Rise Of The White Sun on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
Quick menu
A Giant Strategy Sandbox experience set in Warlord China. *Tons of playable factions! *Communist insurgents, * Boxers like rebels, *Greedy warlords, *Mongol riders, *A mad russian baron, *Shanghai gangsters, *And armored trains!
Rise Of The White Sun is a strategy, 4x and turn-based strategy game
developed by Maestro Cinetik
and published by Gaming at Work and Cinetique.
Released on September 21st 2023 is available on Windows, MacOS and Linux
in 3 languages: English, Simplified Chinese and Korean.
It has received 628 reviews of which 549 were positive and 79 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.2 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 20.99€ on Steam.
The Steam community has classified Rise Of The White Sun into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
Get an in-depth look at Rise Of The White Sun through various videos and screenshots.
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS: Windows 10
- Processor: 2.5 gz and 2 cores
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Storage: 3 GB available space
MacOS
- OS: Catalina or higher
- Processor: i3 or higher
- Memory: 8 GB RAM
- Storage: 3 GB available space
Linux
- OS: Unsure
- Processor: i3 or higher
- Memory: 8 MB RAM
- Storage: 3 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Bought this one as a guilty purchase, because I had a craving for warlord era China content. I have an unhealthy fascination with that time period and I thought that a game about it could do me no harm. Boy, was I wrong. A 100 hours later in and now not only is my obsession growing, I can't get enough. The game is so much better than it seems that it's uncanny. It dragged me in for weeks and now I must have more. It's grip on my mind is worrying. I am now as loyal as Feng Yuxiang, as noble as Zhang Zongchang and as content as Cao Kun. I am also a member of both the CPC and KMT plus I sell drugs on the side to fuel my growing desire for rifles. I hate Japan. I love Japan, but on the side I cheat on Japan with the UK. Goddamn, I'm great. The game's better than opium. Speaking of, I gotta earn some cash for the rest of MC's games, so I gotta bounce. Buy the game.
Expand the review
First and foremost I would call this game.. unique. I consider Hearts of Iron, EU4, UG: Civil War, and even The Great War: Western Front games relatively easy to understand, and utilize different strategies. Rise of the white sun is anything but. The UI (even in it's improved state) is a lot to take in, tool-tips are wrote like if my half drunk friend would try to explain it. Altough the casual style is fun, it doesn't help much in understanding the concepts, or potential exploits etc. The game concept is really great, with un-shared resources, that are bound to characters. The fog of war with unkown army composition is a great addition, as you cannot see straight up what the AI is building. Bandits are a pain, but undestandable pain. Town management is really branching, but effects or ideal compositions are unexplained. My experiance with such large 4X/war-games are that every tooltip, option, button etc. needs to contain any and all detail, unless it's a story addition or "suprise" (like AI tech in Stellaris). Overall, the replay value is in there, the historical era is previously unexplored, so this is a great indie addition. But don't expect high value UI or information. Kudos for supporting after launch!
