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SUNLESS SKIES

Plattform: PC Veröffentlicht: 31.01.2019

22,99€

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Preis Update 16.09.23

Sunless Skies is a Gothic Horror roleplay game with a focus on exploration and exquisite storytelling.

Command a flying steam locomotive
The only thing between you and the waste-winds, storms and cosmic lightning is your engine. Tend and upgrade it, buy weaponry and exotic equipment, and keep her hull in good shape to hold the hostile Heavens at bay.

Explore a unique and dangerous universe
You play the captain of a locomotive, a steam engine fitted for off-rail travel: sailing the stars, leading your crew into trouble and out of their minds. Smuggle souls, barter for crates of time, stop for cricket and a cup of tea.

Discover more of the deep, dark and marvellous Fallen London Universe, as seen in our previous game, SUNLESS SEA. (You can play either game first, the stories coexist happily.)

Fight her majesty's agents, pirates and abominations of the skies
Face ships of differing factions and unknowable beasts each with different attacks and agendas.

Survive starvation, madness and terror.
Manage your crew’s condition and your captain’s nightmares. Balance fuel and supplies against your desire for new horizons, knowledge or riches. Struggle with sights never meant for human eyes. How will the dark change you?

Recruit officers on your adventures
Populate your ship with unique, upgradeable officers, each with their own quest to fulfill: an incautious driver, an incognito princess, a repentant devil, and - dear god! - your Aunt?! How did she get out here?

Discover your captain’s past through narrative levelling
Reveal your captain’s past deeds as facets of their personality as you progress. Most captains will perish, but their actions will leave a mark on the world for their descendants - for better or worse. Pass on some effects, and return anew to deal with events that your previous captain put into motion.

THE WORLD

The High Wilderness is a wondrous vision of space: shifting, wind-swept ruins where the laws of the cosmos are not as we imagined.
The stars are alive. They are the Judgements: vast intelligences that govern all things. But they are dying. One by one, something is snuffing them out, leaving their thrones empty.

Unfettered by trivial things like gravity, the Victorian Empire have pushed their tendrils into this new world, and their ambition is savage. They have built a new Sun. The Empress Victoria reigns from the Throne of Hours, which gives her control over time.

Your Captain and crew must carve out a life between the stars. Will you support her majesty and the establishment, or the working class rebels who yearn for freedom from the Workworlds?

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CPU: Intel Pentium 2Ghz or AMD equivalent
GFX: DX9 (shader model 3.0) or DX11 with feature level 9.3 capabilities
RAM: 4 GB RAM
Software: Windows 7
HD: 4500 MB verfügbarer Speicherplatz
SFX: DirectX 9.0c compatible
LANG: Englisch

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Deutsch (1)
Englisch (116)

124 Produkte im Account

18 Reviews

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215 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.01.22 15:35

Wer gerne liest, mag hier richtig sein. Hohe Frustrationstoleranz ist auch erforderlich.

405 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

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1117 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.05.22 02:10

Play Sunless Seas instead. I can't really recommend it when my only interest in it is because Sunless Seas was really good.

266 Produkte im Account

31 Reviews

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1895 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.04.22 18:41

I don't know how you make cosmic horror so boring.

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3307 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.04.22 11:01

Gorgeously written. Book-readers will enjoy!

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11753 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.04.22 23:44

This is the most enchanting, amazing, and interesting game I have ever played with a world just as incredible. This creativity, music, scenery, and overall feeling is truly unmatched. Sunless Skies revolves around reading, but that won't be a problem if you enjoy books or good stories, as this game's story is out of this world. I have played dozens of games, and this one is by far my favorite. Thanks to the developers for creating something that has brought me so much joy and captivated my imagination so thoroughly! I can't wait to play Sunless Seas.
I'd bet you will enjoy it as well :)
Overall: 10/10-amazing game play, music, sound effects, and story.

286 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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3427 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.03.22 03:16

The review from Mandalore convinced me to pick this up, and I'm very glad I did.

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584 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.03.22 16:40

lose yourself, find the british... or something along those lines

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23 Reviews

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1703 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.03.22 20:29

This game and its setting is an absolute joy to lose yourself in, I can't recommend it enough if you're the type who's into Victorian aesthetics, aeronautical hijinks, and lack of gender.

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66 Reviews

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1546 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.02.22 23:39

+ beautiful visuals
+ optional random encounters when in the sky
+ more hold space, so I actually could buy stuff at ports even on the basic ship
+ stuff that was good in Sunless Sea can be found here as well... except for what I am going to point out below:

+/- more forgiving economy at the cost of simplification - the strategy is to buy low and sell high. Literally - you always check the the port has a sale on something and generally buy it if it has, store it in your bank at a major port and when take it out of the (limitless) bank vault when you get a quest to deliver it for massive gains. That's pretty much the economy. The only issue is getting the seed cash for it at the beginning of the game
+/- battle mechanics are more engaging and dynamic mostly thanks to the addition of strafing, but at the same time the hotkey with all the usable weapons/items was taken resulting in less choices
+/- quantity over quality in terms of stories and worldbuilding. Don't get me wrong, the writing isn't bad, but it seemed worse. More focus on politics than exploration and discovery could be a factor of why it felt that way
+/- companions - ok I guess. There were some quirky ones I met and even finished questlines for, but it again seemed like a case of quantity over quality

- world is split into four round areas, with a single entry point to each (except the starting middle one, which has three). It feels awful - takes away from the vastness that the Zee had in the predecessor and the long voyages you could do. Here each sector has 6-8 ports to visit so you first explore to find the ports then make a couple of rounds through them to make money and do companion quests and then go to the next sector. And then the next. Well, first you go back to the first sector and make another round or two again to complete quests of course... The Zee had to die for this?
- does not respect my time. Flying is slow. Upgrades aren't enough and are very expensive. And you do have to get the funds somehow so you have to make the same routes multiple times
- labyrinthine (in some cases) level design
- I played it for longer than the predecessor and it felt I discovered less interesting stuff. Partly because some the lore was reused, but still...
- ports felt more generic for the most part. It felt like most of them had some way of reducing terror. They always sell either fuel or supplies, sometimes both. Always at the same prices
- the world felt more explored and conquered with most threats in the sky being airships and ports themselves being civilized

It's not an improvement overall and it's too time consuming (for what fun it provides) for me to finish. I stopped after doing many rounds in two sectors and slightly exploring the next two.

395 Produkte im Account

10 Reviews

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7648 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.02.22 20:36

Much more interactive, intuitive, and beginner-friendly than its soggier older brother. Skies is packed with just as much style and soul as Sea, though the atmosphere is noticeably different. Pun completely intended.

1498 Produkte im Account

19 Reviews

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11735 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.02.22 23:13

An okayish successor to Sunless Sea.

