The Council on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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Experience a Narrative Adventure where your choices and character growth truly matter. As a member of a 1793 secret society, live a tale of intrigue and manipulation on the hunt for your missing mother.
The Council is a choices matter, adventure and rpg game
developed by Big Bad Wolf
and published by Focus Entertainment.
Released on March 13th 2018 is available only on Windows
in 6 languages: English, French, German, Spanish - Spain, Russian and Italian.
It has received 5,338 reviews of which 4,469 were positive and 869 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.1 out of 10. 😎
The game is free to play on Steam.
The Steam community has classified The Council into these genres:
System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- Requires a 64-bit processor and operating system
- OS *: Windows 7/8/10 (64-bit)
- Processor: Intel Core i3-2125 (3.3 GHz)/AMD FX-4100 (3.6 GHz)
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: 1 GB, GeForce GTX 750/Radeon R7 360
- Storage: 15 GB available space
- Additional Notes: INTERNET CONNECTION REQUIRED FOR GAME ACTIVATION
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
Reviewing (mostly) every game (or DLC) in my library, part 232: ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️☆☆ (8/10) The Council is one of those games that feels like it shouldn’t work, and yet somehow, it absolutely does. It’s messy, yes. But it’s also daring, weirdly smart, and packed with enough political intrigue, occult mysteries, and branching dialogue trees to make any Telltale fan perk up. Its mechanics are bold and genuinely refreshing, even when the game struggles to keep up with its own ambition. Between the skill-based conversations, occult storytelling, and branching consequences, it earns a place among the most interesting narrative RPGs, even if it’s not the most polished (and has an awful ending). 🔮 Pros: [*] Bold narrative choices that actually matter. This isn’t one of those “illusion of choice” games. Your background, skills, and dialogue decisions dramatically change how scenes play out—and entire characters or plotlines can vanish based on what you say. It's one of the few games where I truly felt like I was steering the story, not just watching it. [*] The RPG dialogue system is truly one of a kind. Rather than just choosing lines from a list, The Council lets you build your character’s social and intellectual skill set, and those choices dramatically affect how conversations go. Each dialogue has “confrontation” segments where you’re under time pressure to pick the right responses—and many options are locked behind stats like Psychology, Etiquette, or Science. You don’t just pick what sounds cool; you use your skills to outmaneuver people in real-time. It turns dialogue into actual gameplay. And if you mess up, you live with it. [*] Skills matter more than weapons or inventory. The game leans into the idea of intellect as your power. Want to disarm someone in a debate? Use Conviction. Want to bluff your way past a suspicious noble? Try Subterfuge. You can tailor your entire playthrough around being a charismatic manipulator, a cold logician, or even a religious scholar. Different builds open entirely new scenes, interactions, or solutions. And that’s just so cool. [*] Resource management adds real tension. Every skill check costs Effort Points, a limited resource you have to manage. Use too many, and you're vulnerable. Use items to regain them, but beware of side effects like addiction or penalties. This turns even basic conversations into puzzles: Should I spend my last 3 points to break this guy down? Or save them in case I need to use Science to solve a puzzle later? [*] Twisty, pulpy plot that leans HARD into the occult. What starts as a missing person mystery turns into a Dan Brown fever dream. Secret societies, historical figures (hi, George Washington!), demonic visions, philosophical debates, and full-on supernatural turns. It goes there, and I loved it for that. [*] Period setting with personality. The 1790s French island mansion is lavish and mysterious, filled with rich tapestries, candlelight, and art you can actually analyze. It’s like a murder mystery dinner party with Illuminati. The setting sells it, even when the character animations don't. [*] A bold commitment to consequence. There’s no quicksaving. If you fail a confrontation, misread a clue, or blow your chance to charm someone—you live with it. Major events and even character fates hinge on your success or failure. The stakes feel real, because they are. [*] Janky, but charming. Facial animations can be rough. Voice acting ranges from solid to hilariously stiff. But once you’re in the groove, the jank kind of becomes part of the appeal. It adds this off-kilter vibe that matches the increasingly surreal story. 🩻 Cons: [*]Writing can be uneven—and occasionally overwrought. Some dialogue is clever and tense, especially in skill checks, but at other times it becomes stilted or meanders into clunky exposition. Characters occasionally speak like they're reading aloud from a philosophy textbook, and the pacing suffers when conversations drag on without much payoff. [*] Facial animations and body language are stiff at best. Don’t expect mocap magic here—characters emote like wax figures and often don’t match the tone of their dialogue. It’s serviceable, but immersion suffers when dramatic moments are delivered with wide-eyed stares and awkward gestures. [*] Some puzzles are deeply obscure. While some are clever, others feel designed to frustrate. Without hints or intuitive logic, you’ll either brute force your way through or look up a guide. [*] No map, minimal guidance, and too much backtracking. You’ll often be told to "find someone" or "go to the salon" with no help locating them. In a mansion of identical corridors and locked doors, this can get old fast. Especially when you’re walking in circles to trigger the next cutscene. [*] The ending is rushed, incoherent, and deeply unsatisfying. After building up a complex web of characters, lore, and moral decisions, The Council’s final chapter dumps a truckload of exposition and then ends abruptly. Choices you've made across multiple episodes seem to collapse into a single moment with barely any resolution. It feels like the writers ran out of time—or interest—and it robs the story of emotional closure.
