New Winchester – The heart of the Reach.
Victorians dwell here in numerous different capacities. Be it political, industrial or otherwise. This is however, a new advancement in the Victorian age.
Sunless Skies, currently in Early Access follows Failbetter Games previous instalment - Sunless Sea. It’s early twentieth century Londoners and indeed, London itself under the rule of her Enduring Majesty have passed through the Avid Horizon into the heavens, or as it’s known – Albion. Leaving the Quiet Sea behind.
Not content with remaining simply skyward its inhabitants then travelled into space. Or as that’s known The High Wilderness.
Commandeering a space faring locomotive, you’re left to travel, discover, and in most cases, boldly go….
Being a space-faring people immersed in the heavily steam powered and smog choked feel of Victorian Great Britain, the setting could feel more bizarre than it already is. However, as it's inspired on how the Victorians imagined space it casts a very different view on galactic exploration. For one, the real mortal enemy here is exposure as opposed to the lack of atmosphere. Empty stretches of nothingness are instead populated (in the Reach at least) by floating islands, ancient scrawl covered ruins, fauna rich rain forests and fungus laden lands. Some of the latter seem to be in the process of Emerging from their own primordial soup.
In short, one really could be anywhere.
In what could also be described as a dream like setting; the exploration is as intriguing as it could possibly get. If we had a setting that is all too familiar it’d have its benefits in that, one can appreciate newly discovered surroundings in a different manner of which we do here in Sunless Skies. A manner which would come ready made with the attribution to things one already understands. Surprise or shock may be the order of the day, but here, experiencing things such as areas reminiscent of occult sci-fi or decaying bodies of celestial beings causes the journeying aspect to embody a different, far less comprehensible feel entirely.
It’s easy to see how something as emotionally fundamental as 'Terror' takes an appropriate place in the game. Its depicted here as a meter that fills the more you travel. This will eventually causes your condition to worsen. If it gets too high, then it’s more or less game over. Time to either pass your legacy onto a new captain or if you’ve chosen the merciful mode of play you can pick up from the last auto-save.
I must say, the terror meter is certainly something worth keeping your eye on. It can be reduced from certain actions partook in different towns and cities or reset completely upon docking in either of the central hub areas.
Reducing condition however, can be a far more arduous process entirely. It would’ve been nice to have been made a little more aware of how tricky this can be from the outset as I did feel a bit hamstrung for the latter half of my experience. It’s not as though there aren’t options available for me to remedy the situation, however. It’s just that some methods can involve a more... aggressive approach.
This is where we see how far from rosy; things can be in Sunless Skies. Even if our intentions are good from the outset, we can quite easily be put in a position where we need to make the best-of-a-bad-situation.
The dark side of political rivalry and perhaps regretful fealty are as present as ever in a game that has in its essence; revolution, new economic infrastructures and a ruthlessly expanding empire.
Choosing a side, so to speak is something you can more or less do quite readily. Be it based on inherently feeling good or bad, towards capitalism or maybe sovereignty for instance. Remaining as impartial as one can is also an option, however perpetuating a neutral stance is going to be very unlikely. No surprise really, given this particular age of substantial human advancement.
The ever imposing fear of the unknown is mixed with the excitement of new developments, and one can easily see how this would create an emotional cocktail in communities. The balance between self-serving motives and actions based on the greater good shifting easier than ever before.
London has its government administration in the form of 'The Ministry of Public Decency' and 'The Windward Company'. The latter of which acts as its proxy, out in the Reach. You can gain favour and influence by providing them with port reports, gathered on your travels.
If you feel you’re more of a, “person-of-the-people”, you can consort instead, with 'The Stalwart Bookkeeper' in Albion or with their independently aligned counterparts in the Reach, known as 'The Tacketies'.
Throwing in more opportunities for us to alter our social standing we can, at certain events choose to mingle with the more debonair and gentrified of folk. Alternatively we can opt to chew-the-fat with the more working class, salt of the earth types. As with a lot of the character decisions, how successful we are at this, is dictated via dice role outcomes. These will draw on one of our personality skills:
Iron - the skill of confronting and overpowering.
Mirrors - the skill of investigating and deducing.
Hearts - the skill of convincing and enduring.
And fourthly
Veils - the skill of deceiving and evading.
Each skill is initially levelled according to our chosen backstory. Those can be improved further on our captain reaching milestones from experience gained. Each level up will give the option to flesh out their history even more.
The experience on the whole, gives the player a feeling of discovery. Not just of the expanses of which we traverse but of ourselves as the captain of an equally inexperienced and nervous crew.
The joy of a successful find after sending out your diffident bat to scan for pastures new can be twinned with trepidation as we attempt to approach. A random hostile being may attack, terror of the crew may soar at the sight of something diabolical through the stained glass windows. Having to weigh up whether it’s worth chancing the extra distance due to low fuel or more often than not, supplies can be a factor. How heavily do we become entwined in export and trade? Gaining sovereigns from fulfilling supply and demand tasks, or simply grabbing a bargain and selling for a higher price at another port. It will take up storage space on the journey back though.
