Becoming Saint

Becoming Saint is a unique and darkly humorous real-time strategy (RTS) roguelite game that challenges players to spread their own unique, and often heretical, religious doctrine across 14th-century medieval Italy. Developed by Open Lab Games, the game is a compelling blend of RTS/auto-battler combat, moral choice-making, and political management, all with the explicit goal of attaining canonization as a Saint during your lifetime—or dying gloriously in the attempt.

You start as a young woman from Assisi with a small following, determined to become a powerful preacher. The first step is to define your creed. Through narrative choices, you set the political and spiritual traits of your new order, determining how your followers behave, how your economy functions, and what units you can recruit. You can choose to be tyrannical or kind, capitalist or communist, and these initial decisions will ripple through your entire campaign.

The Conversion Crusade

The core gameplay loop involves traveling across the fragmented, city-state landscape of medieval Italy, converting one small town at a time. This "conversion" typically involves a confrontation with the town's existing zealots, be they loyalists to the Pope, the Emperor, or powerful merchants.

• Real-Time Tactics: Battles take place on a grid, using a real-time system with a tactical pause function. You select and deploy a small army of up to 16 uniquely characterized units—ranging from Book-Wielding Monks and Leapers to Sex Workers with Flowers—each with specific strengths and weaknesses against different enemy types.

• Unit Synergy: Success depends on understanding unit synergy and using the terrain to your advantage. Units have three core attributes (Energy, Faith, and Courage), and using a special Saintly power to bless your units or curse your foes is crucial for tipping the balance of the skirmish.

Management and Sainthood

Beyond the battles, constant management is required to sustain your spreading influence. The well-being of your growing flock, or Bread Management, is surprisingly critical. Your followers must be fed, and poor economic choices or over-ambitious expansion can lead to food shortages, lowering their Faith and causing them to desert your cause at the worst possible time.

As a roguelite, the game embraces permadeath, but failure feeds into future attempts. Even if your sainthood is cut short by being burned at the stake for heresy, you earn meta-progression points that help your next incarnation. The eventual goal is to spread your word far enough and wide enough to eventually challenge the Pope, striving to achieve canonization and be remembered in the annals of history.