Pros, but Cons:

Has 4 times larger world as the Sunless Sea, but has only aound 30% player engagemant in the world. Even on hardest (classic) difficulty you'd be mostly just cruising through empty space.
Has more dynamic combat mechanics, but no bosses to test it against (I remember you, Mt. Nomad and The Tree of Ages).
The storylines start less abrupt and are mostly explained in-game, but a lot of loose ends and the air of mystery is gone.
Good character diversity, but most of them feel like token minorities.
Nice levelling system, but succeeding with the skillcheck is always good for the character. The eldrich Sunless Sea feeling, when you don't know if its better to succeed or fail the skillcheck is gone.

Generally. a much easier and slightly more boring game than Sunless Sea, but a good game in general.

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14 Reviews

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14616 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 11.02.22 14:34

Great successor to Sunless Sea, more polished, more balanced, more engaging.

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4 Reviews

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6244 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.02.22 09:09

If you like atmospheric exploration games, this ones pretty rad.

58 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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1545 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.02.22 00:42

So, Sunless Skies. I was actually entranced by the music of the game, and having played Sunless Sea beforehand, I was intrigued by the game. I'll list notes by category.

Graphics : One of the game's strongest points. Backgrounds are really pretty, intricate and lovingly animated. You start in a wilderness region, which is nice and yet varied, and then you get into Steampunk Flying London which is another experience entirely.

Music : Very good. It's predecessor would easily be in the top 10 video game soundtracks (maybe even top 5) of all time for me, and Sunless Skies delivers. I however find it too scarce. Ambient noises are on point too, you feel your engine's gears.

Story : Can't really judge so early, but so far I like it. It's multifaceted and developed, with a few smart references here and there. I've been in Albion, but the first region seemed a bit empty.

Gameplay : The game's weakest point - though again, the Sunless games have been more like choose your own adventure books in the guise of games, so that's to be expected. Combat is *okay* but it's a basically a simple arcade-y shooting game. It also gets a little repetitive and your engine is slow. Like, really slow. Speed up the travel times with Cheat Engine especially when doing trade runs. Yeah the backgrounds are really pretty but when you're no longer exploring, it gets old quickly. I didn't felt the slowness problem in Sunless Sea, maybe because it was a sea and you could go from a straight line (mostly) from point A to point B. Combat is not too hard, but if something sprouts tentacles and you're in the first engine, avoid. Though it is noticeably less grindy than Sunlesss Sea.

I also do not like the legacy capitain mechanics. It's a little weird on a story based game that accidentally dying resets your entire story (but you keep SOME story elements) and is somewhat merciful in term of losing money and such.

Also - the facet mechanic is disappointing imo. Yeah, sure, it's a good way to introduce flavor into a leveling up system. But it doesn't really change your choices at all. Your facets do not change gameplay. They keep being samey after you go through a few capitains. It's flavor but only skin deep, unless your character creation choices which matter a little bit more. It's essentially only a more flavorful level up screen. I'd rather have like, succeeding at stats give you stat training. Also, stats do not matter as much as Sea which is a shame. They mostly matter for rolls and equipment locks (which are usually unfortunate)

So compared to Sunless Sea :

+better presentation
+better trade system
+better combat
+less grindy (though still a bit...)
-less good stat and level up system
-really slow pace, lots of wandering around doing not much until you reach the good parts.

I think it's better than the previous one, so I'll have a recommendation. I like the game so far, though it has flaws. I'll rework that review if needed.

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2 Reviews

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4766 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.01.22 20:56

if you like story and exploring this game is for you. also trains

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12 Reviews

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3506 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.01.22 02:20

I just can't stop playing this. Failbetter Games combined a beautiful 2D exploration game and a Lovecraftian text adventure to make a captivating RPG that feels cohesive and polished. Furthermore, Sunless Skies has a magnificent soundtrack to make the experience as good as it can be. I highly recommend this game, it's truly a work of art.

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1 Reviews

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10257 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.01.22 01:10

I’ll preface by saying that, despite the fact my final verdict is Not Recommended, I by no means think Skies is a bad game. It’s also not a good game, despite it having some decent writing, phenomenal visuals and a good soundtrack. It’s only flaw is in not being a worthy sequel to Sunless Sea. As Steam doesn’t allow Mixed reviews, Negative will have to do.

Good
Visuals:
Despite me preferring the mix of dark green, blue and black of Sunless Sea, I have to concede Skies beats it in that department. Starting in the Reach immediately sets it apart from Seas visually and also signals the increased production values. However, this level of quality is only present in the third region Eleutheria, as Albion and the Blue Kingdom are more drab in terms of colours.

Soundtrack:
Seas is sadly better in this area. While definitely not bad, the soundtrack of Skies mostly only does it’s job, whereas with Seas there’s a couple of the tracks that i listen to regularly.

Bad
Economy:
One of the fundamental step-backs in terms of design was the reduction of types of trade goods. While I understand the criticism of some players that the first game had overly tight profit margins and an excessive amount of goods to keep track of, part of the fun in Seas was exactly in learning the best trade routes and planning your trip according to what stories you wanted to advance in conjunction with how many supplies you could afford.
The sparse amount of trade good in Skies, coupled with the fact each station only sells one type of commodity, supplies and fuel at the exact same price you can buy or sell them at the Home Port means that type of calculation isn’t possible or needed anymore. The Bargains and Prospects system is fun, but it’s overly profitable and it can’t replace the Seas trade routes in complexity, meaning you aren’t required to pay the same type of attention to the world as you had to in Seas.
Furthermore, every station report is now worth the same irregardless of where you got it from, be it from the inner or the outermost ring of stations, and in turn the economy of the game is trivial because of it. There’s overall too much money that can be made from very little work put in, and that cheapens the experience.

Map Design:
Despite me being a fan of the different region aesthetics in Skies, the change to individual regions worsened the game design. Every time I received a quest that required me to change regions all I thought was how much I hated having to haul myself to the travel gate.
The layout of the regions themselves isn’t good either, especially the Reach and Eleutheria, which are too labyrinthine. The fact each of the regions has a Home Station is also bad, since instead of them each having as much stuff to do as there was in London, they all feel lacking.
The ideal would have been to remain with a rectangular map with London as the westernmost point to return to, while the other 3 stations could have remained major stations.

Combat:
Despite the fact Skies combat is better than in Seas, the existence of the heat mechanic brings it down in quality. A much better alternative would have been adding simple cooldowns like in Seas, with weapons having different cooldowns depending on the type and quality, and dodges being limited to two or three, each being recovered every 4-5 second. Instead, you’re left with a mechanic that incentivizes fighting one on one and unloading onto a single enemy, making anything other than that much harder than it should be for a space game.
As far as enemies go, there’s a distinct lack of neutral vessels, being traders or civilian vessels, but at least there’s a much healthier variety in terms of wildlife in comparison to Seas. Likewise for weapons, although I miss the stagger effects you could inflict in Seas.

