Children of the Sun Review

Back in 2008, a movie starring James McAvoy was one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Entitled Wanted, it tells the story of a disgruntled office worker who somehow gets recruited into a group of assassins who help him enjoy his unlocked abilities, allowing him to bend bullet paths to take down the target. Some real Matrix-type shit that I told myself that this would have made a great video game.

Fast forward to 2024, and after many iterations of the Sniper Elite series, we have Children of the Sun from Devolver Digital. The game tells the story of a girl (yes, just simply the “girl”) who is hell-bent on taking on a cult (also yes, just a cult) and bringing down their leader with the help of her telekinetic powers.

The premise is quite interesting, but what does this have to do with the Wanted film I mentioned earlier? In the game, you are McAvoy (not quite, but you get it), and you get to do some bullet-bending as you go on a relentless mission to take down the cult, member by member.

Connect the Dots

Children of the Sun is a level-based puzzle shooter with a grungy aesthetic that lets you take control of the girl through a series of challenges, each level providing cultists scattered around and it is up to you how you will make use of your one bullet to kill them all. How, you might ask? Well, you don’t only take control of the girl but you also take control of the bullet mid-flight.

Starting a level in Children of the Sun is simple, but planning is critical. You’ll spend a few moments moving around a fixed perimeter just outside of where the cultists are located, find every single one by tagging them and taking them down. Some levels will be straightforward, where all cultists will be out in the open, but as you progress, more obstacles are introduced like a cultist hiding inside a house while the others are out in the backyard chatting each other up. It’s great that all the cultists have a sort of hot glow to them, making them easily visible.

As mentioned, you only have one bullet in Children of the Sun, and after choosing your first target and firing the shot, you can choose a new path on impact, forming only straight lines until you hit the next target. You can only choose a new path when you hit a target, so choosing your first target in the order is extremely important. While this is a sniper game, in a sense, this is a puzzle game at its core, and your mission is to figure out the best way to make your single shot count.

The most basic comparison I can make about Children of the Sun is connect-the-dots, but only this time the line is where your bullet travels and the dots are the cultists, or their heads, whichever you prefer. Some levels will require order and precision, where a somewhat strict sequence is recommended, while others will be a bit more open and leave players to be creative about their approach.

Creativity in Children of the Sun can be in the form of birds flying in the sky, where you can re-aim your bullet to kill the bird, allowing you to get a birds-eye view of the land and hit enemies that were otherwise unreachable due to certain obstacles in the way. Players can also shoot cars, causing them to explode and take out a group of clumped-up cultists. Seeking these out is part of the creative planning process and it is extremely well implemented.

Bullet Bending

Children of the Sun gets better as it progresses, where the game opens you up to more skills like bending bullets around obstacles and even needing full acceleration to down armored enemies, with some powers needing you to charge up by killing some cultists first before unleashing your ability. There are some pretty nifty ideas here, and they all serve to strengthen the core loop of killing these cultists and moving on to the next level.

The basic Cultist will offer almost no resistance except for running at the first sight of trouble, but some of the later Cultists in the game will offer a challenge that will require creativity. The aforementioned armored cultists will require the power shot skill to make your bullet speed up enough to pierce their armor, while shielded cultists cannot be killed head-on, so a quick re-aim will be needed to catch them off guard.

Later in the game where you put an order to when your skills need to be used, killing cultists in perfect succession is such a gratifying feeling. The “Eureka” moment where you finally figure out the sequence needed to finally get past a level is next to nothing, although it could also be said that the amount of trial and error needed to reach a solution can be quite frustrating.

Children of the Sun is intentional in its design to be replayable, taking into consideration how accurate and efficient you are and comparing it to players around the world in a leaderboard of cultist killers. It’s great motivation, but getting to a point where you can be competitive will take a lot of practice because missing a cultist will automatically fail the level. As you can guess, this is exactly why you’ll need to thoroughly scope out the scene, find everyone, with some even hiding inside rooms, and take them all out methodically.

Finishing the game took me about 5 hours, which will ultimately depend on how long you take to figure out how the level plays out. Mileage in Children of the Sun will certainly vary, and as much fun as it is with killing cultists, it is worth mentioning that this is a puzzle game at its core, so you’ll need to manage expectations. Replayability is there because of the leaderboards

Playing Children of the Sun on a Steam Deck was perfect, as its bite-sized levels can perfectly fit into that quick fix of gameplay you’ve been looking for. The visuals are not at all demanding, so the Steam Deck is clearly capable of such a title. If there was any complaint I had, it was that using an analog stick was kind of finicky, and I had to re-adjust my aim a few times to get the perfect angle. I’d imagine playing this using a mouse would have been better and more intuitive, but killing cultists on the go feels supremely satisfying.

Verdict: Buy it!

Children of the Sun is an interesting game that places its puzzle aspect at the forefront, delivering a satisfying loop of killing and moving on with simple and easy-to-pick-up gameplay. Understanding the concept is one thing, but finding the correct execution that leads to success is where the satisfaction lies.

Some parts of Children of the Sun will require an insane amount of trial and error, and with the game offering virtually countless ways of approaching a level, creativity will be your only limit and a possible point of frustration.

*Children of the Sun was reviewed on a Steam Deck with a review code provided by the publisher.