The Siege and the Sandfox Review Summary

Stunning visuals and music: The game features high-quality, beautiful pixel art and a stunning soundtrack that immerses players in the game world. These elements contribute significantly to the overall atmosphere and enjoyment of the game.

Fluid, fun gameplay and movement: The game provides a fun and immersive experience with fluid movement and responsive controls, especially when using a controller. The well-designed levels and movement mechanics contribute to the enjoyable gameplay.

Excellent voice acting and narration: The game features excellent voice acting, particularly the narrator, who is often compared to the narrator in Baldur's Gate 3. Amelia Tyler's narration is specifically highlighted for enhancing the immersive experience.

Well-implemented, engaging stealth mechanics: The stealth mechanics are well-implemented and engaging, providing a satisfying experience without being overly punishing. The game's methodical approach to stealth creates interesting scenarios for players.

Chill pace, polished presentation: The game features familiar Metroidvania elements with a chill pace, offering upgrades, collectibles, and NPC interactions. Players can sneak past enemies and solve puzzles, and the game's presentation is polished.

Game-breaking bugs and glitches: Numerous bugs plague the game, ranging from minor inconveniences to game-breaking issues like softlocks, crashes, and visual glitches. These bugs can halt progression, corrupt saves, and even render the game unplayable, leading to significant frustration.

Unpolished stealth and platforming: The game's stealth and platforming mechanics are unpolished, with limited options and clunky controls. Players noted the absence of combat and the lack of a Metroidvania-style experience, leading to a feeling of repetitiveness and boredom. The level design and character progression contribute to a lack of purpose and intrigue.

Inconsistent and buggy enemy AI: Enemy AI exhibits inconsistent and buggy behavior, with enemies getting stuck, failing to disengage, or behaving illogically. These issues cause frustration during navigation and stealth sections.

Progression-blocking bugs/design: Players have encountered progression blockers due to unclear paths or broken mechanics, such as levers failing to open doors. These issues can halt the game and prevent players from advancing further.

Clunky and uncustomizable controls: Keyboard controls are clunky and take time to get used to, with limited rebinding options and lack of support for non-qwerty layouts. This makes the game difficult to control, especially for players unfamiliar with the default control scheme.

Stealth Metroidvania with Parkour: The game blends stealth, parkour, and puzzle elements within a Metroidvania structure, drawing comparisons to 'Mark of the Ninja' and 'Prince of Persia'. Gameplay emphasizes avoiding direct combat through stealth and non-lethal takedowns.

Exploration unlocks traversal abilities: The game focuses on exploration and puzzle-solving to unlock traversal abilities. Early gameplay is slower-paced, emphasizing exploration over combat.

Limited, passive abilities: The player character's abilities are limited, focusing on passive stealth and avoiding guards. Attacks are weak, reinforcing the emphasis on stealth over direct confrontation.

Slower, deliberate pace: The game features a slower pace that may initially feel jarring. However, the mechanics provide enough challenge with a steady introduction of gameplay variations.

Puzzle-based level design: Specific level design requires manipulating enemy positions to solve puzzles, such as getting two guards onto a trap door before activating it.

Good Steam Deck performance: The game exhibits solid performance and responsive controls on the Steam Deck, making it a suitable platform for playing the game. Reviewers specifically noted consistent frame rates and smooth gameplay on the device.

Initial resolution launch issues: Some players have reported issues with the game launching in a small window or failing to render correctly initially. This problem was often resolved by using Alt+Enter to force the correct resolution.

Few initial bugs reported: Many reviewers have noted the relative lack of bugs and technical issues encountered during their initial playtime. While some minor bugs were observed, they were not game-breaking, suggesting a stable initial release.

Recommended for genre enthusiasts: Reviewers recommend the game, especially to fans of Metroidvanias and stealth games. They highlight the engaging movement, stealth mechanics, atmospheric experience, and voice acting as strong positives.

Lacks vision, falls short: Some reviewers feel the game doesn't quite live up to its potential, lacking a clear vision and feeling somewhat boring despite its interesting premise. It draws comparisons to 'The Rogue Prince of Persia' and 'Thief' but falls short of those standards.

Polarizing Metroidvania experience: One reviewer considered the game the worst Metroidvania played in 2025, while another gave it a middling score, indicating mixed opinions on its quality within the genre.

Refreshing, genre-revitalizing experience: Some reviewers consider the game a refreshing take on the Metroidvania genre and believe it will keep the genre alive.

Good start, loses steam: One reviewer notes that the game seems good before it runs out of steam and that it is a strong first game for a new developer.

Pleased game was finished: The reviewer acknowledges the development team's hard work and is pleased they finished the game. They have been following the game's development since 2016 and obtained 4 out of 15 achievements within the first half-hour of playing. This point shows signs of review bombing, so the importance score is reduced.

Steam Deck button overlap: On Steam Deck, the X button function in the map menu is covered by the B button. This is a specific, actionable issue that impacts the user experience on a particular platform.

Crouching for pull rod interaction: The reviewer suggests adding a crouching mechanic to interact with pull rods. This is a specific suggestion for improving gameplay interaction and environmental engagement.

Visuals unchanged since early footage: The game's visuals haven't significantly improved since early footage. This suggests a potentially lengthy or troubled development, which may impact player expectations regarding graphical fidelity.