Crisis in the Kremlin

Crisis in the Kremlin
N/A
Metacritic
84
Steam
79.219
xDR
Our rating is calculated based on the reviews and popularity of the game.
Price
$1.99
Release date
20 March 2017
Developers
Publishers
Steam reviews score
Total
84 (1 230 votes)

Don’t let the Soviet Union collapse, and fall in the darkness of history or lead the Union by a new path – democracy and free market! But before you decide something, think – wouldn’t it cause more harm than good?

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Crisis in the Kremlin system requirements

Minimum:

  • OS: Windows XP SP2+ (64-bit), Windows 7 SP1+ (32-bit, 64-bit)
  • Processor: SSE2 instruction set support
  • Memory: 2 GB RAM
  • Graphics: DX9 (shader model 3.0) or DX11 with feature level 9.3 capabilities
  • DirectX: Version 9.0c
  • Storage: 2 GB available space
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xXwehrabooXx
xXwehrabooXx

My favorite part of the game is when I can play Gorbachev and say "it's Gorbin' time" and then collapse the Union

mjpc88
mjpc88

Terrible UI, no feedback, too many switches to flip to experiment through trial and error.

There's really no way to figure out what's going on. If the game is meant to show how communism fails, it does a great job. If the game is meant to offer a social experience among bureaucrats, politicians, and ambassadors who you have to read social cues to figure out how to influence institutions and garnish clout, it does a horrible job.

Blackout
Blackout

Seems interesting, have no idea how to play though. I'll have to watch some tutorials.

Marcus Antony
Marcus Antony

Whomever wrote this program has a disdain for free trade and free labor, in essence Neo-classical economics. As soon as I stopped trading with the World, my treasury topped bleeding. Only one country affords you a free trade agreement: France. China and the USA you have to open your market first and then pray they eventually let you into their market. This is ridiculous. And if you are going to open your markets to consumer goods from the US and China you should be able to pull back on light industry investments; please read the Ricardian model on trade.

Also I was never able to get to free markets via the Supreme Council even though I had the necessary Reformers in it. I always had to change it to Referendum to change the economy from Tito to mix market.
And I love how you immediately get oligarchs because you put in a mixed economy. Really. Oligarchs resulted from corrupted privatizations not the market as such.
I first won by going all the way to 1996 and then achieving Perestroika in 1992. I would not have won if I had not read the two tricks. First getting the of the WPO (Mil Org dissolution) and then changing quickly to European Treat system so you can keep the trading block. And also making sure Yeltsin is out of the game.

As for foreign policy I noticed that getting Germany to unite as a neutral did not afford me any advantage, better was to keep it in the Soviet camp till it goes NATO. Neither did it serve anything special to court China. My best move was to get out of Afghanistan and court detente with the Americans. Afghanistan even went blue and I weathered it.

Critiques aside, a dam good game. Cerebral: it made me read more about that period in time. I never realized how big of a douche Yeltzin was. Gave the store away to his corrupt cronies and us the Americans. The end game got a little tedious: every time the republic loyalty dropped I had enough budget to be able to buy them off repeatedly. but I guess that was welcome given how cut throat it was.

haqqed
haqqed

Cool concept, poor (sometimes unreadable) translation makes the game neigh unplayable however.

Stairmaster
Stairmaster

It really depends on your tolerance of jank (it's an eastern europe indie studio)& lack of documentation vs your interest in the subject matter. Also if you're a boomer neoliberal you're not gonna like how this game portrays privatization.

Lynx
Lynx

I owned the 1991 version, and played this new version by ... Alternative means before. This isn't just the 1991 version updated for modern PCs, it's got new content and many balance improvements. When I saw they're still updating the game I decided to support the developers and buy it, and so should you. Continued improvements and cheap price make the many hours I've spent in this game (most of them outside of Steam) worth it. I also bought the DLC even though I haven't used it yet, just to support the devs and pay for my past sins against them.

