Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius, the early access left behind by an entire trilogy

A space opera of combat mechs and crew bonds, in which the difficulty of the battles divides even those who praise the story.

The early access left behind by an already finished trilogy

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius still carries the early access label on its store page — yet its own plot already speaks of it as the middle chapter of a trilogy, and one of the logged reviews recalls buying the sequel, Liberation Day, before even playing this one. The tag that is supposed to flag an unfinished game stays pinned to a story the store itself describes as complete.

Captain Kayto Shields loses his homeworld to a power that subjugates everything in its path, and the starship Sunrider becomes the last refuge of the resistance. The mission is to cross the galaxy gathering allies, and it is you who decides how each pilot fits into the squad of combat mechs. Between missions, the game makes room to get to know the crew — each one's past, what drives each choice — and the battles play out on a turn-based tactical grid, with money always too tight to split between research, new weaponry and the upkeep of your own mechs.

The game is credited to the studio Love in Space and published by Sekai Project, released on May 22, 2018. On the store it is catalogued at once as strategy, science fiction and visual novel — the blend that defines everything that follows.

The one thing nobody fights over: the soundtrack

Everyone who writes about the game, even on the side that complains about everything else, spares the music. A player who came back to the store in 2021 to comment on the sound calls the soundtrack flawless and warns you to watch the volume on headphones. Another, reviewing in 2018, credits it with part of what they call an epic effect on the narrative. A French review, published in 2019, sums up the experience by handing out one extra star simply because the game is free — and even so singles out the soundtrack as the high point, without reservation.

The story is the other thread that pulls. A review from June 2018 says it was surprised by the maturity of the characters and compares the result to productions from far bigger studios. A Chinese review, from November of the same year, praises how the plot steers clear of the lighter tone common in games of the genre and credits the voice acting with part of the involvement in the storyline — even while acknowledging that the scarce money leaves the second half of the game harder than it should be. And someone who tried to finish it on the standard mode, in a review from June 2018, describes losing the same battle several times until finding the right lineup of mechs — without ever considering giving up.

The bottom line, for those who praise it, still comes at a price: accepting that the difficulty climbs right when you have the least money to reinforce the fleet, and that winning means repeating the same mission until you get the lineup right.

When scarcity turns into punishment, not challenge

On the other side, the most repeated complaint is that the difficulty comes from poorly calibrated design, not from a carefully thought-out challenge. A review from 2019 sums up the problem by saying that the only thing left to praise, in the end, is the soundtrack — the rest being characters cut from the same mold, locked into the same romantic fate imposed by the script. A second one, published in 2023, points out that the game, even years after release and already with a sequel out, still carries the same early access notice on the store — the inconsistency that opens this article did not escape those who played it.

The technical criticisms cost even more. One person reports, in December 2022, running into serious errors that freeze the game within the first 2 hours of use. Another, in 2023, does not even get to open the game: Windows blocks it from running before you see the first screen, because of a component the installer was supposed to register and did not. A third, in 2024, describes crashes from lack of memory even with a computer to spare — and still says they are enjoying the rest.

Even among those who stick with it, some split the verdict in two: a review from December 2025 gives credit to the writing and the soundtrack but keeps the score low solely because of the tactical part — proof that the real divide is not between those who love it and those who hate it, but over which half of the game weighs more in the end.

For those willing to lose the same battle again

Sunrider: Mask of Arcadius asks for patience with the combat system before it hands you anything: you will get the lineup wrong, run out of money at the wrong moment, restart the same mission until you find the arrangement that works. Anyone who takes to that rhythm — and is not bothered by the worn-out cast clichés typical of the between-missions romance — finds on the other side a space war with real dramatic weight and a soundtrack that gets through even the harshest reviews without a scratch. Anyone who wants balance already dialed in, characters that dodge the obvious, or an installer without surprises should look elsewhere: here, the same scarcity that holds up the story's tension is what traps the player at the wrong difficulty.