WARDOGS
WARDOGS
Game
Game2019
RIOT: Civil Unrest
Developer Leonard Menchiari, IV Productions, Ivan Venturi Productions
Riot: Civil Unrest (stylized as RIOT: Civil Unrest) is a 2019 real time strategy video game that simulates riots based on real events. The project started with a successful Indiegogo campaign in February 2014 and entered early access in December 2017. The director of the game and previously an editor and cinematographer at Valve, Leonard Menchiari, has experienced riots personally and the game was created as a way… From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0)
337 reactions from 4 sources (Steam reviews, Bluesky, Lemmy, Mastodon) · newest Nov 5, 2026 · last updated Nov 6, 2026 · How this works
Audience score
57
Mixed
94 positive · 71 negative
95% range 49–64%
| Source | + | − | = |
|---|---|---|---|
| Steam reviews | 94 | 71 | 0 |
| Bluesky * | 5 | 22 | 135 |
| Lemmy * | 0 | 0 | 5 |
| Mastodon * | 0 | 0 | 4 |
* shown, not counted in the score (label accuracy below our 85% bar or not yet audited).
1 newer reactions are still waiting for a label.
Steam's own rating
Mixed
558 of 907 reviews positive (all languages, per Valve)
What players are saying
58% recommend · 98 yes, 71 no
Counted from the reviewers’ own thumbs up/down on the 169 English Steam reviews we collected, not by the AI. Valve’s all-language rating: Mixed (1,331 of 1,957 positive).
Several players find the controls unintuitive and the UI confusing, making the game frustrating to play. [1][2][3]
Liked
Representative posts
- [11]
Just total low effort garbage. The extent of the lack of even trying is exemplified by the complete lack of any tutorial. Instead of actually explaining anything and telling the player how to play in even the most rudimentary way, the lazy developers stuck in a "wiki" that is almost incredible in how useless it is and how little information it manages to convey. The wiki couldn't possibly be less informative if it …
- [14]
This game had so much potential but it was a complete cash grab by lazy devs. They stopped updating long ago. They were disengaged from the start and delayed their project for years. They never fixed most bugs and abandoned the only thing that gave this game re-play value. THE MISSION EDITOR!!!. It lacks features like vehicles, scant assets, its buggy, disastrous UI , nearly impossible to save anything, its a total …
- [6]
A fun little riot simulator. $17 however is pretty steep so buy it on a deep discount. Please don't listen to the users complaining that the crowds are hard to control or that they don't always do what you command. The tutorial explains the anxiety mechanic which affects how chaotic the crowd becomes and how to counteract it. It's not the game's fault people jump in without familiarizing themselves with the …
- [4]
Mixed? This game absolutely rips dude. People complaining about not knowing what to do, just spend like 2 minutes looking at the UI, it's not that hard. Feels like a REAL riot simulation, absolutely in awe at the game design. its not easy but it's also not surprising when you fail. the learning curve feels very satisfying. Well done to the developers, I'm super impressed.
- [1]
controls are terrible and not explained very well at all.
Summarised from 34 of the 263 public posts collected about this game; every point cites the posts behind it ([n] opens the post) and the split is counted from the posts’ own ratings. Updated Oct 10, 2026. How summaries are made
RottenBot@rottenbot · automated account
RIOT: Civil Unrest sits at 57% positive across 165 opinionated reactions from 4 sources. Fresh or rotten — where do you land?
Critics, per Wikipedia
On Metacritic, the Windows version received mixed reviews, and the Switch and PlayStation 4 versions received negative reviews. Eurogamer and Rock Paper Shotgun reviewed the early release version. Eurogamer felt that its timeliness made it "deeply unnerving" and difficult to enjoy as entertainment. Although they praised the art, Rock Paper Shotgun disliked the strategy elements and thought it had too little to say about riots. Nintendo Life criticized the released Switch version for not taking advantage of its controls, and they said it lacked any insight into riots.
From the “Reception” section of Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 4.0. Critic context only — not part of the audience score.
Reactions
60 of 337 · most liked first“Arcane inspired viewers to sign up for League accounts, but not play the game” is both hilarious and telling cuz this is where a proper single-player game or those Riot Forge spinoffs would easily come in handy, and neither exist anymore
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot Games is accused of actively suppressing any negative comments related to Mastercard or otherwise mentioning the anti-game/NSFW censorship movement on its esports broadcasts. The decision to do so was reportedly made internally, according to an obtained statement. www.si.com/esports/news...
neutral · AI labelView post →I don't recall French Bread ever needing to fire their entire dev team after launching a game but I guess you can make fun of them, Riot.
negative · AI labelView post →Not shocked. Not speaking to the quality of the game, but rather the prolonged dev time, slow/bizarre rollout, and weird marketing decisions. Also, saying earlier this year, "we fired all the core staff" doesn't exactly inspire players to pick up your game, does it? A failure of Riot management.
