Evil Genius 2: World Domination

Our childhood was typical. Summers in Rangoon, luge lessons…

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There’s a tempting connection to be made to the recent resurgence of strategy-management games. Many, after all, are born in the UK, where the notion of assembling order from chaos has never felt more appealing. On the heels of Two Point Hospital and Planet Zoo comes Evil Genius 2, the Rebellion-developed sequel to Elixir’s 2004 original. Producer Ash Tregay, to his credit, declines to make the Brexit connection, pointing out that UK development teams these days are comprised of people of multiple nationalities (for now, at least). So, why the renaissance? He laughs. “A large part of it is that the people who were playing these games when they originally came out are now of an age where they can actually make them.”

That’s certainly the case here, given the 15 years between original and sequel. Evil Genius 2 is something of a stylistic departure for Rebellion, whose back catalogue is more characterised by trigger pulls than mouse clicks. But the company has grown over the past few years, its ranks swollen through acquisitions. And when the suggestion of an