Sovereignty delivers a grand-strategy conquest game with that nice, old-school feel. The audio and visuals are unadorned, and some navigation can feel clunky and cumbersome, but the gameplay is satisfying and polished, with challenging AI and a rich narrative backdrop.

It’s a little unsettling to see just how unfinished and unbalanced the game really is after two years in Early Access. Sovereignty: Crown of Kings has all the markings of a grand strategy game, but they’re just that – markings. The developers set out to develop a deep game but someone must have fumbled the marching orders. The playable part, at least when the game is not crashing, boils down to a game of Risk with more different units and the occasional card to boost the units in the field and everything else is just fluff and distraction. Recruit, move, attack, defend – rinse and repeat. It’s serviceable but not a lot of fun.