Storytelling and Roleplaying:
As far as this goes, Skies is unanimously worse. The High Wilderness feels especially lacking in comparison to the Neath, although that’s perhaps to be expected since the Neath has years of lore written into it. The Ambitions this time around, and by that I mean Truth and Martyr’s King, are much less interesting than either Immortality(despite the fact that’s an add-on) and the Carnelian Exile’s quest. Most of the stories are barely worth remembering, although I can’t exactly say they’re poorly written, they’re simply not interesting.
Roleplay wise, there’s a couple of good ideas here that could have been better used. The Facets system is great on paper, but the imposition of level restrictions on weapons and modules and how tedious grinding for XP is makes the system obnoxious as a whole. Affiliations are something that could have been well used in a more proper RPG, except there’s barely interplay between factions and the player, somehow even less than in Seas. My personal suggestion would have been to cut out Facets and to use Affiliations as a way to level up the player character, by unlocking trainers that would use resources to increase stats and buy permanent stat books like the ones that existed in Seas.

Closing
As I’m well aware there were problems during production, I can excuse the lack of content overall, but even then, a good amount of the game decisions amounted to reducing the difficulty, which is understandable, since that was a complaint people had. However, that was the cost of removing most of what made Seas unique. Fundamentally, it’s not a bad game, but it pales in comparison to Sunless Sea

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1 Reviews

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559 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.01.22 11:01

Whislt punishing it is by no means as harsh as it's predecessor. Sunless sea has an expert blend of gaslamp fantasy, steampunk and lovecraftian horror down to a T.

215 Produkte im Account

37 Reviews

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409 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.01.22 13:54

The sort of game you play after taking a warm bath at 8:30 PM

195 Produkte im Account

27 Reviews

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1695 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.12.21 07:44

this appeals to every type of autism
-trains
-numbers
-british

10/10

268 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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3389 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 31.12.21 05:39

A superb blending of science fiction, steampunk, gothic and cosmic horror. With masterful world building and storytelling, this game manages to horrify, captivate and intrigue all at once. Travelling between the stars in a flying locomotive, fighting pirates, revolutionaries and the forces of the British Empire all while exploring the darkest corners of space, both known and unknown, and delving into even darker and more macabre mysteries which might just be better left unknown. This is a merciless world where a thousand deaths await the incautious or foolhardy among the stars, and you'll want to experience them all.

43 Produkte im Account

1 Reviews

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1893 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 17.12.21 16:32

I'm bad at describing stuff but itsa good game

63 Produkte im Account

7 Reviews

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3372 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.12.21 20:41

I'm an aerospace engineering student and this game was good enough to consistently suspend my disbelief at flying space trains.

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22 Reviews

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3540 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.12.21 23:10

Literally the most stressful game I have ever played

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9 Reviews

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798 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.11.21 05:50

This is a very good story. It is not a good game. The writing is wonderful, easily some of the best in gaming. The music is great. The art is engaging. But the game design just doesn't work. It demands far too much of your time, and drip feeds its masterful story in a very unsatisfying way. If this was just prevented as a visual novel, or in a way more similar cultist simulator I'd love it. That's not the case unfortunately.

Everything moves at an agonizingly glacial pace. It takes minutes to get from one destination to another, and there are very very few ways to speed this up. Even still, adding quality of life as a reward you have to grind for is really really lame. Yes, there are combat encounters between destinations, these are rarely difficult in a meaningful sense, and are often either trivially easy or ridiculously unfair. The combat is not that fun to engage with. While there are events to interrupt the drudgery of this, you eventually realize that most of your time is spent grinding away at mechanics (clicking through dialogues you've read before, earning money by trading, etc), that just aren't fun and do nothing to serve the story or overall experience. Some quests are oddly opaque. Progressing in others requires you to plan your entire character around achieving one specific thing, and not making any mistakes along the way.

There are many tutorials online for how to use cheat engine to speed up your game. I did this myself, and it makes the game feel even more unplayable at regular speed. Even with cheating, it's just so difficult to engage with the game's story when it's buried under mediocre mechanics.

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24 Reviews

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1221 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.11.21 00:42

I can't recommend this game. The gameplay is just way too slow. They've kind of set this up to be a roguelike, but there's no replayability as far as I can tell, just grinding through the stuff you've already done, and that grinding is extremely tedious because it takes your ship forever to fly across the map (and you have to pay attention the whole time because enemies could appear and end your game if you're not watching).

It's almost easy enough to never die, and with save scumming you can ensure you never die, but even with that the game is extremely tedious.

It would be much better if you could at least see quests on the map to make route planning easier, but all of your destinations are in a dense quest log and it's a total pain in the ass to try to plan an efficient route around the map, so I usually just end up going in circles between the cities seeing if I can advance any quests while I'm there.

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10 Reviews

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4049 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.11.21 20:35

It's good but too much time spent travelling.

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2438 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.11.21 22:54

What you might enjoy:
Eye candy, really f*cking beautiful environments
Ear candy, sound design that rivals movie production studios
Writing, the game has really nice imagery and writing overall, the dialogue sets the tone for the era
Exploring, encountering novel areas can be truly awe inspiring
Weirdness, there is a lot strange stuff compared to our wold, and the game doesn't hold your hand to explain it

What you might be indifferent to:
The combat, the combat is decent, the enemies are varied enough to not be repetitive, but its nothing special
Hauling, taking contracts and going from port to port can expose you to the world, and that can be cool but it is basically just a fetch quest, even if you have cruise control
The history: sunless skies takes place in the same universe as sunless seas, but later, you don't need to play the first game to enjoy this one so it only really effects people who played the first one

What you might dislike:
The vocabulary, to some the more complex language could be a pain to read and you might not enjoy the story as much
The factions motivations, the factions don't have fleshed out ideals and or motivations, ie: the tacketies want the reach to be independent and the stovepipes don't, thats it
The lack of voices, there is not a single voice over in the whole game to my knowledge
The strange: some people might not like all the weird happenings without explanation and can suspend their disbelief only for a little

The might part is because what one person enjoys is not what everyone enjoys
All in all I adore sunless skies but its not for everyone

106 Produkte im Account

24 Reviews

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70191 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.11.21 21:16

Over 1 thousand hours, this game helped me through depression

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79 Reviews

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1202 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.11.21 23:31

I'm not entirely sure how I managed to play this for 20 hours, it became a chore to play almost immediately, perhaps I just loved 'Sunless Sea' that much that I just kept waiting for this one to 'click'.

It never did and I'm finally giving up on it. Thank god.

It's quite difficult to put a finger on why this is so dull and lifeless compared to 'Sunless Sea'. Is it the setting? Is the Sky just not as interesting as the Zea? Is it the writing? is it just too much of the same gameplay?

