sunless skies game Out nOw | PC
i f Black Mirror’s Bandersnatch gave you a taste for interactive fiction at the tail-end of 2018, you might want to follow up with Failbetter Games’ spellbinding role-playing game. Set in the same Victorian dystopia as the studio’s Fallen London and Sunless Sea, it whisks you aboard a stricken sky locomotive, limping towards the port of New Winchester as its current captain wheezes her last breath.
Naturally, it’s your job to assume command, but beyond that, what happens next is entirely up to you. Do you seek fortune, amassing a tidy retirement fund by establishing a lucrative trade route? Or would you prefer fame, pursuing wonders and terrors at the world’s furthest reaches to write an adventure story for the ages?
Choosing your own backstory lets you influence the dice rolls that accompany each key choice: as a former academic, investigations are more likely to succeed, but if you were once
a street urchin, you’ll be better equipped to avoid trouble.
Whatever your ambition, it won’t be easy. At first you’re flying blind, your sky map only filling in as you explore. You need to ensure you have enough fuel and supplies to reach your destination, while keeping enough room in your hold for cargo to sell on. Between ports there are plenty of threats to contend with, from screeching beasts to opportunistic marauders and rival captains driven mad by the terrors of the sky.
Combat is slow and deliberately unwieldy, but every encounter is intense because the stakes are so high. Yet there’s usually a way to escape disaster: run out of supplies, and you can always throw a crew member overboard. And when things get truly desperate, you can even feast upon them, albeit at the cost of your own sanity and that of anyone left onboard.
It may be grim stuff in places, but every death is a learning experience, and Failbetter generously allows you to keep your ship – or even to continue from the last port visited if you really can’t face starting again. Though the game doesn’t always wear its literary aspirations lightly – the first wrecked craft you pillage is The Ozymandias – the writing is colourful and witty, with text overlays brilliantly foreshadowing imminent encounters, and slyly hinting at potential consequences that may or may not come to pass. Whether you thrive or barely survive, this unsettling adventure will reward you with a memorable story that feels uniquely yours. Chris Schilling