Songs of Syx

1. Summary

Songs of Syx is an early-access fantasy city builder made by a solo developer, Gamatron, and 94% of its English Steam reviews recommend it. Players describe a game that starts as a ten-person camp, grows into a city of thousands of individually simulated citizens, and later becomes an empire fighting large battles on a world map, while still running smoothly on modest hardware. RimWorld and Dwarf Fortress come up in 35% of the longer reviews, often as plain shorthand for the genre, and some reviewers say Songs of Syx goes well past both in scale. Reviewers also thank the developer for frequent updates and for a free demo that is the full game a version or two behind.

On the other side, the learning curve is steep, the tutorial covers little past the first hour, and the interface hides numbers players need; 29% of the negative reviews raise one of these. Another group of critics, some of them long-time players, objects to a balance built on upkeep: research that has to be maintained, goods that decay, and food demands that keep growth on a treadmill. Combat and army control draw complaints even in reviews that recommend the game. Reviews stay clearly positive overall, though the yearly share of positive reviews went from 98% in 2021 to 90% in 2026, years in which critics say updates made the game harder.

2. What keeps coming up

What players praise

Thousands of citizens, and the game still runs smoothlyHigh

Every citizen is simulated, cities climb into the thousands, and reviewers say the frame rate holds at sizes where they expect Dwarf Fortress or RimWorld to bog down; 16% of the longer reviews talk about this scale. Old laptops, the Steam Deck and Linux all come up as machines it runs well on. One early player asked: "How many other games run as smooth with a 2000 population as it does with 10?" A small number disagree, reporting that very large cities can no longer run at full speed or that the game stutters and crashes on their system.

Depth that keeps unfolding as the city growsHigh

As the population grows, reviewers say, the game changes shape: a colony sim at first, then a city builder about moving goods around, then a light grand-strategy game with Total War-style battles. Some describe sitting down for one more building and looking up to find it was nearly morning, and "crack" turns up often, both as an addiction joke and in "RimWorld on crack". When Dwarf Fortress comes up here it is usually about clarity: "Dwarf Fortress, but I actually know what is going on when I look at my monitor." Players who stay describe still finding new systems after many restarts.

One developer and a steady stream of updatesHigh

That a single person makes the game is something 8% of the longer reviews point out, and others thank him for regular, substantial updates, rambling patch-note videos and quick replies on Discord. One player wrote: "Found one bug in the beta after playing for 80 hours. Reported it on Discord. Dev fixed it the next day." Some reviewers note how long the game has stayed in early access, and others say each update changes too much (see the split on difficulty below).

A demo that is the whole gameMedium

The demo comes up in 15% of the longer reviews, described as "just the full game version or two behind the current live build". Players say they spent dozens of hours in it before buying and recommend it as the way to decide. A few warn that the demo plays differently from the paid version, which some found harder and others found much improved.

Music and atmosphereMedium

The music is mentioned in 5% of the longer reviews, and even negative reviews tend to praise it: "Probably the best soundtrack you can find in a video game." Players pair it with the lighting and weather effects to describe a calm, absorbing mood, and several leave the game running at slow speed just to watch the city work.

Races that play differentlyMedium

Reviewers enjoy picking a starting race with its own food, housing and work preferences, from fishing lizards to grub-farming bug people, then deciding which other races to let in. Titles earned in one game carry bonuses into the next, which players say gives restarts a purpose.

Mods, Linux and Steam Deck supportLow

Modders describe the game as easy to change, and the large Warhammer conversion gets mentioned by name. The catch is that workshop mods often break when the game updates. Linux and Steam Deck players mostly report the game working well.

Where players are split

Difficulty, and the direction updates have takenHigh

Words like difficult, hard, punishing or challenging appear in 21% of the longer reviews, and they pull in two directions. Fans like that the challenge scales with the city, so there is no point where everything runs itself: "This game has a heart, a soul and a big stick to beat you with. I love it." Critics, including some with hundreds of hours in the game, say updates through 2025 and 2026 tightened every margin until only one build works: "This game is difficult, frustrating, and unforgiving to players who aren't playing in a very specific early game flowchart". They name maintenance costs, rapid decay, rising raider demands and a growing need to min-max in spreadsheets. Others say particular updates made things better (v69 and v70 are both named), and a few positive reviewers suggest workshop mods that double or multiply resource output while learning.

The pixel-art lookMedium

Some positive reviews tell readers to look past the visuals, in the spirit of "Life before death. Strength before weakness. Gameplay before graphics." Some players come to love the lighting and the detail when zoomed in. Others never get there: "I thought I would eventually be able to get over the artstyle. I was wrong." Complaints focus on readability, with sprites and terrain hard to tell apart, especially in battles.

Slavery, segregation and race brawlsMedium

The game's races dislike one another, mixed cities break into brawls, and slavery is a strong economic tool. A lot of the joking in the reviews is about running a ruthless despotism, and those players clearly enjoy the grim humor. Others find the mechanics punishing or the theme uncomfortable, including one player who still recommends the game: "i really wish you could build interracial cities without having to do apartheid and ghettoization otherwise very fun". A few say slaves are so efficient that ignoring them makes the game much harder, and a few 2026 reviews complain that brawls kill so many citizens that the city stops growing.

Stories or spreadsheetsLow

Some players came for RimWorld-style personal stories and found a game about systems: "rimworld but you have 10k pawns with no personalities". Others share emergent tales of serial killers, food riots and plague, and say the stories are there at the level of the city rather than the individual.