Pros: There's a loooot of things you can control about your country, ranging from selection of ministers to financial policy.
I like being able to take the Cybernetics route and establish OGAS
Lot of historical events

Cons: The EHGLNCX is not always the best, but honestly I find it charming. It's only a con because sometimes it's not clear what an event does.
It's annoying to be doing great and suddenly you pick the wrong choice and your game is INSTANTLY OVER. Would be good to have an auto-save feature.
Diplomacy with foreign nations is somewhat limited, and there's no way to absorb the other Soviet Republics directly into your country and fully annex them.

Raptor-Caliph
Raptor-Caliph

Great game to play if you like history, also great if you like challenge

Glovesflared
Glovesflared

Fun, complex political simulator. Very deep with a big learning curve, but once you figure it out you can do some incredible things: Automated Communist economy (watch out the bureaucrats will not like losing their cushy planning jobs), forcing the US to collapse by getting Donald Trump elected, mending the Sino-Soviet split, going full Stalin and arresting all the dissidents, selling off the Soviet Union to capitalists as the liberals and splitting the world with the USA, Communism with nuclear war characteristics as the Trotskyites, ect.. There is really a lot of ways to take the USSR, but you are going to have to earn it!

communista
communista

Awesome game!! However, it could be modernised. The game could have more pictures that relate to certain event. Also graphics is super low. But the plot of the game is just awesome! I would recomend it to people that like alternative history

God.Tom
God.Tom

One of the best brain-hack history games about the Soviet era

po_novinho
po_novinho

So many things in this game are simply incorrect, historically and realistically

HashDG
HashDG

Really really good game. I like this game because it gives us a lightweight well-developed game, on a interesting subject.

johnnyquestbrooks
johnnyquestbrooks

It is really fun. I've had fun doing a Neostalinist restoration, and essentially "winning" the game (full communism & world wide soviet) by building the state of repression. I've transitioned the USSR into non-communist one-party state with a mixed economy. Lost the Warsaw Pact, but kept the Union and raised relations with West to DEFCON 5. I am going to attempt a Trotskyst revolution and democratic socialist reformist approach next.

medvcom
medvcom

As mentioned by other reviewers, what you do changes very little or changes it in strange ways. The makers of the game have an agenda that they push throughout the game, which makes it much less enjoyable.

Duderr
Duderr

This game doesn't forgive you. It will not tell you anything. It is hard - both due to incomprehensible gui and harsh, long term chains of events that will make you calculate your every move. But, when you figure out how things work and the game stops being just about survival and more about winning, you will appreciate vast amount of love and time put in this production: alternative outcomes of historic events or completely new ones, each giving you well deserved satisfaction. You want to make communism work? Or maybe you want to put soviets on the mars? Or maybe you just want to bring wonders of capitalism to soviet union and make some commercials for pizza hut? Overall, this game gives a lot of fun once you figure out how to actually play it.

whertlein29
whertlein29

Very nice game, Really interesting game to play

Sp00n.exe
Sp00n.exe

[table]

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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_PgFqojF168
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[tr]
[td]

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀great wisdom of BREZHNEV BROS

⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀⠀──────────────────────⠀⠀⠀

u_z'l
u_z'l

The original game was fun and somewhat educational. I can't say the same for this one. It raised a lot of uninteresting questions regarding Soviet politics, the interface is shockingly ugly and difficult to understand/use, and some of the English seems to have been translated/localized poorly.

I wanted this to be a really fun romp, like the original, and for this remake to fix some of the problems the original game had. It was just a waste of time and I should have returned it.

Mekh_Tea
Mekh_Tea

"are you winning son"

"no dad I did worse than Gorbachev"

dpmcintire
dpmcintire

This game absolutely sucks. A piss-poor knock-off of the 1980's classic. Don't waste your money.

Ivan Kolosov
Ivan Kolosov

Pretty fun and challenging political simulator about the USSR, but the English translation still needs to be improved.

jadeux
jadeux

I really want to like this game but it's a mess. There are a ton of interesting mechanics which I think (?) are at play, but it's needlessly difficult to figure out what the hell is happening. I sunk a few hours into it without learning much. I watched several Youtube tutorials but even those were mostly people guessing at what does what.

