TheRetroArcade
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Joined: Feb 2026
One of the best management games around, featuring gaming's best implementation of time travel.
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What is it? A visual novel, RPG, management game with time travel. Release date August 6, 2026Expect to pay $17/£12.74Developer Wild Wit GamesPublisher Curve GamesReviewed on RTX 4090, Intel i9-13900k, 32GB RAMSteam Deck VerifiedLink Steam
Sovereign Tower is so much more than it seems—which feels rather appropriate for a game where you play an itinerant leper who accidentally becomes the ruler of a magical kingdom, the titular Sovereign. Nobody is quite sure what to make of you, especially if, like me, you start suggesting eating cats or recruit a literal wolf to join your Knights of the Roundtable.
At first glance this is a cosy visual novel management game with a soft colour palette and handsome art. You sit on your throne listening to requests, demands and grievances, and then you send out your growing gaggle of knights on quests in an attempt to keep everyone happy.
But Sovereign Tower quickly reveals itself to be a complicated juggling act where nearly everyone needs your help, and those who don't probably want to kill you. There are fires everywhere, and you'll never have enough knights to put them all out.
It takes some of the fundamentals of the excellent Reigns series, but stretches them out, filling the space with more elaborate storylines, surprisingly meaty roleplaying systems and, most importantly, time travel.
Time is the dreadful spectre looming over Sovereign Tower. Most quests can be completed whenever you want, or simply ignored, but each act features main quests and random emergency quests that must be tackled within an allotted timeframe. Sometimes these are also tied to the satisfaction level of the various classes of your citizenry—scholars, merchants, nobles and the people—or the wealth contained in your treasury.
So you'll need to send out your knights in time, and keep your people happy and your economy strong. That's easier said than done.
If you want to get more nobles on your side, you might have to piss off the merchants. If you want a full treasury, how are you going to pay for your knights' armour to be repaired, or equip them with expensive magical equipment and fast horses? And if you're too cheap, how are your knights going to succeed in their quests?
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Quests also challenge specific abilities—strength, agility, charisma, luck, magic and wit. You're not going to want to send a scrawny magical knight on a quest that involves lifting heavy objects. And your brawniest warrior might have a tricky time taking down a rogue necromancer.
Each adventure also contains certain keywords that relate to the attributes and preferences of your knights. Angelica, the first knight you'll recruit, loves animals. So if the quest involves killing a bunch of critters, she might not be your first choice. On the other hand, she might be the perfect choice, with her attribute allowing her to pacify the animals without bloodshed. Quests can have unexpected outcomes, which means that it's worth sometimes going with your gut and taking a risky punt.
It's worth sometimes going with your gut and taking a risky punt.
Preferences work differently. One of Angelica's preferences is diplomacy, so if you send her to end a dispute between some druids and a mob of angry peasants, this will make her happy. She loves mediation (yes, she's a dork). Keep their satisfaction high and your knights will be loyal even as you make the worst possible decisions. Let it drop, however, and you might notice some empty spaces around the Roundtable.
There's one more wrinkle: you don't automatically get a full list of everyone's attributes and pre...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?
PC Gamer's got your back
Our experienced team dedicates many hours to every review, to really get to the heart of what matters most to you. Find out more about how we evaluate games and hardware.
What is it? A visual novel, RPG, management game with time travel. Release date August 6, 2026Expect to pay $17/£12.74Developer Wild Wit GamesPublisher Curve GamesReviewed on RTX 4090, Intel i9-13900k, 32GB RAMSteam Deck VerifiedLink Steam
Sovereign Tower is so much more than it seems—which feels rather appropriate for a game where you play an itinerant leper who accidentally becomes the ruler of a magical kingdom, the titular Sovereign. Nobody is quite sure what to make of you, especially if, like me, you start suggesting eating cats or recruit a literal wolf to join your Knights of the Roundtable.
At first glance this is a cosy visual novel management game with a soft colour palette and handsome art. You sit on your throne listening to requests, demands and grievances, and then you send out your growing gaggle of knights on quests in an attempt to keep everyone happy.
But Sovereign Tower quickly reveals itself to be a complicated juggling act where nearly everyone needs your help, and those who don't probably want to kill you. There are fires everywhere, and you'll never have enough knights to put them all out.
It takes some of the fundamentals of the excellent Reigns series, but stretches them out, filling the space with more elaborate storylines, surprisingly meaty roleplaying systems and, most importantly, time travel.
Time is the dreadful spectre looming over Sovereign Tower. Most quests can be completed whenever you want, or simply ignored, but each act features main quests and random emergency quests that must be tackled within an allotted timeframe. Sometimes these are also tied to the satisfaction level of the various classes of your citizenry—scholars, merchants, nobles and the people—or the wealth contained in your treasury.
So you'll need to send out your knights in time, and keep your people happy and your economy strong. That's easier said than done.
If you want to get more nobles on your side, you might have to piss off the merchants. If you want a full treasury, how are you going to pay for your knights' armour to be repaired, or equip them with expensive magical equipment and fast horses? And if you're too cheap, how are your knights going to succeed in their quests?
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
Quests also challenge specific abilities—strength, agility, charisma, luck, magic and wit. You're not going to want to send a scrawny magical knight on a quest that involves lifting heavy objects. And your brawniest warrior might have a tricky time taking down a rogue necromancer.
Each adventure also contains certain keywords that relate to the attributes and preferences of your knights. Angelica, the first knight you'll recruit, loves animals. So if the quest involves killing a bunch of critters, she might not be your first choice. On the other hand, she might be the perfect choice, with her attribute allowing her to pacify the animals without bloodshed. Quests can have unexpected outcomes, which means that it's worth sometimes going with your gut and taking a risky punt.
It's worth sometimes going with your gut and taking a risky punt.
Preferences work differently. One of Angelica's preferences is diplomacy, so if you send her to end a dispute between some druids and a mob of angry peasants, this will make her happy. She loves mediation (yes, she's a dork). Keep their satisfaction high and your knights will be loyal even as you make the worst possible decisions. Let it drop, however, and you might notice some empty spaces around the Roundtable.
There's one more wrinkle: you don't automatically get a full list of everyone's attributes and pre...Read more: Full article on www.pcgamer.com
What do you think about this?