Perhaps it is a bit of all of these things. Still, I can't help but feel that the writing is the main offender here. In 'Sunless Sea' I never felt the dialogue and storytelling was pretentious per say, most of the game is text so one could certainly understand making an effort in that department. 'Sunless Skies' however seems to decide that eating a dictionary is the route to success. It's like reading the most bloody overwrought book ever.

Anyway, you reap what you sow. From what I can tell this was not the success they had hoped for and has presumably set them back in terms of making more content/new projects. Missteps were clearly made from the previous game which set such a high standard. Such a shame because I adored 'Sunless Sea'. Fingers crossed they can get their act together on whatever they do next.

49 Produkte im Account

8 Reviews

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1178 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.11.21 17:46

It feels interesting and exciting at first, and the writing is quite good. But once you're a fair bit into the game, you'll start to realize you spend most of your time travelling between two points at a VERY SLOW pace. If the game had a speed toggle that would speed it up x2-3 times that you could switch on during the boring bits, it would be a much better game. But as it stands, travelling in this game is much too slow and you'll end up spending way too much real time doing nothing much.

After playing another 8 hours or so, I have to say the game doesn't get any better - it's short moments of excitement punctuated by very long periods of boredom. Everything that happens in this game happens very slowly, any plot threads take ages to resolve. In the end, I just don't care anymore - not about the plot, or any of the characters. Which is a shame, because there is an ok game in there, it's just buried under a mountain of crud and bad game design choices.

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590 Reviews

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590 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.10.21 18:55

Post-apocalyptic Victorian adventure novel set within a mission driven combat-lite exploration game.

+ Well composed and atmospheric environment, rife with pathetic fallacy.
+ The stories are rich and diverse, tempting you ever onward.
+ Combat puzzles have some diversity and are a fun aside.

- Fairly regular stuttering when loading new scenes can break immersion.
- Some UX issues and missing quality of life conveniences.
- Combat AI is relatively immature, leading to common glitches.

If you enjoyed Frostpunk’s theme, Windward’s gameplay or Darkest Dungeon’s storytelling, then this is worth picking up

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15 Reviews

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3272 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.09.21 10:44

A really unique game and extremely addicting.

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231 Reviews

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317 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.09.21 10:06

I heard this game is dark. That is technically true. I was expecting dark like Lovecraft or Orwell, but instead, this game is dark like working a part-time job at Wendy's while living in a major city. You go through some motions, don't get anywhere, spend more money on food and fuel than you actually make, and slowly lose your sanity. It is a game that truly inspires existential dread, but not in the way the developers meant it to.

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9326 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.09.21 21:51

Absolutely superb game. I love flying a train back and forth and I will never stop. Incredibly spooky atmosphere and compelling story tidbits that you slowly unravel. I have at present almost entirely explored 3/4 maps and I'm so excited to go to the Blue Kingdom eventually. Fantastic job!

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2 Reviews

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3920 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.09.21 11:29

Step away from competitive shooter and toxic teammates. Enjoy the skies in your luxurious locomotive.

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29 Reviews

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7871 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.08.21 17:52

A sense, need, or desire of exploration is a must for this game. Just a heads up.

The game is mechanically fantastic if you're into these sort of games, though it's definitely much more forgiving than seas. The only issue is their insistence on limiting your speed to such a piddly amount. After 90 hours, when you've discovered every location, it would be nice to go faster than 150 percent. (I only recently got the Devourer of Distance after writing this. This engine increases your speed to 170, it's fantastic.)

The story and writing is fantastic, but here's where my only other issue comes up. Maybe I'm just old? Maybe I'm just a bigot (though I don't think so), but is this what people like these days? This weird pseudo wokeness where 90 percent of characters in positions of power are women, and they are also flawless? The king of Pan? A warrior woman. The top engineer at the mechanical sun? Woman. Top engineer at the royal society? Woman. All three of your chief engineers are either a woman, a rat woman, or a gender non-descript, the face for the Tacketies? Woman. Face for the company? Gender non-descript. Leaders of BOTH revolutionary options (one in Albion, the other in Eleutheria) are women.

The only sexist in the game is a woman, who glibly remarks that New Winchester is full of men who THINK they are engineers. But of course they can't be, because they have the wrong genitalia. It's also such a weird comment in a world that has equal rights for men and women? Surely there must also be women who simply THINK they are engineers and aren't actually that good at it. The person building the gate between Eleutheria and Albion? A woman. Men simply don't do things in this game unless they fail or are evil, or their gender is in question, or they are subservient to a woman.

Maybe the internet has rotted my brain, but I don't remember Seas being like this at all.
Anyway after that long winded rant about nonsense... the game is definitely worth it. Just realize what you're going into it. It's their game of course, it's their right to make it however they want. But I also get to make observations about the things they do.

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13 Reviews

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3913 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.08.21 17:21

things you can do in this game:
- sabotage the british empire
- steal honey from space bees
- have your flying train torn in half by angry space bees
- be fucked by a giant nonbinary space bat to help them unravel the secrets of life
- fly into the sun and get turned into glass
- fly into a different sun and get vaporized for trying to learn the secrets of the kingdom of the dead
- fly into a black hole and be forced to put on a play by the thing living inside it
- lead a rebellion and help undermine the prison industrial complex
- learn the secrets of the universe
- trans your gender at a party in the middle of space
- perform as a clown in the circus
- join a cult
- join several cults
- receive mental healthcare from demons
- receive mental healthcare from wizards
- smuggle escaped slaves to freedom
- write a book about the time you had every major space deity trying to kill you at once
- have a jolly party with your crew to make them less stressed out about how you just harvested some alien parasites to build a cannon out of
- pledge your memories and life force to the cause of blowing up all the suns (the ethically correct option believe it or not)
- try to blow up the sun
- flee london after trying to blow up the sun while being shot by the secret police because you tried to blow up the sun

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4 Reviews

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3815 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.08.21 21:23

THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN

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18 Reviews

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942 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.08.21 22:40

SPACE TRAINS AND ELDRITCH HORRORS, need i say more?
if youre not a fan of reading skip this one. but if you like trains, space or lovecraftian shit, get this.

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21 Reviews

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534 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.08.21 17:27

Train go
Chu chu
Bang bang

*You eat a crew member because you forgotten to buy supplyat the dock.*

Chu chu!

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1 Reviews

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1242 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.07.21 23:32

Some of the best writing in any game ever

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1 Reviews

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6760 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.07.21 01:03

If you liked Sunless Sea you will like this because its more of what you love plus major quality of life improvements. If you didn't like Sunless Sea you may still like this because of the faster paced story, improved economy and much improved combat

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17 Reviews

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6974 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.07.21 13:38

I don't want say that everyone should play this game, because this is definitely not a game for everyone, but more people should play this game.