This game needs serious streamlining. There are too many different actions to take and no clear indication of why you would take any of them. I consider this game incomprehensible.

Juris
Juris

Really steep learning curve and unforgiving but very rewarding and fun if you are into history.

Cipher
Cipher

The only game where you can send aid and ally apartheid South Africa as the Soviet Union
10/10

jhclark32123
jhclark32123

Really interesting game, fun to play and generally pretty thought provoking and educational. The learning curve is very steep, but there are plenty of YouTube tutorials to follow to help you out with that. I would absolutely recommend this game. 7 hours in I'm still finding it near impossible and still can't drag myself away it because I find it so enjoyable. Considering the price tag, if you have any interest in the period of history at all, it'd be criminal not to buy this game.

GenericName
GenericName

Never used the army against liberals more in my life, and I do not regret a moment of it.

Teutonic Knight
Teutonic Knight

A little harder to go back to this one after play Mao's Legacy, the UI is slightly more confusing and ultimetly its a lot less visually appealing and approachable. However, what it lacks in presentation it makes up for in depth, surpassing Mao's legacy with more indepth international diplomacy. If you enjoyed Mao's legacy then this is certainly worth trying out.

Abdolmartin
Abdolmartin

Saved the Soviet economy but liberalisation led to all republics except Russia seceding due to separatism. 10/10 would save communism while destroying the USSR again.

☭ Edwin Fox ☭
☭ Edwin Fox ☭

I know the interface is intimidating at first (actually, not just at first) but, believe me, this is the perfect game for people who are really into Soviet and Russian history

ALEXTHEGREAT89
ALEXTHEGREAT89

Awesome game very well created historically!

HughMyronbrough
HughMyronbrough

First of all, this game requires patience, comfortability with opacity, and a willingness to experiment and lose (and ask the Discord for help). To help people avoid frustration, I'll give a strategy I found to work. Alternatively, you can watch and copy Youtube videos.

1) Start as Grigory Romanov
2) For Ministers, use Pugo and Bobkov
3) Get Liberman's Reform from pregame events
4) When the 1980s Oil Glut comes, switch to cooperatives
5) Promote Moderates in the council. For your economy, when possible, switch to Floating Prices, and lower Protectionism.
6) Don't mess with politics or foreign policy ministries
7) In your budget, keep State Mech high to start, and later max it and keep it maxed. Increase Law to help you get your cubes to 10. Boost a lot of points in Weapons and Soldier Living (this game often becomes Tiananmen Square Simulator), focusing more on Soldier Living. Boost Infrastructure a fair amount to make yourself more competitive. Boost Culture and Education to 200 from the start. Boost other stuff as you need but be careful to avoid boosting too fast, as that can cause Corruption spirals.

This is not the best strategy, but it's the easiest way I've found to win on Hard, while keeping the USSR stable. You should start by playing on Normal.

---

Phaedrus
Phaedrus

The game is still quite buggy, and doesn't have the best English translations.

Ren
Ren

Evil Andropov be like
Yeah it's 1984 and my kidneys are fine

Absintilia Kocheu ⚧
Absintilia Kocheu ⚧

The UI and mechanics are not as good as Ostalgie. But still a must have for commies like me.

Sarumano
Sarumano

I played the old game of same name in the 90s. Now I am playing this new game. I liked it

Usureki
Usureki

This seemingly interesting game turned out to be a lame clickable ppt having very low standards of UI resulting a rather poor UX. Regardless of the content to follow I literally shut down the thing after some minutes in order to initiate refund request.

SleazyCommunist
SleazyCommunist

Crisis in the Kremlin is a hideous, poorly translated, and utterly obtuse mess of a political simulation. Yet after some effort of getting through the jank, I can safely say it is also arguably one of the most detailed and uniquely enjoyable games on steam. Despite its difficulty.

It has a surprising amount of replayability allowing multiple paths for the Soviet Union, a great soundtrack and a strangely addicting gameplay loop of fail -> retry until you figure out how to keep your house of cards together.

