Samson comes from people who previously worked on Just Cause, so expecting a tighter, smaller game made sense. The result is the opposite, though: a good-looking city where playing is a punishment, not fun.
Review
Samson: A Tyndalston Story
An interesting idea (urban action with no guns and a debt hanging over you) buried under broken combat and unfair penalties.
- Genre
- Urban action, driving
- Studio
- Liquid Swords
- Weapons
- no firearms
- Debt
- $100,000
- Reviewed on
- PC
What works
- Visually strong, grimy city of Tyndalston
- Combat without weapons is a fresh idea
- The debt mechanic has potential
What doesn’t
- Failing a mission costs you roughly 90% of your money
- Stun-locks in combat and enemies behind your back
- Zero sense of progression, technical bugs
Reviewed on PC · campaign played through
What Samson is all about
First impressions call to mind the semi-linear missions of GTA, but with one crucial difference: there isn’t a single firearm in the game. The whole concept is built on driving cars around an open city and doing jobs for local criminals, with all the action happening face to face.
It’s a spiritual successor to Sleeping Dogs or Mafia, just rawer and, above all, far less polished.
Story and atmosphere
Samson McCray returns to his hometown with a huge debt. Gangs from St. Louis are on his heels, and his sister is held as a hostage until he pays back 100,000 dollars. The plot, though, is just a flimsy excuse for why the game keeps sending you on mission after mission.
Samson himself isn’t charismatic, and he’s surrounded by the most worn-out stereotypes of the crime genre. The game tries for tongue-in-cheek humor, but that doesn’t work when the characters are flat and their motivations dull.
Tyndalston, on the other hand, looks great: dark, dirty, permanently wet streets. After an hour of play, however, the atmosphere gets wrecked by repetitive lines from passersby and sound loops that start to get on your nerves.
Gameplay: where it breaks
At the core is the Action Points system. Every in-game day you have points for missions, usually enough for three jobs, and in between you have to pay off the debt, otherwise the debt collectors come after you. On paper, that’s great pressure. In practice it’s torture, because when you fail a mission, you lose roughly 90% of the money you’ve collected. Instead of fun, playing turns into an exercise in patience and avoiding punishment.
There are two kinds of missions:
- Vehicle missions: races or wrecking rival cars. Your car breaks down quickly and you can’t steal other cars, so when your ride dies halfway across the map, you’re in for a long run on foot.
- On-foot missions: delivering packages and beating up enemies. This is where the game falls apart completely: imprecise controls, a floaty character, a bad combat system, and enemies that lock you into an endless chain of hits or appear right behind your back without warning.
The RPG system and skill tree are practically useless. Even at the end of the game, with plenty of unlocked abilities, Samson feels just as weak as at the start, so the sense of progression is zero. On top of that there are technical bugs where you get stuck in the environment and the character starts levitating.
Verdict
Samson had the potential to be an interesting take on urban action and ended up as an unfair frustration simulator. Liquid Swords built a visually interesting city but forgot to put fun systems into it. The combination of pressure to play flawlessly under the threat of losing your progress and the technical rough edges makes Samson a game that can’t be recommended in its current state. 4/10.
It only makes sense for players drawn purely by the idea of urban action without guns and who can overlook how expensive every mistake is.
FAQ
No. The game is built entirely on close combat and fistfights; there are no firearms in it at all.
If you don’t send regular payments toward the $100,000 debt, debt collectors start actively hunting you in the open world, which makes getting around the city much harder.
No. You rely on your own vehicles and have to repair them. The game doesn’t let you steal random civilian cars.
Every mission uses up points. When you run out, the in-game day ends and you have to rest to restore them.
Roughly 90% of the money you’ve collected. That penalty is exactly what makes the game more stress than fun.
Information verified as of 7 September 2026. The score reflects the state of the game at the time of the review; if the developers reworked the combat and the penalty system, the game would be worth re-evaluating. More reviews: Vampire Crawlers, Alaska Gold Fever, Sengoku Dynasty and Diablo 4: Lord of Hatred. You’ll find everything else in the Reviews section and game walkthroughs in the Game guides section.