SMOKE AND SACRIFICE
Mother on a mission
At first glance, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Smoke And Sacrifice is just another survival game, but while you do spend a good chunk of your time gathering and crafting, 1 it’s woven around the framework of a good – if grim – story, set in a dark, steampunk-like world. You play as Sachi, a mother who, seven years after reluctantly sacrificing her first-born to the Sun God, has been given hope that he may still live and is transported to a bleak underworld in search of him.
In this survival RPG, you progress by completing quests for the unsettling, gas-mask-wearing locals, who will then reward you with crafting recipes and items. Crafting a lantern will ward off the deadly smoke that only appears at night, but it’s not just the environment that can kill you; the enemies you encounter are no pushover either. Combat is simple and smaller enemies won’t pose much of a challenge but packs can be deadly and larger boss-types make short work of the unprepared. Luckily, save points are frequent2 and most areas have “travel tubes” which prove invaluable for backtracking when you need a crafting table or to farm a particular resource.
The game keeps you busy collecting crafting recipes and materials while giving you a purpose other than to simply survive. Sure, most of Smoke And Sacrifice comes down to inventory management and what are essentially fetch quests, but unlike the sandbox-y nature of other survival games, this one gives you a solid reason to keep going as you root for Sachi to uncover the secrets surrounding the fate of her missing son.