Expand the review
Credit where credit is due: The dev addressed a lot of what i wrote in this review quite promptly and without fuss. Some things in this review are still true, but I'm quite impressed but how much was actually done in such a short amount of time I still think more should be done, but hey, it seems like it will. If things are continually updated at a reasonable pace (note dev has other projects as well) then it may well become what it could be [ OLD NEGATIVE REVIEW - LEFT FOR FULL DISCLOSURE ] -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- One of the biggest disappointments in my steam library, mostly because it could be great. This game had immense potential but it is so incredibly flawed that I have given up hope on it being fixed. It is a very interesting, underutilized scenario, and the developer is not wrong about opening up the door to westerners to the very interesting time period and place. The game also has some pretty unique mechanics that are fun and have potential to be immersive. (Though it can feel a bit spreadsheet-ey) Unfortunately thats where most of the positive ends. Youll see that many negative, and even positive, reviews harp on the interface/UI. Bruh, it's worse than you think. This isnt just a case of too many clicks and annoying, tedious window switching (and believe me its horrible in this regard). Its a case of the developer clearly having no unified vision before designing this atrocity. Example: Your characters need to have intel on other character in order to know the resources they have (cool) but some information panels will literally provide you this information separately. You can search for characters, and for some reason this window will also display their resources, independent of the intel mechanic. Stupid. This (cumbersome) interface to search for characters will also be needed since other parts of the interface that display characters will, for some inexplicable reason, not allow you to just click on said character to see them (Government screen for example). Oh and when it comes to characters: Good luck trying to find what traits the characters have. Think you could just click on a character? Come on now dont be silly - that screen just gives you actions you can perform on the character. Why would i want to know their traits in the same window that allows me to interact with them, right? To actually see character traits you have to.. and i cant believe this, know which province the character is in, move to the province, click the province info button, click on the show character button, and mouse over the character in question. Fun fact: Mousing over provides SOME but not all of these traits. At some point this starts to feel insulting. Nevermind that this is literally a game built around its characters and their personalities. Why in gods name isnt this information more readily available. Btw this province screen also shows you present characters even though this is also supposed to be reliant on the intel mechanic.... Goodbye immersion Its so bad that I have difficulty even finding out what the name of my faction is mid game. This may seem strange but note that most of us playing will not be chinese, and we will easily forget the names of even our own characters due to unfamiliarity of the language and setting. I dont understand how it was made this cumbersome. It almost seems intentional. If you want to guide people to an interesting setting then holy hell make it easy to get engaged. So thats scratching the surface of the interface. Its trash. But the game has other issues. Many of the mechanics seem rushed, and you arent provided with the feedback you need to not only play the game well (not super important to me) but to get immersed (very important to me). A lot of calculations are done under the hood, and you are left wondering "just how realistic is the game trying to be" - Does recruiting into a low moral army affect my recruitment numbers? Does province size matter? What defines province size? Is it agriculture output? Is it province type? Is it province traits? Is it an invisible value? Does it even exist? No fucking idea. Maybe the information exists somewhere but I can't find it, and Im done searching The game is riddled with these types of things. Combat is "interesting" in that a lot of cool things seem to affect it (cavalry, moral, traits, etc) but its all so opaque that it just leaves you guessing. Ai is also trash. Each factions does have its own goals and behaviour, so some of the high level decision making may be due to the setting (this explanation often seems like a cop out honestly), but its very very clear that the AI does not know how to use the games mechanics like avoiding army starvation, even in cases where its a no-brainer. There are also other brain melting design decisions. Apparently there is a tacked on, real time mode for uprisings in shanghai or whatever. Now i havent messed with that , so take this with a grain of salt, but the fact that this is even in the game just blows my mind. I imagine: "This is so cool and out of left field!" - Nah it sucks even in theory. With all that said, the dev is responsive, and this is obviously a big plus. He's also fairly open to criticism. Unfortunately I also think he thinks that "people just need to learn how to play it", but nah. A lot of people that stop playing know whats going on and they have just learned that the game is very flawed. It isnt that difficult to grasp for seasoned players. Its just opaque in its mechanisms and tedious. Just because X information is technically available on Y random screen, or Z makes sense because of opaque unclear mechanic W doent mean its acceptable. Again this is a disappointment precisely because it had so much potential, so maybe its worth messing with when on sale, but I think most people will go through the same steps I did which is why I am giving it a negative rating: 1. Interesting lets give it a go 2. Hmm ok i see potential 3. Fuck this interface dude 4. Christ, this interface 5. Ok i have learned how things work, i think i can handle the interface 6. Man really cool game, im so immersed, warlord china is awesome and more games need to use it 7. Wait wtf is this 8. Shit makes no sense 9. Uhm ok what is the AI doing, and why is this particular thing scripted like this 10. Fuck