Soulash: the hour sink
Indie RPG Soulash is getting real praise for its single‑player turn‑based combat, sandbox crafting, RPG skill trees, a hardcore legacy system and even military conquest elements — one player logged nearly 200 hours across 10 characters, signaling deep metagame hooks and longevity . The reaction shows players are still hungry for dense single‑player systems that reward long runs and replayability.
Soulash’s original build hit Steam on March 4, [2022 store.steampowered.com], and the expanded sequel Soulash 2 launched into Early Access on December 4, 2023 with a base price set at roughly $17.99–$18.99 across [storefronts steamcommunity.com]. Multiple player posts on the official Steam forums show individual runs topping “200+ hours” and long multi‑character campaigns, underlining the kind of extended engagement cited in community screenshots and [reports steamcommunity.com]. Community scale metrics back that up: SteamDB records around 2,000 user reviews and an ~82% positive rating for Soulash 2 as of recent snapshots, while the original Soulash still lists hundreds of reviews with a lower aggregate score on its store [page steamdb.info]. Developer Artur Śmiarowski has maintained a rapid update cadence—weekly changelogs and biweekly devlogs are posted to Steam and Patreon—and those posts explicitly roadmap features like a world‑event system, economy overhaul, faction warfare and the Lich mechanic as upcoming [milestones steamcommunity.com]. The title’s distribution and platform support have been broadened—Soulash appears on Steam, itch.io and [GOG store.steampowered.com] and recent changelogs note a Steam Deck green check, signaling portable playability added in a March [patch steamcommunity.com]. The project’s public reception has also been noisy: developer interactions around inclusions in the sequel sparked community disputes and reported review‑campaign attempts, coverage of which appeared on forums and news aggregators earlier in 2024–2025, amplifying visibility even as discussions grew [contentious resetera.com].
