BEYONDA STEEL SKY

A new adventure from the creator of Broken Sword

ou’re introduced to Union City, the setting for this sequel to cult point-andclick adventure Beneath a Steel Sky, in the first act, and it’s an impressive sight. After trudging through a sandstorm in the Gap—a post-apocalyptic name for the Aussie outback— hero Robert Foster crests a sand dune and finds the city looming ominously over him.

YA forest of skyscrapers and smokestacks stretches for miles into the sky, circled by an impenetrable wall, and the scene is well and truly set. A boy, Milo, has gone missing, and the trail has led Foster here.

BeyondaSteelSky is, as you might expect from Revolution, a fairly typical adventure game. You talk to people, pick up items, and solve multi-stage puzzles to progress.

The two hours I played had the slow, laid-back pace that I’ve come to associate with this developer. There’s no urgency or time pressure, leaving you to explore at your own pace, getting a feel for the world and the people around you.

At the end of BeneathaSteelSky, Foster left the running of the city in the hands of Joey, a sarcastic but fundamentally good-natured self-aware AI he built as a child living in the Gap. Now, years later, it seems Joey is regarded as some kind of deity.

In previous demos of the game, Revolution has only shown one area: a freight depot outside the city gates. But in this new hands-on preview build I’m finally able to enter the city itself.

FOSTER IS POSING AS A DEAD MAN HE FOUND IN THE GAP NAMED GRAHAM GRUNDY