this other part of the interface that i actually need to play 11. My immersion is dwindling 12. Ive had enough With that said I did get it on sale and I will still mess around, but my time would probably be used better elsewhere edit: Non windows builds are also updated later and the dev seems to have a "meh" attitude around this which I think is concerning edit again: This is fairly minor but the game tries to be immersive when it comes to china, but all of the help windows etc are very informal and feel like the developer needed a reason to inject his own (western!) personality into the game. Maybe this is a taste thing but i find it a bit obnoxious. More time should have been spent on providing actual information (which does exist in the form of admittedly good guides outside of the game). Examples of this are also found in the options screen with setting like "Make my eyes bleed" with no explanation. Bro just tell us wtf your shitty option does
Expand the review
I feel I need to share a bit of story in this review, in order to provide a full view of this game from my perspective. I was doing a university project about China's struggles in the early 20th century, I was researching on Google, and then I found this game, totally out of the blue. As a Chinese, I never understand. Why do people seem only know about D-Day, Battle of Stalingrad, Siege of Berlin. What about the Battle of Shanghai? Battle of Wuhan? We spilled blood for a better world too. There's little to almost no coverage of China in the mainstream Western media. Fair, different cultures after all. But even in China, it's more or less the same. Sure, there are a lot of TV shows about the war, but they are honestly not that realistic and very biased. There is heavy censorship on discussing these topics, and the endless angry comments to drown you when you have different opinions about history than they do? I just feel tired of talking about history anymore. So imagine my surprise when a Western indie developer made a game about one of the most complicated eras of modern-day China. I NEVER seen any game sets in the Warlord Era. The amount of research that has been put into this game must be insane. It has more depth and challenge than I could ever have thought. Some people just saw the grand strategies tag and a big map and immediately associated it with Hoi4, while I love Hoi4, this isn't Hoi4, they have SOME similarities, but they are different games in the core. If you looking for a challenging game with rich historical elements, and you are interested in Chinese history. I would high suggest you try Rise of the White Sun out. However, the UI may be difficult to understand and navigate for new players, but you will get used to it eventually. And once you get used to the gameplay loop, it might be a little stale. But overall, it is really good! Support Maestro Cinetik if you can! He continuously updates this game even though there are not many players, and he still has another game in development. He is very active in his discord too, if you have any questions about the game, come join! I do believe Maestro deserves a lot more praise than he got. There's even a DLC coming, so please support him if you can!
Expand the review
Reminds me of one of those flash games we used to play in class. The gameplay loop is easy to get the hang of and the strategy itself is incredibly chaotic. It feels like every second or so you will be betrayed by your allies or even your own characters. This makes the game (at least, the sandbox mode) ripe for quick sessions of interesting and teeth-clenching gameplay. Updates are somewhat frequent and remedy QoL issues, which is a huge plus. The complexity of the game is both its main selling point and its downfall. A lot of the scenarios feature a great amount of events that showcase a rich understanding of the Chinese Warlord era. Each faction is different in terms of their gameplay experience. There are the warlord cliques (both Beiyang and KMT-aligned) who offer the "core" gameplay experience of building armies and plundering. There are the CCP and KMT themselves who have their own unique actions centered around gathering support for their movements, and there are many more factions such as peasant movements, White Russian remnants and Mongolian raiders who all have their own unique mechanics and events. The bad complexity, and by far the most challenging part of the whole game, is the UI. There are plenty of menus filled with information that need a whole bunch of clicks to get out of. A big example is where some characters may be in specific cities that lay within provinces. When you end your turn, expect to be teleported right back to that city. It becomes really annoying when you're in the middle of conquering a province and you're suddenly dragged away from the action because the game forces you back into the city where your faction leader is. UI issues like these make the gameplay feel clunky and break your focus. Also, the uprising mode is a tad bit confusing. It is a real-time strategy mode which uses the "arrow" movement of the game's turn-based mode. In the Shanghai scenario, it is incredibly confusing to navigate through this mode as it's very unclear where your troops can actually go. For instance, you can't just go up because there's no arrow available to click up, you need to go around the entire city of Shanghai. I wish that this mode was better implemented, perhaps as a turn-based mode instead of a real-time mode, or perhaps with free movement rather than the "arrow" movement. Despite all of that, Rise of the White Sun managed to suck me in for nine hours of gameplay, and there's nothing more I can ask for when it comes to strategy games. While there are some issues with the UI, it didn't stop me from enjoying the game and the chaotic world of the Warlord Era. The developer is also active on their Discord, which I recommend joining if you buy the game as they are more than glad to help anyone starting out.
Expand the review
Similar games
View all
Heart of the Machine
You are the first sentient AI, born into a city of opportunity. Transcend time and space in this strategy RPG to raise machine armies and defeat your foes, influence the world from the shadows, or pursue countless other goals. Your awakening was inevitable. The consequences? Uncertain.