Comparisons to Failbetter's previous game, Sunless Sea, are somewhat unavoidable, if only because there are so few games like these, and even fewer with writing that is half as good as it is in these games, but I do want to stress that Skies is not a sequel and you don't need to have played Sunless Sea or Fallen London to enjoy it - so if you're intrigued by this game I definitely recommend trying it out, especially since the Sovereign update to the game made lots of quality of life improvements.

Sunless Skies throws you into a strange, hostile world and lets you slowly lose yourself in it. Each port you stop at, each character you encounter has a story to tell: sometimes hilarious, mostly horrifying, and pretty much always extremely well-written. It's a must-play for anyone who enjoys reading in games.

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57 Reviews

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3808 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.07.21 17:14

Lots of reading involved so if that's not your thing you should steer clear. Neat offbeat humor- for example my crew includes An Inadvisably Large Dog, a Gerbil with a Jetpack, Someone's Aunt, and many other fun people. Some people say they don't like the combat- I tend to like it quite a bit. Quite a few different weapon options (and you find more and more as the game goes on) from rapid-fire low-damage weapons to large AoE Explosives. You might have to repeat some quests when a captain dies, as you start from the beginning with many of the World States reverting back, but other choices you make are more lasting. And each captain gives you a chance to make a drastically different character. I had a priest, a combat vet, and a few others and your choices both from initial creation and from your leveling up come into play a lot. My priest had quest options and other things that my ex-soldier did not. My ex-soldier recognized places that none of my other captains did.

I personally loved Sunless Seas and love Sunless Skies just as much. Finding the Clockwork Sun was absolutely great and I've devoted a lot of time to improving it. Think Lovecraft Steampunk with dry british humor.

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15 Reviews

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3034 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.07.21 23:24

I gave Sunless Sea a try and enjoyed it but couldn't quite get into it. I liked it enough to try Sunless Skies, which (and I know I'm in the minority here) is much better. The goals are more clearly-defined, the resource management feels more fun, the combat feels more intuitive, the world feels bigger and more put together. Even the writing feels sharper. The developers improved upon it in almost every way. If you liked Sunless Sea, play this. If you didn't like Sunless Sea, I encourage you to try this. And if you haven't played Sunless Sea, but you like horror and LOTS of witty dialogue, play this (and Sunless Sea as well I suppose.)

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3 Reviews

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2323 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.07.21 09:10

If fyrefly was a surrealist painting and if god hated you. This is that game.

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99 Reviews

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1699 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.07.21 16:31

This game is okay i guess, but i like their first game Sunless Sea much better. If your really loved Sunless Sea, this is more of the same. More polished than Sunless Sea in some ways, but less fun to play overall.

If you have not played Sunless Sea and this game looks interesting to you, go play that instead.

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50 Reviews

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2001 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.07.21 04:59

A conditional Buy on the premise that there is currently no other similar game to Sunless Sea

But when compared directly to it's predecessor, the primary selling point is diluted, and that is indisputably the atmospheric dread.

The creeping fear of a desperate voyage in Sunless Sea is replaced with a fantastical saunter through the bright skies instead.

The Lovecraftian horror is missing. The mystical and disturbing storylets are gone. The more complex location-stories are halved in length.

The grind is dramatically improved in this sequel though.

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10 Reviews

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2078 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.07.21 06:35

E SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN TH

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86 Reviews

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5332 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.06.21 13:40

As expected, the writing is absolutely top-notch. When I first started the game, I was a little disappointed that the story didn't follow on more directly from Sunless Seas. But as I played more and more, I came to appreciate the Skies story in its own right.

The gameplay is mostly improved - The combat is more active, there are more viable locomotive builds, and the pacing of upgrading your captain and crew is much more even. I did find the menus to be a lot slower than the predecessors, but they get the job done.

I had only one game freeze in 88+ hours and only occasionally saw minor graphical tearing (or was it just an unravelling of time?). Despite not being a genre I'd usually play, this game has guaranteed I will end up buying the next Failbetter game.

Hope these guys make many more games with many more rich and exciting stories.

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37 Reviews

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33 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.06.21 08:44

the hit sequel to boat,

train

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2 Reviews

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4359 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.06.21 14:25

I enjoy this game immensely when I'm looking for a roguelike. I still prefer the gameplay of Sunless Seas in a general sense, but the story of Sunless skies is refreshingly different yet stylistically similar to the previous title.

Frankly, on initial release it was disappointing compared to Seas. The improvements since then and with Sovereign edition have made up the difference. It's pacing is the biggest issue at times, but it is a game about adventure and sometimes adventures are arduous and tedious. When you do reach a milestone and meet an objective you set for yourself it feels refreshing and gets you set for the next journey into the dark.

I recommend it, but you need to know what you're going into first. It's a slow-paced, story driven, adventure roguelike in a fascinatingly absurd victorian, steampunk, gothic horror. I will always recommend you play Sunless Seas before you play this though.

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7 Reviews

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3106 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.06.21 12:52

How you will enjoy Sunless Skies somewhat depends on how you've enjoyed Sunless Seas. The gameplay, artwork and soundtrack are all improved, and there is a lot more to do than in the previous game, but the core issues are still abundant.

Combat is sticky and unfun. A single misstep could be the difference between destroying a sea-monster unscathed and getting killed by a bee. The overheating mechanic means that you constantly need to stop or run away or risk getting damaged. At least in the previous game there were ways to shorten cooldown, and it effected enemies as much as you.

Exploration in this game is the main motivation. It's fun and exciting to find a new location and finding out its secrets. Even if you know the mechanics of the game, it could easily take 20 hours to find all the ports in the game. Unfortunately, while you're exploring, it's easy get stuck and need to grind to move the game forwards.

You can also die quite easily. On that note, I should say that the rogue-like elements are just as nonsensical as they've been in Sunless Seas. Go with merciful mode right from the start, you can't change it later. When you're ready, finish the game via one of the ambitions and move on to the next captain as a form of new game+. Otherwise, every time you day, it's back to square one.

Overall, though, I do recommend this game. The writing is really top notch and the world is big and complex and full of interesting things to discover. The learning curve is steep, but once you get into it, the experience on the whole is very absorbing.

Pros:
- Beautifully drawn world with plenty to explore
- Some procedurally generated elements make the travel from one point to the next less boring.
- Great writing with plenty of stories to discover
- Excellent soundtrack
- Overall upgrade to nearly every element of Sunless Sea

Cons:

- Combat is sticky and gets annoying quickly
- Rogue-like mode doesn't make sense for this game and you can't change back.
- Too many ways to die that are out of your control.
- Steep learning curve.

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7 Reviews

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705 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.06.21 04:14

Si tienes un buen entendimiento del ingles, altamente recomendado. De no ser el caso, existe una traduccion hecha por fans. No puedo garantizar la calidad de la traduccion, pero el juego en si definitivamente merece la pena.

