and a short stint in software development, I made the jump to games journalism on Eurogamer's work experience programme. Since then, I've also written for Rock Paper Shotgun and Esports Illustrated. I'll give any game a go so long as it's not online, and you'll find me playing a range of things, from Elden Ring to Butterfly Soup. I have a soft spot for indies aiming to diversify representation in the industry.