What frustrates players

A steep start, a thin tutorial and a dense interfaceHigh

Fans warn about the start too: "Restart simulator. Restart many many many times because the game will literally refuse to tell you how to do anything." In 14% of the longer reviews players mention the learning curve, confusion, or needing outside videos and guides, and 29% of the negative reviews raise the tutorial, the learning curve or the interface. Players say the two tutorial missions teach the first hour and little else, so research, trade, health and combat are learned through YouTube, Discord and a wiki that falls behind as versions change. Several short negative reviews come from players who stalled on the first tutorial step: "I spent my entire hour with this game trying to do the first step in the tutorial, placing a warehouse." The interface complaints are specific and come up across years: menus that bury important numbers, Escape opening the main menu instead of closing a window, doors that cannot be added from the build menu, and buildings that cannot be configured until they finish.

Research that has to be maintainedMedium

Knowledge has upkeep, so libraries and labs need a large, permanent workforce and steady supplies of clay, leather or hides just to keep what has been unlocked. Research, knowledge or technology comes up in 17% of the negative reviews, nearly always as a complaint. Complaints about "knowledge decay" go back to 2022, and later ones are angrier: "you shouldn't need something in the ballpark of 50 goddamn researchers to get the barebones technology needed to sustain a 400 population city". A few players like the idea that technology must be sustained, and one reviewer notes that the December 2025 update reworked research, but the complaint continued through 2026.

Food, happiness and death spiralsMedium

"I make 10k loaves of bread a day but my people still starve", one fan joked, and food or starvation comes up in 15% of the negative reviews. Players describe most of the workforce tied up feeding everyone, low output per worker ("Five fishermen can only get six fish."), happiness that drops without a clear cause, and riots, plagues or workplace accidents that wipe out years of progress. Fans call this the core challenge. Critics say the game rarely tells them which hidden need started the collapse.

Combat and army controlMedium

Complaints about how battles play are more frequent in 2026: combat comes up in 39% of that year's longer negative reviews, against 18% in 2024 and 21% in 2025. Players describe fights decided almost entirely by morale with very little damage, losing a battle because enemies reached the throne marker, archers standing idle, troops deploying without the equipment assigned to them, and army supply that takes in-game years to set up. Reviewers who recommend the game say it too: "City/Resource Management 10/10 Trade/Diplomacy 9/10 Civilization Management 10/10 Tactical Combat 2/10". A negative reviewer said the battles are "fought with pillows". A minority enjoy the large formation battles and the flanking.

Raiders and an AI that plays by other rulesLow

Players object to raiders who extort a large share of money and goods early on, AI armies that need no supply, and large empires that demand conquered regions with armies bigger than the player's whole city. After a 2026 update, raiders breaking through mountains with catapults angered players who had built around natural defenses: "Raiders scaling destroyed any desire I had to play this game."

Window modes, alt-tab and Mac launchesLow

11% of the negative reviews are about technical problems. The ones that recur are a broken borderless windowed mode, unreliable alt-tab, the game opening on the wrong monitor, a misplaced cursor at 4K or ultrawide resolutions, and Mac versions that show a black screen unless the Steam overlay is disabled. One player wrote: "That borderless windowed doesn't work should be #1 priority yesterday". Crash reports are scattered and sometimes fixed by a setting change.

Lavatory and snoring sounds with no volume controlLow

The toilet and snoring effects are a running joke, and for some players a reason to mute the game or install a mod: "There needs to be a slider for the lavatory noises." A few reviews also warn that lightning produces rapid white flashes at high game speed, and that the only setting to stop it removes rain and snow too.

3. The player conversation

The tone is affectionate and loud. Reviews are full of addiction jokes, stories of starving cities and cheerful despotism, and memes about the developer and his patch-note videos. Players are not deeply divided, and some negative reviews still praise the scale and the ambition before explaining why they stopped.

Who raises what depends on how far players got. Negative reviews written with under two hours played center on the tutorial, the interface, the art style and launch problems, and almost never mention research or combat. Players a few dozen hours in talk about combat, food and the research system. Some long-time players aim at the direction of updates, combat and research upkeep, and describe a game they once loved becoming a chore.

The volume of reviews comes in waves that reviewers link to outside events: a YouTube review by Sseth in April 2024 brought 221 reviews in a single week, a free weekend and the v70 update in December 2025 brought a second large influx, and the v71 update in mid-June 2026 a third. Sentiment drifted down over time. The yearly share of positive reviews went from 98% in 2021 to 95% in 2024, 92.5% in 2025 and 90% in 2026. Game-focused reviews in the four weeks after v71 were 87% positive, with the negative ones centered on the tutorial and interface, combat, and the reworked law-and-order and brawl systems. Reviews from mid-July to mid-October 2026 were 88% positive.

4. What the developers could do

1. Build a tutorial that covers research, trade, health and combat. The two tutorial missions stop after the basics, and both refunders and fans say they learned the rest from YouTube and Discord.
2. Explain in the interface why numbers move. Some players describe happiness, loyalty or production dropping with no visible cause, and ask for alerts and tooltips that name the need or shortage behind it.
3. Soften the upkeep treadmill or offer a clearly gentler preset. Critics say maintenance, decay and rising demands leave one viable build, and a few positive reviewers suggest resource-multiplying mods while learning.
4. Reduce how much workforce research upkeep consumes. Research or technology comes up in 17% of negative reviews, and some describe a quarter to half of the population working in libraries and labs just to keep existing technology.
5. Make battles decisive and armies easier to field. Reviewers describe morale-only fights, losses from a single throne marker, idle archers and troops deploying without assigned gear.
6. Fix borderless windowed, alt-tab, multi-monitor and Mac launches. These come up again and again in technical negative reviews, and some buyers say they could not get through a first session.
7. Add volume sliders for lavatory and snoring sounds, and a separate lightning-flash toggle. Players ask for both directly, and some cite the flashes as a photosensitivity concern.