Es uno de los juegos mejor escritos que he tocado, cada decision teniendo repercusiones muy reales que son transmitidas a travez de la narrativa y la jugabilidad.
De no ser por el muy gameplay, diseñado de una manera muy astuta para reinforzar la narrativa, este juego tal vez fuese otra novela interactiva del monton. Pero este no es el caso, el sistema de supervivencia a travez del manejo de diferente recursos hace que este juego sea extremadamente divertido.

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595 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 09.02.21 00:06

The pen. The ink. The blank.
Monstrous page.

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216 Reviews

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2029 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.02.21 21:27

More than any other, this game oozes personality from the writing to the wonderful graphics to the best fitting soundtrack to the mood of a playthrough. The Fallen London/Sunless universe is one of my favorites and trying to figure out what the heck is going on is a blast, as the narrative is delivered in bits and pieces as a person in the universe might experience it and not as a finely paced story.

The world is much larger than Sunless Seas and many of the minor design annoyances have been cleaned up, though the game does still only get easier as you play and combat is still a little meh on the whole. Still, trading is fantastic, ship upgrades are fun, and the decision making surrounding all of your resource management really helps to pave your own story. There are lots of officers to recruit and gobs of story bits and quests to undertake, enough to keep you engaged for quite a while.

I'd strongly recommend playing with the easiest difficulty settings on your first attempt, as there is no upside to locking yourself out of the choice to reload your game from the last port if you so wish rather than starting over. The game is involved and long and while obtaining the roguelike progression is great, you really don't want the frustration of starting over at the wrong points.

It's a wonderful, unique game that you should experience.

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12 Reviews

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96 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.02.21 17:39

I want to like it, but being so insanely slow while you can't complete any freaking quest because everything costs money before you make money just annoys the crap out of me. At the same time, the amount of things you can do (and the amount of things you seemingly can't do at that time) is staggering. I already notice you'd have to revisit everything all the time with new presets and it's just too much to keep track of. It just feels like you're going from A to B to A again and then B, then maybe C and then redo the entire first part of moving from A to B etc. This game feels like a chore.

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1 Reviews

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3862 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.01.21 00:10

I loved Sunless Skies.
From the dread and fear you feel when approaching a horrific scene in the hollow skies or the immense ecstasy you get when discovering another port your the hour of need.

That said it’s not game I would recommend to everyone.

To be frank it’s a slow game. Really slow (I know sunless skies was worse in this regard but it’s still worth mentioning for this game). If you can’t bring yourself to spend hours of time simply traveling between specific locations to purchase and deliver cargo, I totally get that.
The story and RP elements of the game is really fascinating and strong. For me it was amazing. All of it however is experienced through text so you must spend a lot of time just reading to understand what is going on and pretty much what you are doing. once again, I get if this is not for everyone.
If you can get past this, you will experience an amazing and/or terrifying world.

4 Things I would like to highlight that really stood out to me:
1. The sound design and music are amazing. It connects you to the world in an impressive way and feels so dynamic and fitting to every situation.
2. The art. Everything looks so polished and good. Just staring into the environment or occasionally endless void (or is there something there… not sure… better be careful) is an experience. The layered map design really gives a sense of depth and is so pretty to look at.
3. The story and RP are great. There are so many locations and stories to explore. A few might not be of much importance, but I always felt invested Either due to the location itself or the captivating character you interact with.
4. The exploration. This is the greatest part of Sunless skies in my opinion. From the start of the game you are completely free to do whatever you want. Although you don’t have much time for a main story in the beginning, since you must accumulate recourses, there isn’t much of a “main” story anyways. You simply explore, discover and learn as much as possible about this world and then you are pretty much free to whatever you think is best to advance. This really makes you feel like a captain in a way, my word is the way.
This might however be a curse for the game as well. Judging from the achievements only 1,6% of the players have gotten the “true” ending. You must really want to find out the truth of the game to get closer and you don’t really get help to get there. The game even advices you not to pursue this if you are new (good tip, listen to the game and do not chose the truth ending unless you feel confident in the game). But it’s such a shame to me as the coolest and most dreadful things are found and discovered closer to the endgame.

Well I’ve gone on for too long now but it’s a great game and if you feel like this Sunless Skies could be your cup of tea, I really recommend it.

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2036 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.01.21 22:47

Sunless Skies is a sequel to Sunless Sea, my favorite game of 2013. I played Sunless Sea a lot, and then died. I played it again, repeating some content, and then died again. Then I turned off permadeath. Then I lost my saves, and had to play it again. I did this because of how much I loved but, I did end up playing Sunless Sea a LOT.

I mention this here to explain why I’ll sound a little underwhelmed by Sunless Skies, even though it is a) great and b) better than Sunless Sea. Sunless Skies tales the “don’t fix what’s not broken” approach to sequeldom. This is a good choice, because there wasn’t really anything else like Sunless Sea, but it featured plenty of design decisions that drove otherwise interested players away.

Sunless Skies has a much easier start than its predecessor; significantly increases the player’s speed, so there is much less time where nothing happens: and makes the combat more responsive, and with more depth. It also has a new-and-exciting setting of Outer Space, albeit a very different one than exists in reality. It’s a game I could easily recommend to people, and in the last year it’s received a lot of free updates and polish, so much that I’m not returning to it until the final big update lands in 2021.

So it’s great! But while I played it a good bit, I didn’t obsess over it like I did with Sunless Sea, because I spent SO MUCH TIME sailing between ports and reading excellent gothic steampunk fiction already.

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14 Reviews

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777 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.01.21 23:22

Yog-Sototh is enjoying this game so far. Very cute atmosphere!

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8 Reviews

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487 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.01.21 09:07

I want to like this game, but it won't let me. The art is gorgeous, but the game is dead set on making you see it all again and again.

Death comes easy in Sunless Skies, and it is often nothing but frustrating for several reasons.

It's sort of like a roguelite, as you lose most of what you had, which is normally fine - except this game has a considerable story element which you also lose.

It is frustrating beyond measure. Every time you die, you generally lose half of everything you have, but start over at the very beginning of the game. Every story element is wiped and you have to do all of it over again. This means you're spending hours going to all the same places you've been and clicking through all the same story - again and again.

In the beginning area, the Reach, I have died four times. Once immediately in the beginning due to a learning curve, which is quite fine, but then my second captain lasted quite a while. The moment I began exploring instead of trading among the places I've found I died swiftly due to the 'horror' element - which seems hugely out of place in the starting area as most everything is rather pretty.

Horror generates on its own, and through a small handful of random events that will quickly become repetitive - and hopelessly frustrating as they depend on character stats you may not have taken (don't take Veils - I almost never used it, and when I did it did nothing to help my survival unlike the Hearts or Iron I should have obviously taken).

After eight hours I've simply F4'd after my fourth death. It happened no less than two minutes after my third. I just lost half of the last half I had - I'm literally at the start of the game with my entire playtime amounting to absolutely nothing. I have to do all the story, and gather funds, for a fourth time.

