Heaven and Hell (2003) — The God Game Behind the Name
Heaven and Hell from 2003 is a Windows real-time strategy game about playing a soul snatcher. Wikipedia names the developer MadCat Interactive and the publisher CDV Software. Metacritic lists 31 Aug 2003 and 45/100 from 12 critics (single source for those figures). Wikipedia instead lists German release 27 June, UK 15 August and North America 2 September 2003. The dates remain separate; 31 August is not presented as a universal release day. It is not the 2025 browser novel.
I used Wikipedia for the genre and the companies, and Metacritic for the date and the 45. IGN posted a hands-on on 27 Jun 2003, but the article body did not come through as text, so I am not paraphrasing a review I could not read. No current official digital store was found.
The pitch, not a level guide
Publisher copy says you convince people you are the returned savior, spread a following with miracles or plagues, and have zealots throw rotten fruit at rival prophets. That is the pitch this page repeats. Level lists and an Xbox version were not confirmed, so they are omitted.
A web game called Heaven or Hell 2 on Gameflare is a tower defense. Nothing documents it as a sequel to the 2003 Windows game, so the two stay in separate rows on the all-games page.
The 2025 itch novel uses the same three words and none of this design. It is a free browser case file about eight modern souls. Searching heaven and hell game still surfaces the 2003 title because Wikipedia and Metacritic have ranked for it for years.
Questions
Is the score a classic rating?
Metacritic’s 45 is Generally Unfavorable: the score is an aggregate of those 12 reviews. That is the record, not a compliment.