Sky: Children Of The Light
Android, iOS, PC
Only a tiny percentage of iOS games have a dedicated screenshot button. It’s hard to imagine any of them – even Monument Valley’s – being used as frequently as Sky’s. You might think it’s hard to inspire wonder on a screen you can hold in your hand, yet Thatgamecompany’s latest manages it. You’ll find yourself gazing at a distant tower, its minarets poking above glowing clouds; later you’ll ride a shimmering manta ray inside a planetarium blanketed in stars. By the end, you’ll probably have an email from Apple inviting you to increase your iCloud storage.
Yet stills can’t capture a game that draws so much power from the way it moves and feels. A single onscreen button – part of a minimalist interface that’s almost invisible when you’re in motion – starts it all off. You’ll tap it to jump, or hold it to lift off and within moments you’re flying, carving contrails through the blue, your cape (like Journey’s scarf, the source of your power) billowing and fluttering as you swoop down towards those cottony clouds that refill your light when you get close. It’s almost a disappointment when it’s time to land, though not during an extended downhill slide – a race when others are around – which is surely the most irresistible set-piece of its kind since Mario 64.
Few thirdperson mobile games have made the fundamental business of getting around feel so intuitive, though there are occasionally awkward moments that can only be partly attributed to your avatar’s earthly clumsiness. Despite a small degree of automation in a standard hop that makes climbing ladders relatively straightforward, there are a few platforming sequences where you’ll wish for a controller. These rare moments do, however, serve as an incentive to glide rather than walk where possible; all the more encouragement to locate the winged light that strengthens your cape so you can stay airborne for longer.
You’ll need help to find it all, and so at times you’ll seek out other players. Not that you’ll need to look very far: you’ll see them gadding about in each of Sky’s six main areas, with some instinctively gravitating toward others. That’s particularly true when you call out or gesture for someone to follow you; your vocabulary expands as you discover more celestial bodies, humanoid manifestations of the stars, scattered throughout these realms. Curiosity is often enough to reach them alone, while others are beyond gates that require you to have obtained a given number of constellations before they’ll let you through. None of these really qualify as puzzles, with the rest merely demanding the presence of another player (or several) to complete – even if marshalling a group of eight to simultaneously ignite a mechanism to carry you all to a secret area can take a bit of doing.
That’s no real criticism, since the aim is clearly to provide the kind of connections that naturally occurred in Journey, and to make them happen more often. It works. On a grassy prairie, we witness a new player forlornly looking up at a high platform; with our extra cape power, we help them reach it and they call out repeatedly by way of thanks. Later, we join hands with a seemingly rudderless explorer, and they refuse to let go, staying with us even after we whiff the same jump twice. At its best, Sky’s world design encourages organic teamwork. The disempowerment that comes from losing light stings all the more when being at full strength feels so freeing. And so, when trotting through a forest, your light steadily extinguishing, you’ll make a beeline for others, huddling together around your candles’ flames. Yet the strength-in-numbers approach doesn’t always work: on our second playthrough, the first area’s biggest task is over within three seconds of our arrival. That hardly bothers us, but we can’t help but feel for any newcomers who’ll watch the subsequent cutscene with bemusement, having done nothing to trigger it.
Nor is it always easy to differentiate beginners from those who’ve visited every corner of Sky’s celestial theme park. The cosmetic rewards that distinguish more experienced players are hard-earned, with many requiring multiple playthroughs. With three candles making a heart, and five hearts unlocking, say, an Afro wig, that’s an awful lot of light to produce. No matter how much Vincent Diamante’s score soars toward the heavens, it’s harder to appreciate the splendour of its setting when you’re thinking about where best to farm candles. Though far less aggressively monetised than most F2P games, there’s no denying it’s quicker to pay to unlock cosmetic items. And the presence of a visiting god within the main hub is a reminder that those who haven’t shelled out for a season pass are missing out.
Some of this can be attributed to Thatgamecompany stepping outside its comfort zone, while other minor issues will surely be patched in time. One unlockable spell surrounds you with a blinding glow for 15 in-game minutes, letting you become a beacon to give others a bearing in gloomier areas – but it’s so dazzling that it becomes harder to find your own way. And during Sky’s confusing endgame, the minor shortcomings of the controls become major ones. There’s plenty to lose here, and not an awful lot to gain, making for an NG+ without much of a plus. As in Nier: Automata, it involves a sacrifice of sorts, but while there you gave up something precious knowing exactly how it would help others, the benefit for your fellow player here is harder to gauge.
Even so, you return armed with something important. In Sky, knowledge can be a powerful thing, an asset that makes you more useful to those who seem lost, as you lead them toward the light. The world may no longer be as spectacular on your second, third or eighth time around, but the joy in the connections you make with your fellow sky children is a constant.
Within moments you’re flying, carving contrails through the blue, your cape billowing and fluttering as you swoop down