Summary

• Telekinetic sniper game Children of the Sun features a cool primary mechanic of controlling each fired bullet's direction.
• Strong level design with hidden cultists and bonus achievements add a layer of challenge and replay value.
• Enjoyable, stress-free sniping experience in Children of the Sun as enemies can't see you, allowing for patient strategizing.

The famous maxim of "one shot, one kill" gets an upgrade in new puzzle/shooter hybrid Children of the Sun. Published by Devolver Digital and developed primarily by Berlin-based creator René Rother, Children of the Sun's lo-fi greasy visual style frames a macabre story of revenge, as its mute masked protagonist murders their way up the ranks of a twisted smalltown cult. This telekinetic sniper – dubbed "The Girl" – is able to control each fired bullet from kill to kill, allowing for extended streaks that zigzag across gritty dioramas in a medley of blood.

Children of the Sun garnered plenty of attention on its (still freely available) demo’s strong Steam Next Fest showing back in February, and it’s a thrill to see the game already prepped for release. Its grim tone and novel approach make for a perfect match with publisher Devolver's stable, lining up nicely alongside stylish action riffs like Hotline Miami, Heavy Bullets, and My Friend Pedro, among many others. Its violence abstract and its visual presentation outlandish and odd, Children of the Sun feels like a clever exploration of murder, with excellent sense of that makes it an easy one to recommend.

A Most Resourceful Bullet

Children of the Sun's Primary Mechanic Feels Great to Use

Outside of a few bite-sized minigame-like segues, Children of the Sun’s foundation never diverts very far from the initial ask. Players begin each level by stalking a lane at some distance from their targets, peering into the tableau and tagging cultists for removal. Their gun can be fired from any available vantage, but there’s only a single shot allowed per attempt, with the camera angle switching from third-person to a unique behind-the-bullet perspective once fired.

Taking out a target prompts a complete reorientation of the shot towards any direction from the point of impact. This then repeats with each cultist until the last one is slain to complete the level, which triggers a bird’s eye replay of the scene that tracks trajectories between each kill; a handy "Capture Path" function even exports this record as a screenshot.

It’s a rather straightforward process at first, but things get more interesting a few levels into the campaign. Eventually, bullet arcs can be controlled after launch to curve around corners, find purchase in a car's gas tank or a woodland creature – these act as human targets and allow re-aiming on hit – and even be fully diverted mid-flight if other specific conditions are met.

Children of the Sun's design capitalizes on its brilliant premise and evolves as the player divines its tricks, turning the final maps into ingeniously complex sniper clockwork machines. It all presents as a responsive and reactive riff on FPS games, and its inner workings make perfect sense to the player from first blush.

Hidden Cultists and Bonus Achievements

Strong Level Design With Additional Challenges to Solve

Level design is also consistently strong from the jump, with eerie private campsites staging up into larger and more intricate compounds and enemy arrangements. The action only begins after the shot is fired, but it’s not unusual to spend considerable time simply inspecting areas, tagging cultists, and hungrily zooming the scope into distant rooms.

Some enemies are hidden at first, so players may find themselves firing "exploration shots" just to highlight every target; the game helpfully tags unseen cultists killed on previous attempts. Armored cultists and trickier defenses eventually manifest, but Children of the Sun's power fantasy of sniping sorcery persists throughout.

The scenery may change, but Children of the Sun’s action steadily remains the same throughout.

The game's 26 levels each have individual bonus achievements as well, challenges typically hinted at in their riddle-like descriptions. There’s never any loadouts to craft or buffs to equip, but these provide higher point scores and bragging rights, and the leaderboard available for each level may prove enticing to Children of the Sun’s competitive-minded players.

Stress-Free Sniping

Children of the Sun's Enemies Can't See You, So Fire At Will

The scenery may change, but Children of the Sun’s action steadily remains the same throughout. At the beginning of each encounter, players take control of The Girl and experience no pressure to initiate. Her targets stand out from the garish purple, black, and pink environments, and brightly glow in eye-searing gold, which makes them easier to pick out from the murk. Usually they are statically positioned – endlessly urinating into a corner, smoking a cigarette, inspecting a car, burying a body – but on occasion they are found in motion, driving a car in a loop or pacing around a compound.

Early levels may contain a handful of cultists as the basics and tutorials are doled out, but the number steadily increases throughout the course of the campaign. Later stages have upwards of ten or more targets to dispatch in one go, developing into gruelingly precise ricochet paths, proven out and tested through trial-and-error and a little bit of luck.

Children of the Sun's sense of progression is smartly managed, but also only goes so far, never really elevating leagues beyond its initial design.

All that being the case, The Girl is never specifically threatened directly (outside of a singular simple minigame), with enemies completely unable to spot her no matter where she moves. This means that the player never feels targeted or stressed, free to patiently devise their successful bullet path to completion, with instant fails for anything less than perfect.

The Story Stays in the Background

Children of the Sun's Violent Narrative Never Completely Elevates the Experience

The basic mechanics of Children of the Sun do contrast somewhat with its uber-violent presentation, which includes a series of motion-comic-like narrative shorts and some interactive segues. The resultant story is quite vicious and grim, and interested players should be warned of a few implied allusions to sexual assault as well, which are not explicit and haphazard at best. All of these aspects lack depth when compared to something like Hotline Miami’s own experimental subjective meditation on video game violence.

Here, the plot never feels like more than set dressing for the sniper puzzles at the game’s core, and it's effective enough in that regard. Beyond that, Children of the Sun's sense of progression is smartly managed, but also only goes so far, never really elevating leagues beyond its initial design. In total, we spent approximately four hours on our playthrough, but did stick around after completion to chase some scores and solve a few missed challenges.

Final Thoughts & Review Score

4/5

Fans of Suda51's games – and, more specifically, the GameCube/PS2 classic Killer7 – will probably flock to Children of the Sun in droves, as the game’s stylish movement and sense of character will feel warmly familiar, even while it manages to stake its own identity. The of each successful kill and the satisfaction of tearing a level apart from the outside-in never loses luster, making it hard not to want even more after credits roll.

Anyone who loves spatial puzzles or novelty action games should feel catered to here, and score-chasers will be battling over the leaderboards and sharing video clips of their best clears in the days to come. Overall, Children of the Sun is a great video game idea done well, a darkly beautiful assassin simulator with a worthy and fulfilling hook.

Screen Rant was provided with a digital PC code for this review.