The Age of Decadence on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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The Age of Decadence is a turn-based, hardcore role-playing game set in a low magic, post-apocalyptic fantasy world. The game features a detailed skill-based character system, multiple skill-based ways to handle quests, choices & consequences, and extensive dialogue trees.
The Age of Decadence is a turn-based combat, choices matter and tactical rpg game
developed and published by Iron Tower Studio.
Released on October 14th 2015 is available only on Windows
in 5 languages: English, Russian, Spanish - Spain, French and Polish.
It has received 3,744 reviews of which 3,068 were positive and 676 were negative resulting in a rating of 7.9 out of 10. 😊
The game is currently priced at 13.99€ on Steam, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified The Age of Decadence into these genres:
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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 XP/Vista/Windows 7/Windows 8/Windows 10
- Processor: 2 GHz Processor or better
- Memory: 3 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTS 250 / Radeon HD 4770 (1Gb) or better
- DirectX: Version 9.0c
- Storage: 1900 MB available space
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
An excellent RPG with many highly distinct parallel trajectories and significant differences on gameplay based on starting career and narrative decisions; the writing avoids trite moral dilemmas and tired tropes and deals refreshingly honestly with the stark realities of the dynamics of premodern civilizations, zero sum struggles, and marginal desperation. Combat is challenging and consistently tests your build; you're gated by build in combat as well as in skill checks, both of which tend to provide means for progression. The primary downside here is that you're heavily incentivized to bank tons of skillpoints and spreadsheet out thresholds via savescumming/knowledge from previous runs in advance if you want to finish or fully explore a hybrid or noncombat trajectory run, which can start to feel both artificial and a bit tedious. It would have been better to have more room for statting out a character of a given noncombat archetype organically. While an optimization-heavy front makes sense for a pure combat build, the stress on it for the CYOA-y noncombat arcs tends to wear away at the satisfaction of roleplaying. More viable trajectories leading leading out of skill failure states would have been desirable in that context; too often it's just a game over or a hard gate. Nonetheless, the game does satisfying narrative and worldbuilding, challenging combat, compelling build design, and nuanced writing in a way that very few cRPGs can pull together, so the above caveats aside it still rates among the best such available in my book. Just be prepared for a learning curve.
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Age of Decadence presents itself as a game about internal judgment, realism, and consequence, but its difficulty and progression are driven primarily by external, meta-level knowledge. Combat does not teach situational reasoning; it tests whether the player already knows the solution. As a result, failure feels arbitrary rather than instructive, and “avoid combat” becomes a design slogan rather than a supported play principle. Community advice unintentionally highlights the problem: players are told that the first fights are the hardest in the entire game, that heavy savescumming is expected, and that survival requires extensive consumables (nets, poison, fire, bombs) even for combat-focused characters. This is presented as normal. That design teaches players not how to make better decisions, but how to exploit the system through repetition and meta knowledge. It also contradicts the game’s claim that combat should be avoided through realistic caution; instead, players are relatively forced (false binary) into lethal encounters before they have the tools or context to reasonably avoid them. A deeper issue is that character builds and factions are effectively locked into each other. Combat characters are expected to join combat factions and accept lethal encounters, while non-combat characters are functionally barred from them. However, even combat-focused characters are frequently presented with false binaries: engage in extremely lethal fights or be expelled from the faction entirely. There are few opportunities for intimidation, negotiation, staged violence, ambush with retreat, or partial success. As a result, meaningful choice occurs primarily at character creation, not during play. Factions act as build validation gates rather than spaces for problem-solving. Difficulty is not the issue. Requiring mastery after punishment, rather than teaching it before, undermines both immersion and credibility. Why “Hard” Matters — Dark Souls vs. Age of Decadence Age of Decadence is often defended by saying it is “supposed to be hard.” That misses the real issue. The problem is not difficulty — it is how difficulty is created. Dark Souls is hard because: its rules are consistent, failure provides information, enemies behave predictably, mechanics reinforce the fiction, and mastery comes from learning internal patterns. When you die in Dark Souls, you understand why. You mistimed, overcommitted, misread spacing, or failed to recognize a pattern. Improvement comes from better perception and execution within the game’s own logic. No external knowledge is required. Age of Decadence is hard for a different reason: difficulty is frontloaded before understanding, combat outcomes depend heavily on build min-maxing and consumable stacking, failure often teaches nothing except “you chose wrong earlier,” and success frequently relies on foreknowledge, reloading, and meta preparation. This creates a