Not to mention incredibly cheap for the amount of hours one can sink into it, so look past the glitz of more attractive games, and give it a shot.

Playboy
Playboy

Fun, complex political simulator. Very deep with a big learning curve, but once you figure it out you can do some incredible things: Automated Communist economy (watch out the bureaucrats will not like losing their cushy planning jobs), forcing the US to collapse by getting Donald Trump elected, mending the Sino-Soviet split, going full Stalin and arresting all the dissidents, selling off the Soviet Union to capitalists as the liberals and splitting the world with the USA, Communism with nuclear war characteristics as the Trotskyites, ect.. There is really a lot of ways to take the USSR, but you are going to have to earn it!

Kelldrim
Kelldrim

This game provides me with a great deal of joy, namely, because it allows me to crush those bloody revisionists!

Save the Union today, or make it a capitalist counter-USA full of reactionary imperialism, whatever.

Just don't reform too quickly, or you'll burn in the flames that only a Trot deserves. (Or Gorbachev.)

jayel.cbr
jayel.cbr

This is the worst UI in history, no idea what was happening, even after i watched people playing it on Youtube

Stevan
Stevan

Its cool and nice. Music is awesome and it was really challenging and awesome experiance. If you want to play ideologicly, oh boy you gonna have a lot of fun

TheTryhardPie
TheTryhardPie

Ui is shit and there is a steep learning curve, but definitely a fun and complex political sim.

Reveluvtion
Reveluvtion

Very fun game to play, it is rare to find a game like this. The mechanics are straightforward but hard to master, and the geopolitics aspect are fun to meddle around with. One thing that I did dislike about the game is the design, which is generally very rough looking, but it still doesn't take away from how fun the game is.

Shchors
Shchors

Challenging political simulator where you can get rid of the Khrushchevites revisionists and anti-Marxists. Any game where you can restore or establish a Marxist-Leninist regime is a good one

niky45
niky45

half an hour in, I had to check a guide to have a clue on what I was doing (not a spoiler: you have to compete all the "events" in the folder before you can do anything else, it seems). the tutorial could use some improvement.

other than that, it looks nice. let's see what time says.

update:. an hour in. I still have no clue on what I'm doing. tutorial really needs to be interactive and not just a series of screenshots with text.

sy1wekb9999
sy1wekb9999

UI is confusing(impact of policy/descisions not very well explained) however it is realy fun and an imersive political management sim

somnitek
somnitek

I love this game but some of the way things are weighted are bullshit. The idea I have this unfathomable technological edge and still have all this economic flak is ludicrous. Also, this game needs to keep getting love from the devs. No offense guys... I like your other work! This one is just,,,special.

Please, modding of variable values for game elements would be superb.

Squashbuckler
Squashbuckler

Just....no. The interface is simply not playable. It is horrific. A map that you cant even scroll, but need to use arrows to move...
I have a tonne of leeway for games like this in the graphics department, but this is beyond a graphics issue. The layout of this game is simply childish and amateurish. It looks far worse than the images on the main game page. Checkout some gameplay videos on youtube before you buy.

AWOOGA BOOGA BOOBA
AWOOGA BOOGA BOOBA

You better not leave goddamn Afghanistan

Hector Salamanca Gaming
Hector Salaman…

It is a very unique and interesting game however it is very difficult to play especially for anyone new or unfamiliar with it's topic or gameplay style.

With a few guides and walkthroughs I think I got the gist of it, but I do need more time to play it in order to get any proper achievements. It is pretty interesting and the amount of effort and dedication the developers make all these historical references and in-depth mechanics is insane. Again though, it's difficult and I only seem to spend a few minutes playing it every time I load it before exiting again.

I cannot say anything too positive for the UI and the Navigation System since they seem to have copied a bunch of photos from the internet, cropped and threw them in there. It never bothered me too much and it sort of grew on me but I'm surprised that there are still no Workshop Mods for this game which is sad. I wish they upgraded this because it still makes things look and feel clunky.

