We are happy to announce that Decadent Heir is participating in the Choose Wisely Festival 2025 — a thematic Steam event dedicated to games where every choice meaningfully shapes the story and its outcomes.
Choose Wisely Festival 2025 brings together projects built around nonlinearity, branching decisions, and strong narrative consequences. During the festival, you’ll discover hundreds of story-driven games, learn about new announcements, watch the showcase, and try out demos.
In Decadent Heir, you step into the shoes of a late–19th-century nobleman caught in political struggle, intricate intrigue, and the rising shadow of revolution.
Here, everything matters — your words, your actions, and even your silence.
Current Development Progress.
What Historical Documents Don’t Tell You
Hello, everyone.
I’d like to share where the development of Decadent Heir currently stands and what’s happening behind the scenes.
Who’s Making the Game.
Most of the work is done by me: narrative design, historical research, scene writing, and Unity assembly. A programmer and UI designer assist on a contract basis when specific technical tasks need to be solved.
The biggest challenge is not letting historical figures become lifeless cardboard silhouettes. When you meet Rasputin, Stolypin, or Lenin, they will be living, complex people with conflicting motivations — not mythologized icons from textbooks.
I work with primary sources: memoirs, diaries, letters. I search for small human details that can be woven naturally into the narrative. For example, that Kerensky was a sickly, limping boy suffering from bone tuberculosis, or that Vladimir Ulyanov’s brother was hanged and buried in a mass grave behind the fortress wall.
No ideology. Only people in a collapsing empire, forced to choose between conscience and survival.
Full Game Structure
Here’s how the acts are structured:
Act I (Demo): Childhood, 1882–1892 — available on Steam
Act II (Complete): Adolescence up to university enrollment
Act III (Assembly in Unity): University years in the capital
Act IV–V (Script in progress): 1905–1917, three career paths:
• Military officer
• Government official
• Revolutionary politician
Each path is its own storyline with unique characters, events, and moral dilemmas.
Current Work
I am currently writing Acts IV and V. The revolutionary/politician route is complete.
The military officer and government official routes are planned for November–December.
Act IV covers the Revolution of 1905 — the first real taste of power, the first serious compromises, and the moment when ideals begin to crack under the pressure of reality.
Meanwhile, the artist is working on illustrations for Act II.
Localization
The game will release in eight languages: English, French, German, Spanish, Polish, Brazilian Portuguese, Simplified Chinese, and Turkish.
Russian history of the late 19th century deserves a global audience.
Add the game to your wishlist if you’d like to follow the development and see the final result. More updates are coming soon.
Thank you for being here.
— Valery
Playtest
We talked in more detail about the playtests in one of our previous announcements.
Here is a reminder of what you need to do to earn the participation reward:
Requirements:
- Add the game to your wishlist.
- Follow our publisher page on Steam.
- During the playtest, earn the Steam achievement "Hat Trick".
Publisher Highlights
As part of the Choose Wisely Festival, we invite you to discover even more games where player choice shapes the narrative.
Blades for Hire — a tactical strategy game about managing a mercenary guild in a grounded fantasy setting.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/3180000/Blades_For_Hire/
If you’d like to test yourself as a judge of a revolutionary tribunal — where every verdict can change the fate of a city and the revolution itself — take a look at We. The Revolution.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/736850/We_The_Revolution/
The Mildew Children — a blend of 2D adventure and visual novel. A dark story about a village inhabited only by children who follow ancient, primal traditions.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2420350/The_Mildew_Children/
Relax in the atmospheric world of Mondealy. Step into the shoes of Michael — an ordinary young man who discovers hidden paths beneath his hometown, leading into the mysterious underground kingdom of Dargatt.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1620520/Mondealy/