The gamescom 2025 featured not only big blockbusters like Anno 117 and WoW: Midnight. MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus was also on the hunt for good games away from the AAA titles and found one in Fata Deum. The game brings back a genre that has been missing a good representative for two decades and evokes nostalgia he didn’t even know was there.
In 2001, Black & White was released, a god simulation that excited me more at the time than Age of Empires 2, which was all the rage back then. Black & White allowed things that were just special:
- You play as a god and convert villages to worship you.
- This enables miracles with supportive or destructive effects.
- There is also a creature that acts as a godly representative in the earthly realm.
The game literally made me a god. Creator Peter Molyneux is considered the father of the god game genre and has unfortunately gained a rather negative reputation in recent years. His NFT game Legacy was quite greedy and not really what one would expect from him. The successors of Black & White could never match its success.
Now I blindly signed up at gamescom 2025 to check out Fata Deum. The only info I had in advance: a German indie studio making a god game.
I didn’t expect much and was pleasantly surprised. After gamescom, Fata Deum is the game I absolutely want to play – on par with Dawn of War 4 and Dark Heresy, with the advantage that Fata Deum will be playable earlier.
Fata Deum is what Black & White promised me back in 2001
I was shown the game for half an hour, with gameplay, content, and plans for the future. The premise is incredibly simple: I get to play as a god and prove myself against other gods in a world. So, exactly what my mission was in Black & White.
This may sound a bit boring now, but: Such a thing has been sorely missing from the market for years, at least in this form. Because what I saw in the short hands-off session brought me back to my childhood:
- As a god, I have direct influence over the inhabitants of the earthly plane. I can lift them with my “divine fist,” carry them around, or even strike them.
- Through miracles, I convince them to follow me – or teach them to fear. Whether I am a good or evil god depends entirely on my playstyle.
- To show that I’m “there,” I also build structures for my followers. After all, they need to be able to worship me properly, and for that, they need to be well off.
The behavior of the people is more or less controllable. With free will, they do what they think is right: build structures, worship, or even wage war in the name of their new god. However, through management, I can also set what they should do or not do.
There are also foreign gods. They do not only act as opponents, but also as adaptations of angels and devils: they provide tips and their own insights on how to behave as a god. The four deities represent their behavior by their names: violence, joy, deception, and fertility.
Fata Deum has made a visible effort to recreate the feeling of Black & White or generally god games, and has succeeded, at least from what I’ve seen. The developer tells me that one is supposed to feel powerful.
A classic in a new guise with many good ideas
However, Fata Deum is not a mere copy of Black & White, but brings new ideas that fit well into the genre. For example, there are levels you can level up by gathering more followers and unlocking new spells.
The goal is, as we have already established, to feel powerful. And so that this does not only happen at the maximum level, there are “one-time miracles”: powerful spells that can only be used once and have stronger effects than what you could wield before.
These miracles are rewards for quests or for finding “Points of Interest” on the map. There is no proper campaign – these small quests serve as a counterpart. However, I was particularly excited about two features: the day-and-night cycle and prayers.
People pray to me as their god and ask me for specific things – such as the construction of a building or particular miracles. I can fulfill or decline these prayers and the people remember which prayers were answered and which were not. Accordingly, their behavior changes.
Times of day are also important in Fata Deum. During the day, miracles are performed for direct influence; at night, you can influence the dreams of the people or plan buildings without resource costs. The game is thus quasi turn-based: at the end of the night and the next morning, you see what the other gods are up to and can react accordingly. The new game by Molyneux tries something similar, but sounds less promising.
Fata Deum is not finished yet, but sounds great already
On September 15, 2025, Fata Deum is set to go into Early Access, first for PC on Steam. The release is planned later for PC, Xbox, and PlayStation, likely still this year. Several features are still planned for the final version, with the developers from North Rhine-Westphalia wanting to focus heavily on community feedback.
A major wish is the return of the creature, which could prove difficult, as the developer explains to me. It is more than just a cool model in the world. When and how this feature will arrive remains to be seen.
In other areas, Fata Deum is still not finished. For some relics and points in the world, there is no proper dialogue, except: “The devs were too lazy, but more is coming!”, followed by a direct reward. However, miracles and such are supposed to be complete.
That I discovered Fata Deum at gamescom makes me extremely happy. Already after the short demonstration, I was super excited about the game, especially since I knew practically nothing about it beforehand. Last year, a coincidence resulted in such a highlight: Because a developer approached me from the side, I got a highlight at gamescom 2024
