Shadows of Forbidden Gods
Worth it · Strategy · 2023
Steam Deck PlayableThe verdict
BUY IT.
Worth it at $19.99.
- Length
- 12.7h
- Value
- $1.57/hr
- Reviews
- 92% positive
Buy now or wait
The Autumn Sale is on until Oct 8. It is at full price today.
Discounted in 6 of its last 8 seasonal sales on record.
- Autumn Sale cooldown
- None on record
- Typical seasonal cut
- 75% ($4.99)
- Deepest seasonal cut
- 85% ($2.99)
- Last discount ended
- 37 days ago
Sources: IsThereAnyDeal, Valve.
Watch this gameOne alert when it is worth buying.
Minimum on the Steam store: 1 GB of memory, Integrated Graphics, 1 GB of storage. Windows only.
Take on the role of a Dark Elder God and lead your agents to bring about an apocalypse in a fantasy world. Work in the shadows, avoiding the heroes who will try to stop you, as you bring about plague and famine, ice age and volcanic destruction, madness and never ending night.
What drives the score
How to read this
Grades run S to D, read from the buyer's side. ▲ marks a lift, ▼ a drag or a dock, ? an input we do not have, • a fact this genre's score does not use. How the grades work
The value story
December 2025 is where it bottomed out, at $2.99. It has been discounted 12 times in the 5 years tracked here, typically at 60 percent off, with about 13 weeks between sales. Today it is at full price, and its last discount ended about 5 weeks ago.
Value puts it in the top 4 percent of the games it competes with. It is pricier than 89 percent of its genre, and better reviewed than 96 percent. Among the games that feel like it, China: Mao's legacy ($6.99, scores 80) beats it on value, while it beats Fantasy Map Simulator ($5.99, scores 63).
This site sampled 387 of its Steam-purchase reviews; 3 were written by buyers who refunded it, sampled from reviews written March 2022 to September 2026.
12.7 hours to finish it, 100 to exhaust it. The completionist tail is 7.9 times the campaign.
The drop-off
67% start to 1% rarestNo achievement in this game marks the ending, so there is no finish rate. The curve runs from the most-unlocked achievement to the rarest, and its shape is where players stop. Steam global achievements
Players
26 players online when we last checked, on Sep 26, 22:51 UTC.
Player counts from the Steam Web API.
What players say
Even though the UI is really simplistic, this game gave me quite a few interesting experiences. The journey to destroying the world is not a straight line with these mechanics and you can get surprised with what events happen, especially with the madness mechanic. I've played only 2 gods, but each god gives you a totally new gimmick to work with and it changes the play style. You do just stare at a map and some...
Great game! Bit of tactical, turn based gameplay, where you're feeling like an end-game crisis in some other 4x genres out there. God forbid you take a break though, the rules can at times be rather arcane and takes time to relearn, once you've gone through it once before.
Okay so we have quite an obtuse UI that can severly steepen the learning curve, but once you get the hang of it, you are presented with a very interesting boardgame-like strategy game with a pretty unique theme. It reminds me a lot of Plague Inc. in the way that you have to operate in the shadows (literally) and keep the "living world" unaware of you as long as possible before unleashing your apocalyptic end game...
Steam reviews, mixed to match its Steam ratio and rotated daily. Opinions are theirs.
No data upstream: critic score (Metacritic).
Cite this score
Shadows of Forbidden Gods scores 70/100 on the BANG Score (worth it) as of Oct 2, 2026. The BANG Score rates what a game is worth for the money. Via Steam BANGERS. https://steambangers.com/game/1741640/shadows-of-forbidden-godsReviews set the ceiling, and price against real length moves the BANG Score inside it. How it works, and where it is weak → Steam reviews as of Sep 27, price as of Oct 1.
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