The terrain is static as well: there’s no destruction, and no interesting ways for characters to get around. Most fights end up revolving around a single corner or doorway as you set up a kill zone and watch enemies swarm into it – and many of the maps only have one or two of those chokepoints to fight over. They're pretty, at least, thanks to locations like dim speakeasy interiors and luxurious gambling houses, but they’re chokepointed, poorly laid out, and offer very little tactical variety. It's the maps that really kill the combat.
There are balance issues, like one-hit kills from sniper rifles and surprise damage from unavoidable dynamite attacks, but there's fun at the tactical core. There's also a half-or-full-cover system you'll recognize from every tactics game since 2012, well implemented here, with angle of attack and distance mattering depending on what weapon you're using: a shotgun does best from within two tiles, a rifle from seven or more, and a submachine gun is happiest somewhere in the middle. It's just enough randomness to make the weapon stats and upgraded rarities really matter. Basic combat numbers are pretty granular, with health in the 50-150 range, so a thug might take two to four pistol shots to go down. The tactical battles are built on good bones: Gangsters have a to-hit stat, hit points, and you find weapons with varied stats. Interacting with the characters of the '20s is where Empire of Sin shines, but the fights you're doing to earn those stories quickly become rote due to mindlessly repetitive maps and poor, buggy combat AI. Those might be fights with rival gangs, groups of independent thugs, and very occasionally even the police or the Bureau of Prohibition's agents. You direct your chosen gang boss around the city, doing missions with bits of flavorful dialogue to enjoy and controlling a crew of hired guns in battles against other gangsters. Like many of Empire of Sin’s ideas, it's a brilliant concept: You have to keep a lot of violent people with poor impulse control both happy and alive in turn-based tactical RPG combat in the vein of XCOM. “The challenge here is to run a complex illegal empire while also balancing the chaotic personalities of criminals both in your gang and outside it. It's an ambitious and complex mix of genres with a cool setting, but the result is riddled with janky bits, quests that feel unfinished, unreliable balance, and a boatload of bugs. That’s a great example of how Empire of Sin’s technical ricketiness gets in the way of just about everything it attempts to do well as you play the role of a mob boss in 1920s Chicago, building a criminal empire of illegal booze and gunning down the competition. It’s a dramatic moment that underscores what Empire of Sin does best: Well-written, complex personal relationships, both positive and negative, that develop between your crew of criminal soldiers and make this management and tactical strategy game work.Hugh then immediately turns around and accepts a rehire offer, completely undermining the gravity of those events. Reeling from that and a recent demotion, Hugh has had enough to outweigh his strong sense of loyalty and he quits my gang in a huff.
The next firefight they and the rest of my squad get into, Tammy eats a bullet boom, dead. WW1 vet-turned-mob enforcer Hugh Miller has fallen head-over-heels in love with another gangster, Tammy Trucco.
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