We haven’t written about Diplomacy Is Not An Option since its Early Access launch in 2022, when it was a lithe and fluffy strategy game about blowing thousands of peasants to bits with the magic of physics. It’s still the same, but now it’s getting a 1.0 release on October 4th.
Version 1.0 will feature the full Diplomacy story campaign, which includes three factions, six possible endings, and over 25 missions. The developers estimate that a single playthrough will take around 30 hours.
In his Early Access review, Steve Hogarty compared Diplomacy Is Not An Option to one of those counterfeit games you see advertised on Instagram, only real. The scale of the enemy armies, the godlike power to destroy them with god rays and meteor strikes, and the overall feeling that the game is less interested in tactical city-building than in exhilarating spectacle.
But what the game lacks in variety, it makes up for in its finely tuned, scratch-card-like approach to compulsive play. The cartoonish low-poly graphics and punchy sound effects make building your expanding fortress an irresistible pleasure, one that can be repeated over and over again, like scratching an itch deep in your skull. Assigning a few cohorts of crossbowmen to towers and watching them effortlessly mow down an incoming wave of irate peasants is soothing, a cooling balm for the mind, like slowly vacuuming a particularly sullied patch of carpet and hearing the crackle of rubble falling into a pipe. Mmm.
Which honestly sounds good to me. It’s been on my playlist ever since and I still want to try it now that it’s more diverse and polished.
If you don’t want to wait, you can find DINAO on Couple AND GOG.
