Citadels - Shadow City

Citadels - Shadow City is a darkfantasy turnbased card game of bluffing, diplomacy, and citybuilding. You pick secret roles, gather gold, and outsmart your opponents to construct the ultimate city. Play solo against AI or compete with friends in online and local multiplayer. It’s a game about reading the table, adapting to shifting alliances, and knowing when to play it safe and when to stab someone in the back.

The Core Gameplay

Every round, you secretly draft a character role the cunning Spy, the wealthy Guildmaster, the ruthless Inquisitor, or the unpredictable Alchemist. Each role grants a distinct special ability that can accelerate your economy, protect your districts, or directly disrupt another player’s turn. The twist is that you’re not just choosing the best role for your current hand of cards you’re choosing the role that will make your opponents think you’re doing something else entirely. The strongest plays come from reading the table: who is suddenly playing cautiously, who is hoarding gold, and who is about to complete a critical district category for synergy points. Trust no one, because everyone is hiding their true intentions.

Build Your Empire

You grow your city by spending gold to construct district cards. Trade markets, religious abbeys, military fortresses, and science academies aren’t just flavor they define how efficiently you generate income, defend your progress, and pivot when your best plan gets countered. The first player to build 8 districts triggers the end of the game, but finishing first doesn’t automatically mean winning. Final scoring rewards the city with the highest total value and the strongest category synergies, so sometimes the correct move is to slow down, protect your lead, and maximize points rather than sprinting to eight and hoping the math works out.

Reception and Details

The game was released on July 26, 2026, and it’s still very new, so the community is small. On Steam, it currently has only 4 user reviews, which means there’s no broad consensus yet. On Metacritic, one early user review gave it a 9 out of 10, praising its “dark medieval atmosphere, detailed artwork, and clean interface” and calling it “a deep, engaging, and highly replayable card game experience.” A MacGaming preview noted that it’s “wellsuited to Mac play sessions because it’s turnbased and decisiondense,” and that the hook is simple build the most valuable city but “the way you get there is anything but.” The developer openly discloses that generative AI was used as an assistive tool for creating some visual assets, and that all AIassisted assets were manually edited and refined by a human designer before being included in the game.

System Requirements

The game runs on Windows, macOS, and SteamOS/Linux, and the requirements are mercifully low. On Windows, you’ll need Windows 10 (64bit), an Intel Core i3 or AMD equivalent, 4096 MB RAM, and a dedicated graphics card. You’ll only need 500 MB of storage space. On macOS, you’ll need macOS 10.14 (Mojave) or newer, an Intel Core i3 or Apple M1, 4096 MB RAM, and a Metalcapable GPU. The game supports full controller support, adjustable UI scaling, and remappable keys.

Who Is This Game For?

If you love tabletopinspired card games that reward bluffing, resource management, and reading your opponents think Coup, Citadels (the board game), or Love Letter this is exactly your kind of game. If you enjoy the tension of hidden roles and the satisfaction of outsmarting everyone at the table, the constant roleswapping and psychological mindgames will keep you coming back for “just one more round.” It’s also for players who want a deep strategy game they can play solo against AI, with friends on the couch via LAN, or online against strangers. And if you just want a cheap, lowstress card game that doesn’t demand a powerful PC and runs on almost anything, this one’s got your name on it.

If you've warmed up to the game, I hope you triumph!