The stealth gaming genre became a huge hit when the first Metal Gear Solid game burst onto the scene back in the late '90s. Thanks to the power of the then-powerful PSOne console, Hideo Kojima was finally able to make a cinematic masterpiece for the ages.
Thanks to Metal Gear Solid, many other stealth franchises were born, such as Splinter Cell, Sly Cooper, and Assassin's Creed, just to name a few. Sadly, the stealth genre isn't as popular as it once was, but there are still some game developers trying to revive it.
This is because a new stealth game was released on PC back in 2024 called Sumerian Six. The game was a success because Sumerian Six is now available for PlayStation and Xbox in 2026. We got a chance to look at the Xbox Series X version of the game.
Since Sumerian Six has been developed by a small studio, don't expect the game to have AAA-quality graphics or cutscenes. The game is an isometric top-down stealth game with cartoonish graphics set during World War II. Despite this, the gameplay is still highly addictive, though.
The game centres on a group of heroes in World War II trying to stop a mad scientist from using a doomsday device for the Nazis. Most of the game takes place in 1944, but it's not realistic because the good guy characters have supernatural abilities.
The first thing I will say about Sumerian Six is that the game is much harder than the first Metal Gear Solid game because the enemies can see from afar. I remember the enemies in Metal Gear Solid being blind because they couldn't see a few metres ahead of them.
However, in this game, enemies will notice you if you kill one of their enemies nearby, and some soldiers can shoot you from afar, too. Thankfully, the game allows you to use many special abilities to get past dozens of enemies.
One of the more useful characters in the game is Isabella Sterling, and she's working undercover. Her best ability is that she can turn invisible for a few seconds, which gives her enough time to sneak past enemies without them noticing.
My favourite character in the game, though, is a character called Wojtek. The Nazis did some experiments on him, and for some reason, he can turn into a murderous grizzly bear. His bear form is so helpful because he can maul to death Panzerwolves who are big armoured dudes holding Gatling guns.
Another character I liked is a female chemist named Rosa Reznick. She can attach bombs to enemies and then detonate them from afar. This ability is really cool because she can hide away in a secure location while the bomb goes off, killing multiple Nazis at once!
Some characters do have guns, but shooting enemies is ill-advised because it raises the alarm and alerts everyone in the vicinity. I only used guns as a last resort, but ammo is scarce, so you need to use them wisely.
Health packs are also scattered around the levels, although they are rare too, and shared with everyone in the group. Not to mention, Nazi weapons can kill your team, so playing levels like Rambo isn't something you should do. This is a stealth game after all!
The only reason I'm writing a hands-on impressions article instead of a full review of Sumerian Six is that I encountered a major game-breaking bug on the Xbox Series X version of the game.
I'm on the last mission of the level called Madinat Aldaala, but the game won't allow me to progress any further due to a serious bug. The mission in the level requires me to eliminate 8 guards in the shipment area, but the last enemy is unkillable!
The game doesn't recognise the last enemy as a target, so any attacks I use are ineffective. He's treated like a civilian NPC or an ally, so I cannot interact with him in any shape or form. The weird part is that he doesn't shoot back at me either, so he must be a buggy character.
I tried reaching out to publisher Devolver Digital, but I have not heard back from them yet. I restarted the level, loaded my game save many times, and restarted my Xbox, but the glitch still remains.
This is really sad because I was enjoying Sumerian Six and was hoping to play the other two playable characters. But alas, I cannot play the rest of the game unless a new patch is released, if it rectifies my issue.
I'm hoping the bug I encountered isn't widespread because it would be a shame if paying customers had the same issue as me. Let's hope other fixes are addressed as well because the game also crashed on me multiple times…