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Honest, detailed and spoiler-free review The Council is a story-driven adventure game where you shape the story your own way. The game is an experimental mix of different genres that combined, work surprisingly well together. This is a game where choices really matter and the path you choose for the development of your character is gonna have an enormous impact on the upcoming events. I discovered this gem a few years ago. At the time, there was only one episode available which absolutely amazed me and left me craving for more. Years have passed and the game is a finished product now. I am excited to finally discover what it is about and experience all it has to offer. A wise man once said “First impressions are the most lasting”. I agree with that which is why for me it is important that the game does not disappoint at the beginning and make you wanna keep playing it to discover more. Did it? Yes, it definitely bought me. First episode introduces the story and characters. I really enjoyed talking to people and getting to know them. The game also allowed me to explore this massive mansion a little and I have taken advantage of that by visiting every part that was accessible for me. Playing the episode evoked in me the feelings I had all those years ago. After I was done with the episode, I was absolutely hooked and wanted to keep playing. The time that passed since I first tried it was enough. I did not remember anything which allowed me to approach the game with a clean slate. I felt like the second episode was a bit worse than the first. It involved much more active gameplay. There will be a lot of walking around the mansion and a lot of interactions with the objects. It starts really nice but the lack of action made it a little boring by the end of the episode. A few puzzles can also be encountered there which turned out pretty difficult to find a solution to but I managed. I didn’t find it relaxing as I did the first episode. All this walking, thinking and figuring things out was very demanding. As for the rest of the episodes, there was much more balance in terms of walking and talking. They are much more interesting because the twists and turns of the story are prioritized. Although I enjoyed all of the episodes, I still found them demanding enough to be in need of a break after completing each one. I couldn’t play this game for long during one session and their length was a little too long for me too. Let’s talk about the story. It is really interesting and keeps you engaged from the start until the very end. We step into the shoes of Louis, a son of a respected authority figure who has been invited to participate in The Council as a replacement for his mother because she went missing. This is a meeting for the most influential figures in the world where discussions and decisions are made. During this game you will be playing a political game where you build relationships, investigate mysteries, manipulate people and try to sway them to your cause. You won’t really know who your allies and enemies are. You can’t know what their motives are and what they are trying to accomplish as they keep it to themselves. In case your interests don’t align or you trust the wrong person, it may backfire. I honestly had a lot of fun and I would love to see another game from this universe in the future. When it comes to gameplay, the game continues not to disappoint. There is a trait system which allows you to influence people and objects by approaching them in a different way. An example of this would be that evolving your character with the knowledge of psychology may be useful in the future when you will be in need of a psychological analysis. The amount of possibilities is huge which allows for multiple replays and multiple endings. You discover immunities and weaknesses of people by talking to them, investigating their belongings or their behaviour based on the skills you invested into. This is what makes this game unique and stand out in this genre. You will also be given a lot of freedom when it comes to how you play the episode. At the start of each part of the episode, we are given a quest and it is up to us how we are going to approach it but the result must be the same. There will be quite a lot of puzzles. Most of them are easy but I encountered a few that I was unable to overcome without a walkthrough guide. I don’t like the difficulty of some of the puzzles. I believe that there are a few that are actually too complex to which finding a solution is too time consuming. Still, I think that this is a strong suit of this game. There are a few characters in this game and each one is unique. I think those are well-written characters because each one stands for something else and adds a special flavour to the story. Their personalities are each other’s opposites. Right off the bat I was able to tell which ones I liked and which ones I didn’t. I believe I was able to relate to every single one of them which made it difficult when choosing sides. After all, those characters are explicit, interesting, charismatic, unforgettable and uniquely important to the story. In terms of voice acting I think that the game is on a high level as well. Only their expressions could have been better. When it comes to emotions, these faces have no life in them. During interactions you feel like you are talking to something that resembles a human but is far from it. Randomly moving lips while they are speaking with no synchronization whatsoever is not helping their case either. While on the subject of negatives, this game has one big problem which can be considered a deal breaker for a lot of people and it is the fact that the game refuses to run in 60 fps. It doesn’t matter how well you adjust your visual settings, the number of frames doesn’t change. I believe that there are ways to remove the limit. I