However, in for a penny, one may suppose.
Do I choose to blackmail someone who’s been cheating a prominent figure at a major city or do the right thing and simply turn them in? The prominent figure in question here, being a demon of sorts so on that notion, would they do the same for me….?
From the roll of a dice to determine how my story is written to deciding whether or not I should bring an alien egg aboard my locomotive. Gambling on things best you can and using intuition is more or less a constant in the game.
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It’s easy to sit back and look at the universe that’s been created here as a bizarre concoction of influences from fantastical literature. Feeling the dank dark gothic surroundings of Lovecraft. The quirky off-the-wall characters and scenarios of Lewis Carroll and L. Frank Baum to hints of Clive Barker-esque supernatural horror. The world in which we chug across in our space train grasps hold of the subject of exploring the complete unknown and has an absolute field day with what it’s presented us with, and continues to present us with.
Being as the title is currently in Early Access it’s interesting to see where things go with the next two areas that are yet to be added. I wouldn’t personally yearn for it to get any more varied thematically but, being as each of the current areas especially The Reach almost feel like the result of a giant scientists petri-dish left out of the chiller, who knows what we may come across.
On a more technical note, I experienced a few game crashes and menu navigation problems. More than I would’ve thought at this point but then it’s not an off-putting aspect for me personally. Especially when one can appreciate the level of imagination and skill that has gone into creating a substantial piece of art like Sunless Skies.
Each person you come across really does have their own pulse and poignant personality. Sections of text whether they be formality based or narrative driven carry tone and character that they really don’t need to, but thankfully do. Bringing the descriptive beauty of what literature itself can only bring, I felt a picture was painted very vividly in my mind of each area and individual that I came across. With a title that is so heavily menu and text based in regard to each of its locales inner workings, it’s a real treat to be able to have a town for instance, so clearly defined and understandable. Quite the achievement giving the overly assorted nature of the world.
Trust those who govern us. Trust them to have your best interests at heart. Alternatively, trust them not to.
Capitalism is taken to the n'th degree here, and showing how much of a sweeping monopoly those in charge (in this case The Queen) have over an economy is almost parodied in Sunless Skies. Time itself is the precious mineral and commodity that businesses, prospectors and even backstreet dealers seek to own in abundance.
Adding an almost Pratchett charm to the games makeup, her Enduring Majesty has conquered the sun and replaced it with a clockwork one. That celestial body that is of course the basis of time itself has been overthrown and a mechanical replacement looms as a frightening and also noxious solar golem of sorts, in the heavens.
The sunlight here can, if one is exposed for too long, vitrify flesh and bone itself.
The vulgar display of power that comes from attempting to replace something as omnipotent as a star is captured quaintly in the games narrative, which tells us "You risk a look at the clockwork sun, it is the gold of toffee wrappers, not of fire".
Taking an extremely dynamic role in the game - time, or ‘hours’ as it’s known is obtained by being mined out of rock. We come across the newly sought after mineral in its unseasoned geode form inside asteroids, mountains or even traded by someone at a port. It then goes through a refinement process at a work-world, the game’s larger version of a workhouse. Here, as the game tells us, “The debtors, the poor and the sick, are put to use”. They are then sent shipped off to her Renewed Majesty - Empress Victoria, whom herself sits on what’s known as 'The Throne of Hours'.
Aside from being a form of currency, it can be infused into a locomotives engine to enable a sort of hyper-leap to and from the Reach. Manipulated into causing a criminals prison sentence to operate outside the realms of a free persons time-frame and, if one is very much in her majesties favour, used to completely cease a person’s ageing at all. Allowing them to live each day as preserved as they were, the day that they started.
Painting a monetary value on almost anything one comes across, we are able to trade Tales of Terror, Visions of the Heavens, and even someone’s soul. Then there are the more everyday items such as seeds, textiles and tea.
Of course. This is London, you know.
Although Sunless Skies conveys in a lot of ways, a traditionally regal tone and a quintessentially British feel, there’s no denying the Wild-West frontier aspect to the experience. From its score, to the ever charming sound of a steam train. From the desperation of fortune seekers in the hills and the mountains to the cliqueness of certain towns of which one can easily wear out one’s welcome.
In its current form, the only ambition available at the start of the game is 'wealth'. The straightforward object of earning enough to live a comfortable life and retire with a house and servants.
It’ll be interesting to see which ambitions will be added as the game expands. Playing in its Early Access state almost seems quite fitting with a title that sees us constantly traversing numerous in-progress towns and cities and a lot of the time unchartered territories.
I really did feel as though my adventure is very much in my own hands. Be it one of outlaw, adopting the dog eat dog methodology. One of Bureaucrat, bowing to the will of The Queen and assisting in her own Manifest Destiny across the stars.
Or perhaps, just one that sits somewhere... comfortably in-between.
- By OuttaSite