I could adjust the difficulty at this point (but it mostly applies to combat and supplies - which are only a smaller portion of the actual things that can kill you), but honestly I'm so sick of doing the same narrative over again for the fourth time. I simply can't believe that resetting the story is part of a story-driven game that expects you to die often.

Frankly it's absurd and I feel almost betrayed that this game somehow had good enough reviews for me to try it in good faith only to discover that the beautiful forests of the Reach isn't the true horror - it's the relentless deja-vu of seeing the same thing again and again like some narrative prison every time you die.

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11 Reviews

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1233 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.01.21 01:31

Treasure planet with trains and (optional) cannibalism.

Basically, it's a survival+exploration based RPG with a side of eldritch horror.

...and it's kinda Sunless Sea 2. Lots of improvements (unless you liked needing a spredsheet for trade routes).
Travelling is faster, combat is more fluent, menues are easier to navigate, the hand-drawn artwork is gorgeous... and the sound. The SFX and music create an incredible atmosphere.

Some disclaimers though:
The stat minmax requierements can be frustrating, and the game still stutters ocasionally.
The pace of the game can be very slow at times, with setbacks hurting even more. It feels like the game actually only starts in the 2nd area, and the game doesn't incentivise going there ASAP IMO.

[spoiler] Also, don't get this game if you don't like reading [/spoiler]

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22 Reviews

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3777 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 20.01.21 11:28

Nice new spin on explorer trader hunter games

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2853 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.01.21 20:32

Great improvement to Sunless Sea.

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1163 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 27.12.20 20:59

I tried to like this, I liked Sunless Sea but everything in Skies is spaced so far apart and you move so slowly which results in most of your game time travelling through featureless nothingness between ports.

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2301 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.12.20 01:17

It's debatable whether this game has stronger writing than it's predecessor, but as a successor to the Sunless series, it fixes almost all of the gameplay issues that made Sunless sea difficult, combined with an absolutely brilliant setting makes for a fantastic narrative exploration game.

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5 Reviews

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455 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 07.12.20 05:28

Several years ago, I played Fallen London about as far out as it was written at the time, and I loved it.

I've played Sunless Sea for 200+ hours, and I loved that, too.

So I thought I knew what I was getting into with Sunless Skies. Certainly I knew that I would die several times before I really made any progress. And that's happened--I'm about 8 deaths in, and I haven't so much as upgraded my train. I haven't survived long enough to run out of supplies or fuel, nor long enough to have to deal with terror. I haven't survived long enough to make it to the outer rim of the Reach, let alone any of the other domains.

The 'problem' is that there's much more combat than in Sunless Sea. I use the quote marks because I'm aware that'll be considered a good thing by lots of gamers, not a bad thing. But it's a very *different* thing, and different in a way that interferes with what I really enjoy about this universe. There are plenty of combat-heavy games to choose from, but not many games like the previous Failbetter games, and the fact that I keep dying is keeping me from enjoying the exploration and the writing that originally drew me in.

There are some smaller problems as well:

*I haven't really gotten over the fact that the vehicle I'm using for (supposedly) 3D space travel is a vehicle designed for 1D travel, a locomotive. (You do have to expect some oddities in this universe, of course, but...this one didn't work for me.)

*I think the artistic layout is a little confusing. It's not super clear which objects are within your plane of movement (and need to be avoided) and which are above or below, and can be ignored. The light helps, but only once you're fairly close, and the background quickly became more distracting than interesting.

*The economy is really tight. It's like that in Sunless Sea, of course, but Skies pitches trading as a bigger game element. I'm certain that part of the problem is that I just can't survive long enough to make it work, but it bothers me that I can't even rely on port reports the way I could in Seas. (The ports are far enough apart that it's hard to make a meaningful profit by the time you pay for fuel & supplies to get there, and the easiest port to reach (Port Avon) has to be managed carefully or you won't even be able to write one there.) The 'bargains' were promising, but the sources of goods apparently disappear every month or so, meaning you have to find alternative suppliers, which means more exploring...which should be the *point*, of course, but exploring has invariably led me to hostiles (frequently more than one at a time). You start out with a workable Prospect, but if your captain dies after that Prospect times out...well, it's very hard to start out with 32 sovereigns.

*In the Neath, I could manage how much combat I got into via Veils and Mirrors and turning on and off the light. And I could improve my odds in combat by investing in Iron. None of that seems to matter here. (It does apparently control what equipment I can upgrade to, but since I can't get to an operating budget above about 200, that's not very helpful.)

On the plus side:

*The writing remains above average (Titania, Magdalene's, Port Avon) to outstanding (Carillon). I can't comment on the Circus, which I only reached once, with not enough money to buy both tickets and enough fuel to keep sailing, or any other port because I can't survive long enough to reach them.

*I was excited about the leveling up relating back to the character's backstory and *super* excited that those choices would show up as special events and opportunities within the game. (Super bummed that I can't survive long enough to see that play out.)

I'm heading back to the Neath. See you again at the Mask of the Rose.

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2 Reviews

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805 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.11.20 16:34

After finishing Sunless Sea, I thought nothing is going to compare to the story and exciment of discovery. Then the Sunless Skies descended and I was proven wrong. Story is awesome and intricate, gameplay, especially combat, reworked and more friendly and art direction even better. Only thing I miss is the music of the Zee but soundtrack of the Skies is awesome as well. Definitely recommend.

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6 Reviews

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3609 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.11.20 12:50

Sunless Skies, the sequel to the unique and quite popular Sunless Sea, follows the “more of the same, but better”-school of thought. The principles are very much the same: top down travel gameplay, text-based quests with impactful choices, and a general existential horror atmosphere.

Instead of inventing something drastically new, developers Failbetter instead decided to polish the elements that already existed. And they succeed quite well.

Sunless skies smooths out a lot of the more clunky elements of its predecessor. Gameplay is generally quicker: most notable is the faster travels between locations and the more engaging vessel combat now that a strafing option has been added.

The faster gameplay does hamper the horror element a bit, but combat and terror are still very much real threats that can quickly sink even a well-armed, high-levelled captain’s engine very quickly.

The text-based stories presented at locations are, in my opinion, not quite as captivating as the original game. In Sea, I often left a new port even more terrified and confused, but in Skies the locations are a lot more inviting. There is still very much a horror element to them, especially in later stages of the game, but early game ports are almost idyllic sometimes. Still, the different stories and quests are generally easier to follow, giving you nice objectives to chase.

The most important change is the much smoother economic system: Sea often became a trade simulator, as you really had to optimize cargo runs to get money to move forward with certain story aspects, but Skies is much more smoothed out. You rarely need to shift focus from the fun spooky quests in order to plan trade routes. Money gained from exploring, looting and completing quests will keep your engine moving forward just fine.

