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We haven’t written about Diplomacy Is Not An Option since it launched in Early Access in 2022, when it was a light and frothy strategy game about smashing thousands of peasants to bits with physics magic. It’s still that, but now it’s getting a 1.0 release on October 4th.
The 1.0 release will include Diplomacy’s full story campaign, which includes three factions, six possible endings, and more than 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 fake games you see advertised on Instagram, only real. The scale of its enemy armies, the godlike power to destroy them with divine rays and meteor strikes, and the general sense that the game is less interested in tactical city construction than giddy spectacle.
But what the game lacks in variation it makes up for in its finely tuned and scratchcard-like approach to compulsive play. The cartoonish low-poly visuals and punchy sound effects make building out your expanding fortress an irresistible pleasure to be repeated over and over again, like scratching an itch somewhere deep inside your own skull. Assigning a few cohorts of crossbowmen to your towers and watching them effortlessly obliterate an approach wave of angry peasants is soothing, a cool balm for the mind, like slowly pushing your hoover of an especially dirty bit of carpet and hearing the crackle of debris clattering up the tube. Mmm.
Which honestly sounds fine to me. It’s been on my to-play list ever since, and I remain to give it a try now it’s got more variety and polish.
If you don’t want to wait, you’ll find DINAO on Steam and GOG.