Monster mansion sim MachiaVillain is out this month

Last month we gave away some beta keys for monster mansion sim Machiavillain, which Joe described as The Sims meets Dungeon Keeper meets Rimworld when developer Wild Factor announced it last year. Today, Wild Factor revealed its release date: MachiaVillain is coming to Steam on Wednesday, May 16 for $20.

The goal of MachiaVillain is pretty simple. As an up-and-coming member of the League of Machiavellian Villains, you build a big ol' mansion on a fabulous estate and lure tourists inside so you can kill them and harvest their organs. The kicker is that your workers are all monsters inspired by legends and horror classics—vampires, mummies, zombies, wendigos, the works.

Your time is split between ordering your monsters around, making good use of your guests, fending off other monsters and the occasional monster hunter, and expanding your estate, all while keeping a low enough profile that the townsfolk don't call you out on your murdering. To that end, you've got a few rules to follow:

1) You must kill all of your unwitting detainees. 

2) You can only kill them when they're alone—unless they're having sex. 

3) You must kill the virgin last. 

4) You can only massacre at night. 

5) Do not kill the dog. Ever. 

I can get behind any game that's against killing dogs, and I quite liked Wild Factor's previous game, Freaking Meatbags, a quirky tower defense RTS thing, so Machiavillain seems like one to watch. 

Austin Wood
Staff writer, GamesRadar

Austin freelanced for PC Gamer, Eurogamer, IGN, Sports Illustrated, and more while finishing his journalism degree, and has been a full-time writer at PC Gamer's sister publication GamesRadar+ since 2019. They've yet to realize that his position as a staff writer is just a cover-up for his career-spanning Destiny column, and he's kept the ruse going with a focus on news, the occasional feature, and as much Genshin Impact as he can get away with.