This game is not for everyone but I am still having a blast. Having played the original one on DOS, I think this is a faithful recreation of it and deserves praise. It takes a while to get used to, but for some reason it feels kinda fun being Leader for a while.
Give it a try. It's SUPER cheap anyway.

Bodacious Mr. B
Bodacious Mr. B

Makes dwarf fortress look intuitive

Zer0
Zer0

it's good even thought i didn't win the game
10/10

Ice_Butter
Ice_Butter

it's pretty fun but i dont know how the economics work so i get overthrown in a few years

RandyNewman
RandyNewman

It's a little difficult for new players, but you can make the US collapse, which otherwise you'd have to wait decades to see happen due to their internal contradictions; so that's really cool

Dimm
Dimm

Is as enigmatic and incomprehensible as the late soviet bureaucracy.

Hunter
Hunter

The UI is so bad I don't think the devs have even heard of game design.

It's pretty sad.

wick
wick

Only going full Stalinism works in this game
Everything else will lead to economic disaster and political unrest
Also for some reason choosing Gorbachev as the general secretary gives you too many events at the start about lack of services and goods so i can assume its a bug that needs to be fixed
Overall a pretty good fucking game ignoring some minor annoying bugs or features 9/10

EuroGaymer
EuroGaymer

10/10

Q: What would ya do if u r in charge of the GKChP in '91 Soviet coup d'état?

A: Send in ALPHA team and headshot Yeltsin and his democracy bastards ...

ecpgieicg
ecpgieicg

God awful UI: buttons without explanations; zero in-place tooltips; save overwrite without prompt (save/load are in the same place despite of having different entry points); all that and more, and then sprinkle on copious amount of typos.

Oh yes, a tutorial exists. A text tutorial that you cannot exit; with sections you cannot jump to.

Enjoyment? What enjoyment when the UI alone will prevent you from progressing?

damnedkingdom
damnedkingdom

Interesting idea for a game; too bad the UI is garbage.

happytin
happytin

There's just not enough guidance to really understand what your choices are doing, what options mean, or what might be a reasonable baseline for spending etc. There's no hover tool tips, the tutorial is pretty useless, and it took me ages just to work out how to do the spending plan.

I really wanted to enjoy this but the poor UI, lack of information, and multiple screens without any explanations make it frustrating.

MC_The_Room
MC_The_Room

Crisis in the kremlin is a very good game. It is well thought out and you can do more things then i can ever possibly figure out, in a sort of semi-structured semi-sandbox type experience. Woe to my larping though, is the fact that this game is very

very

very

hard.

worldgnasher
worldgnasher

overrated game with horrific UI and UX. A lot of things aren't clear and you constantly have to go back and forth between many different screens to get information

drakeus2000
drakeus2000

The interface is too damn complicated. Its designed very amateurishly, with inconsistent style, lag when clicking buttons. You increase taxes but can put them back. Your reserves don't seem to have an influence on the budget. Almost all of the time its very unclear what is going on. It's a real shame too as a lot of research had gone into this game, a lot of Soviet events, a lot of potential scenarios. However the game designers forgot the main thing, games should be playable, and this one hardly is.
Don't want to sound overly bad, their other game, Ostalgie, based around the similar concept is much more enjoyable.

Peepy
Peepy

I want to enjoy this game as it seems like I would be the right target demographic but...

- The UI reminds me of 80's point and click but heavily text-based games.
- The tutorial shouldn't exist, it provides no information whatsoever.
- If you are bilingual, specifically russian and english, this game will annoy you as you will click the wrong word that is placed solely for aesthetic purposes, 25% of the first 20 minutes of gameplay.
- If you know history, specifically Russian USSR history, you already know what you should answer to what event is happening making this feel impossible for any young audience or people with limited knowledge about soviet army events?
-This is the ugliest color palette i've ever seen tovarish and it looks like it was ripped straight from a FADED propaganda poster.

