Tyranny is a Dungeons and Dragons game where the top half of the alignment page has been ripped out and burned. It's a fantasy world where being nice to someone will result in bewilderment from the affected party and scorn from your own. It's an RPG where, rather than choosing between giving someone flowers or stabbing them in the face, you choose between stabbing them in the face or giving them some warning before stabbing them in the face.
The premise has been pitched by games from Dungeon Keeper to Overlord "What if you were the bad guy?" It's an idea that presents itself as original when, in truth, it's almost as clichéd as the hero's quest itself. But Tyranny truly is different. Whereas most games of this ilk revel in villainy, gleefully embracing its chaos and depravity, Tyranny presents to us an evil that is ordinary. It's powered by a giant machine of administration and bureaucracy, the kind that says "I'm just doing my job" as it cranks the wheel of the rack.
What results is an adventure that is terrifying, captivating, and desperately sad, where you wade through a sea of death and torment clinging onto whatever scrap of humanity you can. It's also, at times, an exhausting one, thanks to quests that seem interminably long and a misguided focus on combat.
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