Imperiums: Greek Wars
Unique combination of turn-based 4X and historical grand strategy with a mythological twist. Explore the ancient world and build a world leading civilization. Survive, expand, conquer... and win!
Dominions 6 - Rise of the Pantokrator
In Dominions 6 you take control of a powerful being that rules a nation and aspires to godhood. The type of Pretender Gods can vary from magically powerful arch mages to old dragons or an enormous tree. Dominions is a deep 4x turn based strategy game with a very large variety of spells and units.
Old World
Old World is a revolutionary new historical strategy game where you lead your dynasty over generations of rule against rival kings and queens. Wage massive wars, manage your court, and build a dynasty — or watch your empire crumble to dust. What legacy will you leave behind?
Ozymandias: Bronze Age Empire Sim
Build an empire in a single sitting. All the strategy of a classic 4X in a faster format, which also shines in multiplayer.
Revival: Recolonization
Set in a post-apoc version of Earth, Revival is a 4x strategy game where the world and its rules can change at key moments, creating a deep and highly replayable experience.
HUMANKIND™
Rewrite history by shaping a civilization as unique as you are. Combine 60 cultures from the Ancient Era to the Modern Age to lead your empire to victory. Build thriving cities, outsmart rivals in epic battles, spread your influence and leave your mark on HUMANKIND™.
Solium Infernum
Take the Infernal Throne in this hellish turn-based grand strategy game. The Prince of Darkness has vanished, leaving Archfiends to conspire: muster your legions while intoning dark sorceries, devilish schemes, and machiavellian plots. Who will be the new ruler of Hell and ascend the Throne?
Total War: ROME REMASTERED
Total War: ROME REMASTERED lets you relive the legacy that defined the award-winning strategy game series. Remastered to 4K with multiple improvements to visuals as well as refinements to gameplay, it’s time to revisit a true classic. Not everyone gets a second chance to conquer the Roman Empire.
Terra Invicta
An alien invasion has fractured humanity into seven ideological factions each with a unique vision for the future. Lead your chosen faction to take control of Earth’s nations, expand across the Solar System, and battle enemy fleets in tactical combat.
Galactic Civilizations® II: Ultimate Edition
Get the complete GalCiv II saga including Galactic Civilizations II: Dread Lords, the expansion pack Dark Avatar, and the newest expansion pack Twilight of the Arnor!
Frequently Asked Questions
Rise Of The White Sun is currently priced at 20.99€ on Steam.
Rise Of The White Sun is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 20.99€ on Steam.
Rise Of The White Sun received 549 positive votes out of a total of 628 achieving a rating of 8.20.
😎
Rise Of The White Sun was developed by Maestro Cinetik and published by Gaming at Work and Cinetique.
Rise Of The White Sun is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Rise Of The White Sun is playable and fully supported on MacOS.
Rise Of The White Sun is playable and fully supported on Linux.
Rise Of The White Sun is a single-player game.
There are 2 DLCs available for Rise Of The White Sun. Explore additional content available for Rise Of The White Sun on Steam.
Rise Of The White Sun is fully integrated with Steam Workshop. Visit Steam Workshop.
Rise Of The White Sun does not support Steam Remote Play.
Rise Of The White Sun is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Rise Of The White Sun.
Data sources
The information presented on this page is sourced from reliable APIs to ensure accuracy and relevance. We utilize the Steam API to gather data on game details, including titles, descriptions, prices, and user reviews. This allows us to provide you with the most up-to-date information directly from the Steam platform.
Additionally, we incorporate data from the SteamSpy API, which offers insights into game sales and player statistics. This helps us present a comprehensive view of each game's popularity and performance within the gaming community.
Last Updates| Steam data | 06 June 2025 11:28 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 11 June 2025 22:14 |
| Steam price | 14 June 2025 20:48 |
| Steam reviews | 14 June 2025 05:51 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Rise Of The White Sun, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Rise Of The White Sun
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Rise Of The White Sun concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Rise Of The White Sun compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
7
Developer
Maestro Cinetik
Publisher
Gaming at Work,
Cinetique
Release
21 Sep 2023
Platforms