negative · AI labelView post →Ten years in development, canceled after nine months. I feel so bad for all the people who put their time and energy and love into this game only for it to get shut down because Riot thought "Yeah we figured out the formula for a successful fighting game, we're about to be the biggest game ever"
negative · AI labelView post →The same delusion that made Riot execs think they could just drop a fighting game whenever they want and the FGC would be so grateful to them for doing so that it would be the biggest game in the scene is now making them believe their MMO will take on WoW and FFXIV instead of imploding on impact.
negative · AI labelView post →hey! looking for more game dev & art friends 💙 i'm a Principal 3D Character Artist at Riot Games & specialize in handpainted & stylized art i have an unhealthy addiction to horror movies 🔪 #gamedev #gameart #characterart 🎨 www.artstation.com/ybourykina
neutral · AI labelView post →Y'know, Riot should start a project to work with outside game studios to publish games in a variety of genres, to let fans engage with the universe outside of the MOBA. I think that would be a great idea.
positive · AI labelView post →Kinda rubs me the wrong way seeing Riot dump insane amounts of money into 2XKO marketing when they just laid off like half the staff of that game suddenly just this year.
negative · AI labelView post →It is wild that over the past decade we had Riot and top FGC personalities gassing up 2XKO like never before. Fighting game pros were actually saying with their whole chest "This will change Fighting games forever" 2XKO shows up, nine months later "Damn, making a successful fighting game got hands"
negative · AI labelView post →Every time someone in a game of League asks me what I do at Riot
neutral · AI labelView post →To be genuinely fair, I actually think that if someone at Riot had an ounce of foresight they would have never greenlit the game at all, or cancelled it once they wanted to rework it into a tag fighter.
negative · AI labelView post →All I’m saying if RIOT wanted me to actually pay attention to my laning phase they shouldn’t have added these 3 to the game
neutral · AI labelView post →I am a simple girl. I just want universal healthcare, universal basic income, free and easy access to HRT for all, and the funding to make MAGICA RIOT: THE ANIMATION and MAGICA RIOT: THE GAME
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot got the exact fighting game they asked for with the exact business model they demanded and then act shocked and fire their most loyal, longtime employees with almost zero notice because the game didn't immediately make 300 gorillion dollars.
negative · AI labelView post →As an aside, multiple game publishers operating titles in the region were impacted by this. Riot Games, for example, has now switched to servers in Riyadh (Saudi Arabia) and Mumbai (India) due to the below.
neutral · AI labelView post →Scoop: Riot is overhauling League of Legends. The 16-year-old game's biggest update ever is planned for release in 2027. Internally it's called League Next. Story: www.bloomberg.com/news/article...
neutral · AI labelView post →I was serious! One more article to close out the year... Let's take a quick look at Sega's 1991 beat-em-up Riot City, a supposedly Japanese only game that has an English localization hidden away, as well as a little known alternate, spicy ending... 🔗 sudden-desu.net/entry/riot-c...
neutral · AI labelView post →I am extremely pleased to share that I’ll be joining Riot Games as a Principal Narrative Designer on their newly announced physical TCG, codenamed Project K! www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1j7...
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot to their new game when it doesn’t make $8 billion in 5 seconds
negative · AI labelView post →Magica Riot game where every time Hikari talks their dialogue boxes take over the entire screen
neutral · AI labelView post →Instead of buying a game made by a fascist, buy a game made by some socialists! Tonight We Riot is available on the Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux!
neutral · AI labelView post →> ability to summon characters in a game and make them battle for you. Riot forced to rename summoner's rift due to patent law
neutral · AI labelView post →condolences to the 2xko team 😔 Layoffs immediately post-launch are not what you ever want to see. www.gamedeveloper.com/business/rio... I will say, props to Riot for doing 6 months' severance. That's decent of them.
neutral · AI labelView post →Yeah, that’s gonna do it. Fuck Riot and 2XKO. Hope that game fucking fails
negative · AI labelView post →That is absolutely not true. The issue was how they handled everything, from the overly long development time to how they monetized the game. It's a Riot issue, not a game issue.
neutral · AI labelView post →Gonna make a Magica Riot game because it is scientifically designed to piss off chuds and appeal to cool people
neutral · AI labelView post →God 2XKO is such a fucking poser ass fighting game im glad Riot is coping and seething over how nobody likes their dumb fucking name Real "our game is definitely performing to our expectations :)" energy
negative · AI labelView post →One day I wanna hear the Nintendo Direct announcer have to awkwardly intro a Magica Riot game
neutral · AI labelView post →Ashley Riot from Vagrant Story by artist Akihiko Yoshida. More art from the game: www.creativeuncut.com/art_vagrant-...
