Sacred Citadel Is a Brawler You Play Once and Struggle to Remember

Sacred Citadel arrived in April 2013 as a side-scrolling brawler set in the Sacred universe, and it asks players to do one thing above all else: hit things, over and over, with friends.

Developed by Southend Interactive and published by Deep Silver, Sacred Citadel launched on PlayStation 3, PC and Xbox 360 through Xbox Live Arcade and PlayStation Network. It is a hack-and-slash arcade game with role-playing elements, played from a side view, and it serves as a prequel to Sacred 3, which followed in 2014. A downloadable add-on, Sacred Citadel: Jungle Hunt, landed the same month.

The setup is simple. Ancaria was peaceful. Now the Ashen empire has enslaved its people and turned the orc-like Grimmoc loose on the Seraphim, the guardians who swore to protect the land. To beat the empire, you have to prove yourself a warrior — riding terrifying mounts, earning earth-shattering skills, and looting powerful weapons and valuable treasures. The game’s own pitch ends with an invitation: grab your friends and join the resistance.

Trailer, via ReggieTrailers.

Ancaria, the Ashen Empire and the Grimmoc

That pitch is the whole design in miniature. Sacred Citadel does not hide what it is. It is a beat-’em-up built for a controller and a couch, with a fantasy skin stretched over a loop of combat, loot and forward motion. The Seraphim are the cause. The Grimmoc are the obstacle. The Ashen empire is the wall at the end.

The structure is linear by nature. You move right, you fight what stands in front of you, you pick up what it drops. The role-playing layer — skills, weapons, treasures — sits on top of the arcade spine rather than replacing it. That is a reasonable choice for a game of this length and price. It is also the source of the game’s central tension: the loot wants you to care about your character, and the combat wants you to stop thinking and keep swinging.

Riding Mounts and Looting Weapons

The mounts are the most distinctive idea in the package. A side-scrolling brawler usually keeps both feet on the ground, and Sacred Citadel breaks that rhythm by putting you on something large and unpleasant. Those sections give the campaign a change of pace it otherwise lacks. They also expose how thin the core combat can feel once the novelty of a new toy wears off.

Multiplayer is where the game makes its real argument. Single player works, but the resistance is written for a group. With friends, the screen fills with noise and color, and the repetition stops mattering as much. Alone, the same encounters take longer and land softer. That is not a flaw unique to Sacred Citadel, but it is the difference between a good evening and a chore.

The art direction leans on the fantasy theme without much ambition. Ancaria reads as a generic medieval-fantasy backdrop — green fields, ruined stone, the usual. The Grimmoc are ugly in the right way. The Seraphim are noble in the obvious way. Nothing here will surprise anyone who has played a brawler before.

Sacred Citadel: Jungle Hunt and the 2014 Sequel

Jungle Hunt shipped in the same month as the base game, which is a strange bit of scheduling. Add-on content usually arrives after players have finished the campaign and started asking for more. Releasing it alongside the main game suggests the team had material it wanted out the door rather than a plan for extending the game’s life.

The sequel question matters more. Sacred 3 arrived in 2014, and Sacred Citadel exists to set up that story. A prequel carries a specific burden: it has to stand on its own while pointing at something bigger. Sacred Citadel points clearly. Whether it stands is more debatable. Its characters and its world are means to an end, and the end is a different game.

A 6.6 Out of 10

The published critical aggregate sits at 6.6 out of 10 across six outlets. That number is fair, and it is fair for specific reasons. Sacred Citadel is competent. It runs, it controls, it delivers the loop it promises. It is also forgettable in the way that mid-tier licensed fantasy brawlers often are. Nothing in it is broken. Very little in it is memorable.

Here is the schedule the game is built around, and it has not changed since 2013:

The mounts are the part worth remembering. They are the one mechanic that gives Sacred Citadel a personality of its own, and they are the reason to pick it up over the many other side-scrolling brawlers competing for the same evening. The loot system is noise by comparison — it adds numbers without adding decisions. The multiplayer is the multiplier. The Grimmoc are the wallpaper.

What this game gets right is scope. It knows it is a prequel, it knows it is a downloadable title, and it does not pretend to be a full-scale role-playing epic. That restraint is worth something. Too many games in this space pad themselves out with systems they cannot support.

What it gets wrong is ambition. The combat never develops past its opening hours. The enemy variety thins out. The story is a premise rather than a narrative, and the Seraphim never become people you care about. By the time the Ashen empire finally matters, you have already stopped thinking about it.

Sacred Citadel is a decent way to spend a weekend with a friend and a bad way to spend a week alone. It earns its 6.6. It does not earn more, and it does not deserve less.

beat 'em up · Deep Silver · game review · Sacred 3 · Sacred Citadel · Southend Interactive