Realpolitiks II Review for Xbox Series X/S

I wouldn’t say I’m much of a grand strategy gamer, but I do have fond memories of spending hours and hours leading the ancient Greeks in Age of Empires and an Earth-based galactic empire in Stellaris. Realpolitiks II, as the name suggests, is more grounded in the here and now than some of its grand strategy predecessors, using contemporary countries set in the present day rather than ancient civilizations or far-future alien societies. A sequel to 2017’s Realpolitiks, this game gives you free license to lead a real-world country (and there are a lot to choose from) to success or ruin, over the course of centuries.

The game opens with a lengthy prologue in which a narrator essentially outlines the history of politics, name-dropping key figures such as Aristotle, Plato, Rousseau, Locke, Churchill, and even George Orwell, all while the camera pans over politically-significant items like the Parthenon, the statue of blind Justice, and the guillotine. It’s interesting enough the first time, but the prologue runs every time you open the game – fortunately, it’s skippable, so you can enjoy it once and then skip over it subsequent times.

Then, it’s time to pick your campaign, and there are three to choose from initially: On the Brink of Tomorrow (the standard campaign in which you lead a contemporary country over a hundred-year development journey), Pandemic Aftermath (in which you lead your country out of the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2021), and Nothing Ever Changes (a campaign in which you simply try to survive in the wastelands left behind by a cataclysmic apocalypse). There’s also a helpful tutorial campaign which introduces you to the initially-overwhelming UI and guides you through the first few steps of running your country.

Speaking of the UI, there’s a lot going on – a staple of grand strategy games – but it’s not too hard to get the hang of it. Every side of the screen is packed full of icons, numbers, drop-down menus, and notifications, but it’s all arranged with common sense in mind. You also get to pick your right-hand advisor and a cabinet full of key councilors: Foreign Affairs, Treasury, Defense, Internal Affairs, and National Security. Each department offers multiple councilors to choose from, that each bring their own advantages and bonuses.

Once you’ve picked your campaign, your country (you get to choose from a truly staggering list of real-life contemporary nations), and your initial councilors, the game sets you loose to lead your country however you see fit. You can wage war, forge alliances, stimulate the economy, build up your infrastructure, pass laws, and lobby the legislative body to approve your agenda, though all of these things come with a cost and a healthy amount of risk involved. And if you get tired of leading a lawful-good democracy, there are steps you can take to intervene directly in the development of your country – distributing propaganda, deploying military troops to the city streets, or even declaring a full-on dictatorship. There is an endless supply of choices you can mix and match to develop your country in truly unique directions, and while there’s a bit of a learning curve, it’s never so overwhelming that you don’t know what to do.

This is clearly a game intended to be played on a PC, and the console port feels like just that – a port, rather than a version uniquely optimized for console play. The controls are intuitive enough, but there were definitely some times where I got tired of using the left joystick to maneuver the cursor around until it was hovering perfectly over one of the tiny icons. The graphics are also not that impressive, but these strategy games are not really known for their impeccable graphics, so I can let that one go.

I also have to bring up the fact that there are a lot of negative reviews for this game on Xbox, and the vast majority are about a widespread bug that caused the game to crash immediately after loading the first campaign. The game makers say they’ve recently introduced a patch that fixes the bug, and I personally didn’t run into any problems while playing, but I do feel the need to mention it.

Ultimately, I don’t think that Realpolitiks II poses much of a threat to the Civilization, Age of Empires, or Stellaris games, but it’s definitely ambitious and there’s enough well-made content to keep casual strategy players (like me) satisfied for a while. If you’re looking for a low-intensity game that lets you live out the fantasy of leading a country in whatever direction you want, then I would recommend checking out Realpolitiks II for PC, Mac, and Xbox Series X/S.

Score: 7/10

Ian Robinson-Lambert

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I've loved video games ever since I started playing Mario Kart on my parents' Wii back in seventh grade. These days, you can find me playing a mix of historical RPGs and horror (shout-out to Assassin's Creed and Resident Evil). I also love a good puzzle, and of course I still have a soft spot for the Super Mario series!

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