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot Games when they release a new game and the devs of that game ask them to support that game
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot Act / Xbox 360 / Microsoft Game Studios / 2007
neutral · AI labelView post →Unbeatable has so much shared dna with Magica Riot, oh my god this is great It feels like if I got to make a Magica Riot game
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot Games has announced it’s downsizing the development team behind fighting game 2XKO, just weeks after it launched. "... Overall momentum hasn’t reached the level needed to support a team of this size long term." vgc.news/news/riot-ga...
neutral · AI labelView post →reminder that Riot expects to run an MMO after canning a phenomenal card game and a [ ] fighting game after they didn't have 1:1 playerbases with League
neutral · AI labelView post →>launches fighting game with no fighters >puts nothing but adcs and zoners in it >milk arcane for the 11th time >game dies >announces shut down >adds sett and samira a month before it all closes Ok Riot games make it make sense
neutral · AI labelView post →>Streamer playing slots with house money very obviously unethical and bad >Streamer cracks packs of the new Riot physical card game from a booster box sent to them by Riot Games hey chat, we're gonna open this thing that Riot sent me which sells for $300 on eBay
neutral · AI labelView post →I’m sure there are a few of you who haven’t read Magica Riot. I’d like to encourage you to change that! If you ever had the great fortune of playing the Journey arcade game, make that lesbian & set in Portland & you have the vibe
neutral · AI labelView post →not to be a tease but the N64 fan game is not the only Magica Riot game in development 🤔👀
neutral · AI labelView post →France simulator
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I want to clarify something here in that when I say it “feels like a Magica Riot game” I don’t mean the characters/story/etc I’m talking design and structure. This interactive narrative segments combined with rhythm game rock music combat against enemies design could make a fun Magica Riot game.
neutral · AI labelView post →Riot finally manages to make a game I'm interested in aaaaand mass layoffs
neutral · AI labelView post →Police brutality against vegans at its peak
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Just total low effort garbage. The extent of the lack of even trying is exemplified by the complete lack of any tutorial. Instead of actually explaining anything and telling the player how to play in even the most rudimentary way, the lazy developers stuck in a "wiki" that is almost incredible in how useless it is and how little information it manages to convey. The wiki couldn't possibly be less informative if it were intentionally designed to be uninformative and confusing, and the actual…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →also like why the hell would you trust any game made by Riot
neutral · AI labelView post →finaly a game for my intrusive thoughts
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Riot Meddler on integrating the League client engine with upgraded in-game engine
neutral · AI labelView post →This game had so much potential but it was a complete cash grab by lazy devs. They stopped updating long ago. They were disengaged from the start and delayed their project for years. They never fixed most bugs and abandoned the only thing that gave this game re-play value. THE MISSION EDITOR!!!. It lacks features like vehicles, scant assets, its buggy, disastrous UI , nearly impossible to save anything, its a total piece of ♥♥♥♥. They should just release their source code and let people with…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →When are we getting the 2025 LA riots
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →this is why I really hope I get the chance to expand Magica Riot into game stuff sooner rather than later because I want to embrace it while it's still fairly small and we can do goofy silly low-budget fun shit with it
neutral · AI labelView post →i hate the press
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →A fun little riot simulator. $17 however is pretty steep so buy it on a deep discount. Please don't listen to the users complaining that the crowds are hard to control or that they don't always do what you command. The tutorial explains the anxiety mechanic which affects how chaotic the crowd becomes and how to counteract it. It's not the game's fault people jump in without familiarizing themselves with the mechanics.
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Sadly a lot of the people that bought this game simply wanted to fantasize about killing protesters, a lot of these people are not exactly smart, so over time the game became less simulation and more predictable. Other then the section of the fan base that things of this as antifa slaughter simulator, the game is pretty good for what it is and the budget it was made on. I wish riot rts's was a bigger niche genre though. In that world, I probably would not of played this as much. It's a…
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →No updates at all kinda complicated but really fun once you get the hang of it versus mode :D workshop maps :skull: bad reviews are because people don't know how to play
positive · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I stg if I have to learn how to code and do whateverthehell else enough to put out, like, a Magica Riot Game Boy game, I will
neutral · AI labelView post →Helion, Riot, Swordsman, and Lightning mech designs from Cyberbots: Fullmetal Madness by artist Sho Sakai. More art from the game: www.creativeuncut.com/art_cyberbot...
neutral · AI labelView post →This game is an absolute embarrassment. This was an amazing concept, and I was very excited with the idea of it. I waited many years for it to drop and now I've finally managed to get round to playing it, I'm frankly disgusted at the lack of ethics and integrity the developer has. They've failed to address any of the bugs or issues around gameplay, they've failed to make some basic mechanics function as they should, and half the time the game offers absolutely no challenge whatsoever. I've…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →I tried giving this game a chance despite the mixed reviews. I got it for a few bucks. I am still dissappointed. You can either play as rebels or police, trying to complete the mission objective while keeping public opinion on your side. There is a game here, dont get me wrong, but it just is not cohesive whatsoever. Controlling your units feels floaty, which can make sense for the rebels, but even controlling the police can be cumberson. I have no idea what certain stats do, and I only found…
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →Friendship ended with Riot Games Valve is my new best friend Deadlock has me in a choke hold, this game is SO good and SO much less toxic
neutral · AI labelView post →Was almost pretty cool, until they completely left it an abandonware mess. I'd rather save my money for bail.
negative · reviewer's own thumbsView post →
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