personally tried a few ways but none solved it for me. I played the whole thing having around 40-50 frames at all times. It was bothering me quite a lot at the start but I decided to keep playing because I was really enjoying the game. I eventually stopped paying attention to it which allowed me to embrace my experience. I find it really hard to believe sometimes that relatively new games like this one, still have this type of problems. It didn’t affect my overall experience much but what wasn’t a problem for me, may turn out to be one for somebody else so this is something to keep in mind. To sum up, I found a gem that tells a really interesting and extraordinary story. It is a combination of a few of my favourite genres which makes this game unique and stand out among others. In terms of gameplay, the game gives you a lot of freedom and possibilities which only benefit it. It offers multiple replay choices and multiple endings. Unfortunately, this title refuses to run in 60 frames which I would consider to be its biggest disadvantage. What can also be considered a problem is the difficulty level of some of the puzzles. I must say I am proud to have found this game as many people don't seem to know it exists. It is something I feel like I can recommend with a clear conscience. Go ahead and give it a try, the first episode is free. It doesn’t cost anything but time and it will be well worth your time. You can find more detailed reviews on my curator page [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45593466/]Malfour's Choice .
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This game is truly amazing, and I highly recommend playing it. It may seem simple at first and not have a very long story, but it is filled with deep truths and secrets about life. If you are interested in historical symbols, political, historical, and social stories, this game will be incredibly fascinating for you. The genre is somewhat mysterious and eerie, yet it is also educational and beautifully crafted. I believe that playing such games can contribute to intellectual growth, much like reading a book. You can learn interesting and valuable information within the game, and even get a closer look at the lives of some prominent political figures. Additionally, it introduces you to the mysteries of beliefs, politics, culture, and history. In my opinion, this game is more than just a game—it offers a short yet meaningful journey and experience for the player. Every gamer should have this title on their list. I truly hope the developers create more versions of this game focusing on different political and historical narratives, expanding on this concept. This game combines learning, entertainment, and exploration all in one, making it a unique and worthwhile experience
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Absolutely loved this game. Should have played it long ago. Many choices and story plot twists. Many different choices and paths to take. Loved from start to finish. Great game. Highly recommend to anyone who loves story driven games with many choices and consequences and branches in the story and how it plays out. The game mechanics are also very unique in that i have never played a game with such mechanics. the game has mostly a detective type game play but also uses many different skills you must build up in order for the choices you make to be available to you. Also has other mechanics i have not seen in other games. truly a Gem of a game. I must say this game is not a combat type game but more choices consequences and story/detective type game. If you love these type games with an excellent story, this game is absolutely for you.
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This was so good and I really hope the developers make more like it. I did not see where the plot was going to end up and it's just so gripping. I can often feel exasperated with some games that make you read everything and pick up everything to understand what's going on but I didn't feel like that with this game. I was genuinely invested in trying to find out what was going on and it didn't feel in any way tedious. Also a couple of the characters were actually terrifying without it being a horror and I think it added a lot to the suspense and urgency with which I played.
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Frequently Asked Questions
The Council is free to play on Steam.
The Council is not on sale because is already free to play on Steam.
The Council received 4,469 positive votes out of a total of 5,338 achieving a rating of 8.12.
😎
The Council was developed by Big Bad Wolf and published by Focus Entertainment.
The Council is playable and fully supported on Windows.
The Council is not playable on MacOS.
The Council is not playable on Linux.
The Council is a single-player game.
There are 4 DLCs available for The Council. Explore additional content available for The Council on Steam.
The Council does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
The Council supports Remote Play on TV. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.
The Council does not currently support Steam Family Sharing.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for The Council.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 09 September 2025 00:18 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 08 September 2025 11:52 |
| Steam price | 09 September 2025 00:18 |
| Steam reviews | 12 September 2025 03:49 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about The Council, 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 Council
- SteamCharts - Analysis of The Council concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck The Council compatibility
Game modes
Online players
13
Developer
Big Bad Wolf
Publisher
Focus Entertainment
Release
13 Mar 2018
Platforms
Remote Play
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