fundamentally different experience. Dark Souls challenges the player inside the world. Age of Decadence challenges the player outside the world. another example, Baldur’s Gate 3 can be extremely combat-heavy, but its difficulty is driven by internal logic that the game teaches through play. Enemies demonstrate mechanics (high ground, sneak attack, focus fire, positioning), proficiency removes penalties rather than adding them (i.e. someone who is proficient with a shield in real life doesn't make them more inaccurate. its the opposite, there is a reason spear and shield was one of the deadliest combinations in all of human history), and preparation reliably converts into advantage. When you fail, you usually understand why and can adjust in-world. Age of Decadence is difficult in a different way. Success often depends on build purity, consumable stacking, and foreknowledge rather than situational reasoning. Even combat-focused characters are frequently presented with binary choices (fight to the death or lose faction access), and early encounters can be among the most lethal with little in-world signaling. That makes the challenge feel external and meta-driven rather than learned through play. Some players enjoy that style, and that’s fine. My point isn’t that AoD is “bad” or should be easier, it’s that it presents itself as a realistic, choice-driven system, while its difficulty actually comes from opaque mechanics and meta compliance. That mismatch is what I’m critiquing, not the presence of hard combat itself. Players who enjoy meta-gaming, save-scumming, and system optimization may find this appealing. However, this form of difficulty contradicts the game’s presentation as a realistic, choice-driven RPG where outcomes follow from internal logic and human judgment. The issue is not that the game is hard. The issue is that its hardness is external, opaque, and meta-driven, while being framed as internal, logical, and realistic. Even older RPGs often relied on meta elements due to system limitations, but these were typically mitigated through grinding or earlier saves rather than deliberate design. In a game explicitly built around choice and consequence, soft-locking players for refusing to engage in extreme meta-optimization undermines the premise. Wanting to experience challenges through internal reasoning within the world should not be punished. All that being said. If you know all this going in, and you enjoy those mechanisms of play, definitely get this game. You will absolutely enjoy it. Especially if you can appreciate a well written story on top of those mechanics. I know plenty of people do. I don't as much, hence the less than glowing review. The natural inverse is true though. If you hear that and go "oh man, I would love that challenge!", then this is a great title and absolutely should be purchased!!!!
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There are dozens upon dozens of ways for the story of this game to play out. Its systems are complex, but not inscrutable. It has some tongue in cheek humor that helps compliment the serious story it tells. Be advised, it's a lot of reading--but it is amazing writing.
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I think it's a puzzle game disguised as an RPG. Not really a knock against it, but man is it rigid with what it expects from the player.
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This game is good, but very niche. The gameplay and graphics are pretty meh, but the story and choice + consequences here are unmatched. There are a ton of secrets/stories that you can only experience by committing to a style of playthrough and going all in. You simply can't do everything at once and are punished heavily if you try to split your skills up. This makes the different playthroughs feel different but unfortunately also means you can't be particularly creative with playstyle. You pick a thing and invest 100% of your points into that things and that's it. Diplomacy based playthroughs also have the issue of not really requiring much thought. Kinda similar to New Vegas where you can just blindly pick whatever choice requires high skill and know you will succeed and get the outcome you want. Ultimately worth a playthrough for those interested in a more hardcore/niche style of CRPG.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Age of Decadence is currently priced at 13.99€ on Steam.
The Age of Decadence is currently not on sale. You can purchase it for 13.99€ on Steam.
The Age of Decadence received 3,068 positive votes out of a total of 3,744 achieving a rating of 7.93.
😊
The Age of Decadence was developed and published by Iron Tower Studio.
The Age of Decadence is playable and fully supported on Windows.
The Age of Decadence is not playable on MacOS.
The Age of Decadence is not playable on Linux.
The Age of Decadence is a single-player game.
The Age of Decadence does not currently offer any DLC.
The Age of Decadence does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
The Age of Decadence does not support Steam Remote Play.
The Age of Decadence 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 The Age of Decadence.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 19 January 2026 22:33 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 26 January 2026 04:42 |
| Steam price | 28 January 2026 20:44 |
| Steam reviews | 27 January 2026 20:06 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Age of Decadence, 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 The Age of Decadence
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Age of Decadence concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Age of Decadence compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
8
Developer
Iron Tower Studio
Publisher
Iron Tower Studio
Release
14 Oct 2015
Platforms
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