Reigns: Her Majesty

I came into Reigns: Her Majesty expecting more of the same left-right kingdom management from the original, and technically that is what you get. The same four pillars - Church, People, Army, and Treasury - bracket the top of the screen, and letting any one of them run to zero or to max gets your queen killed in spectacular, sometimes absurd fashion. Trampled to death by an adoring crowd if the people love you too much. Starved in a proof-of-purity ritual if the church goes full devotion. The balancing act sounds mechanical, and at first it is. What changes your read of the whole thing is the item system and the zodiac calendar layered on top. Each time you die and reincarnate as the next queen, she is born under a new astrological sign that unlocks different event cards and character encounters. The Royal Inventory, meanwhile, lets you drag collected items onto incoming cards to bypass the binary left-or-right choice entirely, opening a third path or triggering hidden storylines. Used carelessly, items cost you; used at the right moment on the right card, they crack the game open. From a decision-design perspective, Her Majesty is more tightly interwoven than the first Reigns. The game seeds dependencies across multiple reigns: you might try to have an heir, die immediately because the castle lacks a doctor, then spend two more reigns tracking down that doctor through a completely separate chain of events. That cause-and-effect structure is where the puzzle bones show through. Progress carries across deaths, so no reign, however short, is wasted. The deck itself expands as you encounter new characters - a witch, a scientist, a warrior from a far-off land - and those characters gate later story content. Think of the early loops as the tutorial, even if the game never frames it that way. The roughly 40-objective checklist that tracks your progress toward the overarching ending is visible at all times, which at least gives direction when the card draw turns repetitive. Repetition is the honest criticism here and it has teeth. When the card order works against you, you can cycle through the same small cluster of interactions across multiple reigns without meaningful forward motion. The zodiac calendar adds surprise, but it is not a full fix. Some reviewers also took issue with the PC port specifically around a fourth-wall-breaking subplot involving modern data commentary, which lands awkwardly when you are sitting at a desk rather than swiping on a phone. The narrative premise was built mobile-first, and that origin shows in places. On PC, swipe mechanics become click-and-drag, which works fine but carries no physical satisfaction. Completionists hunting every card for the achievement will also grind hard; the deck does not weight unseen cards heavily enough to avoid repeats. For strategy-adjacent players who do not usually touch casual titles, the right way to approach this is as a short-session puzzle, not a sit-down campaign. The depth is real: over 20 death scenarios, multiple endings from divine ascension to political ruin, hidden characters that only appear through specific item use, secret inventory expansions that alter how certain scenes resolve entirely. The writing, handled by narrative director Leigh Alexander, is darkly witty without being self-congratulatory about it, and the social commentary woven through the queen's perspective on court life is sharper than the genre usually bothers with. The Metacritic score of 81 reflects that critical split accurately: most outlets called it smart and surprising, a couple found it too shallow. Both camps are correct depending on your patience for repetition-as-discovery.

Diego · Scout Team

Strategy & simulation

Be the first to comment on Reigns: Her Majesty.