We played Sin: Reloaded, here are our thoughts

Before getting my hands on Sin: Reloaded at Gamescom, I was actually quite familiar with this series. Though not a superfan or anything, I had played a bit of the original game on one of my childhood friends’ PCs. Needless to say, at that young age, I wasn’t particularly good at the game but I enjoyed myself. But I got an opportunity to check out this new version at Gamescom, and remaster studio Nightdive was on hand during my session.

To break down what I played, the game opens with a cinematic (I’m told this is being remade, so look forward to that!) and we’re placed in the boots of one John Blade, who rocks up to a high-rise building via helicopter to lay the hurt on some bad guys with a big ol’ gun turret. Here’s where my lack of competency came to the forefront. One of the characters stated “be careful not to shoot the civilians” or something to that effect, so when two characters were on the rooftop, I was shooting one and not the other. This would time me out and fail the mission. I’m not sure if it was the second or third go, but I eventually figured out that I’m basically just meant to shoot everything on sight in this particular section of the level.

After Mr. Blade takes everyone out, he lands on a building and busts his way in, shooting up some opposition. After a few corridors, I see the characters who were being referred to earlier. A neat addition in this version of the game is that a little peace sign pops in front of the guys I’m not supposed to slaughter, so that makes it a little easier to distinguish who’s gun fodder and who isn’t. 

My ineptitude knew no bounds, however, as I got into a Doctor Strange-level loop of dying to some goons, going to a checkpoint, coming back down to the goons only to get destroyed again. I have to stress this is no fault of the game but my own ‘skill issue’ as the kids say. With more time, I’m sure I’d finally be able to break the cycle and progress.

Nightdive was nice enough to sit down with me after my play session and run through some of the improvements in this version of the game to distinguish it from Sin Gold. There’s a long list, but the highlights include touch-ups on every level, exclamation marks and points of interest on top of things like that to make it a little bit easier to understand, unused dialogue from the games, as well as some Nintendo Switch 2 exclusive quirks like mouse controls. 

For players who maybe picked up Sin Gold a few years ago and enjoyed it, this remaster is definitely going to be up your alley. The gameplay does feel really fluid and fun, even if I’m not the best guy to showcase it. Let’s hope when you take charge of John Blade, you can lay the hurt more effectively than me!

Sin: Reloaded comes to Nintendo Switch 2 and Switch on September 24, 2026. You can learn more about improvements and changes here.