$9.99Is Evil Genius worth it?
Evil Genius is worth it if…
- you want to play the villain for once, moustache and all
- you like management games where the budget is funding a doomsday device
- you enjoy designing a base and then watching intruders regret visiting it
- you have a soft spot for 1960s spy films and their ridiculous tropes
- you played Dungeon Keeper and always sided with the monsters
Screenshots
Your lair, your rules
You start with a deserted island, a handful of workers and a big hole in the ground. From there you carve out the base yourself: corridors, laboratories, barracks, kung fu academies, rocket caverns, over 300 items in all. Every room has a job, and where you put it matters, because government agents will come poking around the surface.
The cover story is part of the fun. Your island fronts as an ordinary holiday destination, so tourists sunbathe upstairs while stolen loot moves through the tunnels below. There is no single right layout: players agree the base building is the heart of the game, and no two lairs come out the same. Design the fortress you always wanted to be the boss of.
Traps, henchmen and nosy agents
Sooner or later an agent in a sharp suit strolls into your base looking for evidence. That is when the fun starts. You rig corridors with ingenious traps and wicked interrogation devices, then watch intruders stumble from one hazard into the next. Getting creative with what a device was never meant for is half the joke.
For the bigger problems you recruit henchmen: elite bodyguards who patrol your base, take out intruders, and head out into the world on outrageous missions that raise your power and notoriety. Your ordinary minions matter too. Train them in treacherous trades like experimental research, heavy weapons and international sabotage, and they graduate into soldiers, scientists and worse.
Management with a moustache twirl
Under the jokes this is a proper management game, and a wicked one. Instead of pleasing guests you are balancing a criminal enterprise: keeping the money coming in, staffing every room, and expanding fast enough to unlock new minion types, rooms and equipment without drawing the wrong kind of attention.
Missions on the world map give you your goals, and they vary nicely. One day you kidnap a specific person and interrogate them for what they know, another you pull off a heist or a bit of high-profile sabotage, another you simply build the next room your operation needs. Meanwhile the forces of good keep sending agents to expose your plan. Profit and notoriety are your score, and world domination is the finish line.
Can you play it your way?
Which evil genius can you play as?
You pick from three notorious genius characters, and your choice becomes the face of your operation, the icon the world comes to fear. Each brings their own flavour to the campaign, and choosing your favourite supervillain persona is part of the fun of starting over.
What is the goal of the game?
Total global domination, achieved the traditional way: build the ultimate doomsday device and use it. Everything you do, from stealing money to training minions to dispatching agents, feeds the master plan. The game is a parody, so the road to ruling the world is played for laughs at every step.
How does the game look and sound?
It leans into a colourful, stylised 1960s look, with low-poly characters animated with real care and charm, and everything played gloriously over the top. The soundtrack is a highlight: big bands and orchestras that would not sound out of place scoring a spy film of the era.
Can you build the base however you want?
Yes, and that freedom is a big part of why people replay it. With hundreds of items, multiple room types and trap placements to decide, every lair plays out differently. Sandbox-minded players keep coming back to try new layouts and new ways to deal with uninvited guests.