Can I be angry? I paid less than $3 for what seems like a well researched political simulator. But boy, am I incredibly hoping there's a second game with funny little animations and an attractive UI, as I am a fool with the attentionspan of a small goldfish.

gentilledoux
gentilledoux

A nice history and leadership lesson. I learn a lot through this game. Particuliary how leading a major contry is not having a damm clue about what you are doing but trying to go in an overall favorable direction.

Wolf Cop
Wolf Cop

Possibly the worst UI I've ever seen in a game, and it's laced on top of a simulation game.

I want to like this game, I like the idea of it in every way. But I get an actual headache trying to decode how to even navigate the opening menu. It's a joke.

ievs
ievs

I really like this game. It offers different pathways to explore: totalitarian utopia as well as liberal democratic scenario (both with zero corruption). Btw, to fight corruption I use automatic re-calibration in the budget tab and I try not to overspend on things that already work well on the status tab

hayrd89
hayrd89

Escribo esta reseña casi 30 años después de la disolución de la Unión de Repúblicas Socialistas Soviéticas, habiendo evitado este suceso en múltiples ocasiones gracias a este juego. ¿QUIERES QUE EL GIGANTE ROJO SIGA VIVO? LÓGRALO EN ESTE MAGNÍFICO JUEGO. Te permite construir tu presente paralelo ideal al mando de la URSS (o intentarlo, al menos). Grandes retos te esperan en este juego, algunos complicados de conseguir incluso en el modo más fácil.

ốngcaosulõithépchịulực
ốngcaosulõithé…

fapados interfészű/nehéz
de amugy nagyonjo

Звездакрови
Звездакрови

In alternate future, annoying twitter kids write about how that wasn't real liberalism.

Paiela
Paiela

I like the game. If you are intersted in politics and things like that you have to try it !

Legend of Zedra
Legend of Zedra

Kind of a steep learning curve but worth it for the chance to turn the whole world red. The developers are also obviously quite knowledgeable about Soviet history and the personalities of the era, which is necessary in these historical games. It could really use some kind of manual, though.

GamingPro1009
GamingPro1009

hard without exploits and rigged against the reformers but still fun and you can overcome the several economic collapses.

Kamerad Gorbachev
Kamerad Gorbachev

nice game, give another pov of cold war era and you can also make soviet long live or destory it before 1991, and stupidity is you can kill Gorbachev and yeltsin to but the worst and suck is the interface and ui is more hard to understand, no have tutorial inside game its to much difficult for beginners

Jerry
Jerry

Awesome game! but the UI isn't great and it's probably not the most realistic game (You can create some wacky scenarios)... still with some historical knowledge about the communist bloc, this thing is very enjoyable, with possibility of very weird ,yet amazing events.

Smythely
Smythely

Badly made UI. I have no idea what I'm doing. And how every choice I make in the little booklet thingy has any effect on X, Y and Z.

MC Habsburg
MC Habsburg

i have no idea what i am doing and now i am using ss tactics in chechnya

Iskald
Iskald

In this game I brought back the planned economy the soviets we're the first country to land on Mars saved the soviet union form collapse and brought back the legacy of Stalin overall would recommend

patt2129
patt2129

Great game for alternate history fans

rabbit
rabbit

i can understand why people like this game, but I have a few problems with it.

1. bad UI
2. too little control over the country (i feel like the budget-spending doesn't do anything)
3. historical inaccuracies

jackpalmigeri
jackpalmigeri

i became an extremely corrupt Reformist Market Stalinist and suppresed Yeltsin while keeping the USSR barely united and making China Soviet only to be overthrown by the US.

Overall you can purge Yeltsin and Gorbachev 10/10.

NCR Tax Hit Squad
NCR Tax Hit Squad

oh god oh fuck the economy is crashing harder then victoria 2

Ye_Guevara
Ye_Guevara

One of my all time favs, have at least 3-4 hundred hrs on a different medium than steam but have been playing it more here lately and its only gotten better with time. game is so damn good.

juanredman
juanredman

The game is very confusing, you don't know what your doing your going into it blind. Did not have fun with it was boring. The UI and no tutorial is bad.

OMFG its Stephen!
OMFG its Stephen!

Great game once you look past the so so translations