The Siege and the Sandfox

While I enjoyed The Siege and the Sandfox for several hours, I did not complete the game and will not recommend you purchase this title. It needs work that the developer doesn't seem to be able to give, especially with fixing bugs and QoL improvements. The premise was solid: A modern Metroidvania style of the Prince of Persia formula. Our protagonist, The Sandfox, must navigate the sprawling (both vertically and horizontally) city with his fancy footwork (parkour) and a few extra tools gained along the way, such as lock picks and a sap to knock out unsuspecting guards. Combat is not the focus here--it's all about exploration and platforming. That's where the problems start. The platforming would like to be as precise as Metroid, but the controls are not up to the task. You're required to make nearly pixel-perfect inputs at times, but the game is simply not responsive enough to consistently allow that level of precision. Furthermore, the number of bugs I encountered in ~6 hours of play time (Steam is showing approximately 4 hours, but as I played on my Steam Deck for that time, it occasionally gets the record wrong) is what I'd expect of an Early Access title, not a full re…

I held off playing the siege and the sandfox for about a year after the poor reception, hoping for a patch to smooth things ou. That patch never came so i figured i might as well get it over with and clear it off my backlog. Turns out the game was much better than the ratings had led me to believe. Doesn't mean this game is flawless though, it has many issues that no doubt contributed to its mixed reviews. It's just that for me it does a few things very well, particularly the 2 things that i adore in metroidvania's; exploration and level design. All while bringing something completely new to the table in the form of stealth rather than combat. This is the siege and the sandfox's flagship feature which makes it stand out among its peers. The stealth gameplay is very unique and at times kinda fun, depending on your patience levels. Stealth gameplay has always needed some degree of patience but that's especially the case here. I won't proclaim that it's the deepest stealth system i've seen, especially without throwable distractions. There is a few other unique mechanics though that i appreciated such as peeking through keyholes, closing and opening doors to break LoS and torches that…

Got stuck in the wall when using the elevator, checkpoint put me back a long way. Shame, cause it could be decent.

An incredibly unique and good idea overshadowed with sloppy controls, graphic bugs, and other sloppiness.

For such a visually wonderful game, with interesting gameplay, it's got some flaws that ultimately, mostly through the game, I threw it down and said "I'm done" and quit out. The good: Pixel art is great. Environments are great. Shaders look amazing, the mechanic of vision and shadows grew on me while I played. Lack of real combat in a metroidvania was interesting, you don't ever get a power trip, but become better able to navigate around enemies. The story is interesting enough, with the ever present narrator who has a pleasant voice. The bad: Glitches - quest markers got glitched, making it hard to figure out where to go next to progress the game (this is a quest with 5 objectives). Map traversal, there's fast travel, but only in fast travel rooms. This is what made me throw the game down, as I was re-exploring a deep area in the bottom right of the map, and kept losing progress, finally giving up on the game. The worst: The game, for as lovely and engaging as it is, also feels like it was made by someone who makes getting over it levels in Mario maker. The amount of times a bad input loses you a ton of verticality is horrible. Re-exploring old areas is a slog because of…

Okay, what many of the other reviews are saying is true: this game still has way too many bugs*. It clearly would have required more quality assurance and more bug-fixing attention from the devs**. However, I'm sill giving it a "thumbs up", and here's why: it's also truly special and I've enjoyed it enormously. The Siege and the Sandfox has a good story and even better storytelling, great atmosphere, beautiful pixel art, excellent sound design, and engaging stealthy, parkours-y platforming gameplay. And I loved the narrator! So, if you think you might like this kind of game, give it a try. You'll likely not be disappointed. * I bought the game in August 2026 and it seems the version I played had the most annoying bugs reported by others already smoothened out. I was able to complete the game with no game-breaking bugs. What remains are slight annoyances which at most required reloading from the latest checkpoint (such as levers not working or the player character getting stuck in a wall; also the dustwalker enemies always got stuck - which made them much easier to avoid 😅). Besides that, I got lost twice due to missing quest markers on the map. But I always found back to the pat…