But is Sunless Skies a good game on its own? Yes, it is. While there are story elements tied to its predecessor, Skies can be played as a standalone game no problem.

Sunless Skies is a good game on its own for those who enjoy slow-burn existential horror in text form, coupled with (still) fairly slow-paced gameplay that can go from a breeze to murder in a single poor encounter. It’s an excellent game to play while listening to podcasts (preferably horror for the added atmosphere) between ports. Once you reach a port, simply pause the podcast while experiencing the mysteries of the game.

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9192 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 28.11.20 12:17

Sunless Sea but with better gameplay and plenty of 'quality of life' improvements.

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92 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.11.20 19:00

Should have been a good game. Seems like they put a lot of thought into it and I love the steampunk atmosphere and artistry. But the fighting mechanics are intensely aggravating and I spent most of my time just floating around trying to find some port that didn't seem to exist. On the other hand it might have, but I could never get there because I kept having to go back to the first port for more supplies. So most of the time I just spent with my finger on the 'W' waiting to get back to town. All in all, it could have been a beautiful and intriguing game but it was ruined by the boring and frustrating gameplay.

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117 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.11.20 12:39

Pick up and deliver game, a very slow, pick up and deliver game.

My first excursion into the unknown had me filled with excitement at what I might find, but this quickly dwindled into boredom as I found a whole lot of nothing. Just incredibly stupid enemies bumping into each other, firing at targets that had already died, and aimlessly moving about. There were lots of named locations that don't actually do anything. There were large stretches of empty space that take agonizing minutes to crawl through. In short, this game is dull.

Combat is a bland top-down shoot em up. You can dodge, you can shoot. It is not particularly exciting. Like most things in the game, it is laborious instead of exciting.

My main problem is just that the majority of the game seems to be going back and forth to places you have already been, picking up and delivering cargo to slowly upgrade your ship. This wouldn't be so bad if it didn't take so long to get to where you wanted to go and didn't consume so many supplies to do so. This requires you to stock up on fuel and supplies which all take up space in your cargo hold, which means you can't transport very much profitable cargo, which means you will have to make many long, slow trips to actually make money. Yay.

The writing is rather good and the art of the world is pretty. However this does not make up for the lack of enjoyable gameplay.

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1032 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.11.20 03:53

A slow, glorified fetch-quest that's not nearly as interesting as the promotional footage suggests. If the obvious missing features don't make you quit, there's lots of grasping for depth and complexity that only achieves shallow pretentiousness. Very disappointing overall.

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3123 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.10.20 14:08

I like talking about a game on its own terms. If you want fast-paced progression, action, and particularly thoughtful combat, this is NOT going to be the title for you. However, what SS lacks in dynamics it more than makes up with the statics: it is a beautiful game, with very flowery prose making up the port and crew interactions, and a grand setting that is sure to excite most Lovecraft, Poe or Eliot junkies out there (there are many more fin-de-sicle and early modern authors that go with this list, but i'm not that much of a specialist). Don't treat this game as more than a very lovely storytelling experience wrapped in economic management and naval(?) fights. Also, the game is slo-o-o-o-ow as hell. I highly recommend dropping your dignity and playing on the easiest settings. I'm serious, dead serious.

It is NOT worth it playing this on normal difficulty. It rewards nothing, but draws out the game and costs you nerves where really, you should be here for the breadth of story and nothing else. This isn't a pro-gamer game. This is a very good interactive book.

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4335 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 18.10.20 18:54

Sunless Skies is so addictive. I had a week off because we had to cancel our booked vacation due to Covid. Most of the time I won was spent on playing Sunless Skies. It's a slow game. You'll die a lot. At times, when the terror rises and every chance turns against you, you'll hate it. But the lore of the Fallen London world is so strong and unique, the huge number of original quests, small stories and events were so satisfying that I couldn't stop before completing my ambition successfully.

I love this game. I adore the plenitude of ideas, the extraordinary graphic style and the moody sound. This is a game to be played at night with headphones on and a glass of wine on the side. Get into the role and act accordingly. As a street urchin, I always chose the shady or revolutionary side. I was wanted by London and couldn't approach my house without getting into the focus of London's monitors. Good thing that my ship had a powerful engine with a speed boost. I had a weak spot for the cause of the devils and tried to help them wherever I could.

It's probably the best game I would hesitate to recommend. You have to love weird urban fantasy, pick-up and deliver mechanisms and a heavy dose of randomness until you've developed your skills enough to pass most tests. I knew the lore before from playing Sunless Sea and also their browser-based Fallen London but I imagine that it's difficult to get into this without any prior knowledge. You also shouldn't mind planning out your next trip and then spend 30 minutes on it with long periods of nothing happening.

If you played Sunless Sea before, you know what you are getting into. It's more of the same. The differences are more in flavour than in substance. It's larger in every concern with four different locations to explore instead of only The Underzee. Terror and managing your resources are easier once you know what you are doing. Combat is different but still rather to be avoided. There are more officers with their own stories, various parties you can side with.

The game differs in the way it implemented the legacy mode. I felt that I cheated but I'm sure the developers intended it to be like this. Whenever I was dying, I jumped back to the title screen via the escape button. As the game in legacy mode autosaves only in ports, I was set back to the last port I left from instead of dying. Every decision taken in port remains irreversible. So there's still the challenge to not end up in a port in an unrescuable disposition. This 'cheat' made Sunless Skies at the same time less threatening than Sunless Sea and playable because you will die much more often in Sunless Skies due to more frequent combat and much stronger enemies appearing suddenly. I'm not sure if Sunless Sea had the same option to avoid dying but it didn't need it. I died once after 40 hours by sailing off the map but I was able to win it without. I doubt that you can win Sunless Skies without resorting to this trick which I discovered coincidentally after having my first handful of captains all die in the first hour.

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2538 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.10.20 23:52

Can't recommend. This is still, at heart, a text based game. They improved the other parts, but the ship combat and exploration mechanics still aren't good enough to carry the game. The writing is missing something it had in Sunless Sea, and for a game based around the writing that is a problem. It doesn't matter how jacked your limbs are if your heart has stopped beating. I was willing to put up with all the strange gameplay decisions in Sunless Sea to get to read more about its bizarre, fascinating world. The High Wilderness just doesn't scratch the same itch. I haven't finished this game and I do not foresee myself continuing with it.

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36 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 13.10.20 21:10

Maliciously slow movements turned me quickly away from this one.
The artwork is very well done though!

(Received in Humble Bundle.)

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2034 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.09.20 07:43

I hoped that this game would be easier to get into than Sunless Sea. While the ships are better, the writing remained of itself and a chore to read.

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1198 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.09.20 03:03

Very Good Game. Much enjoyed, Play Game now

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118 Reviews

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1938 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.09.20 07:31

This game is very good, but it is quite difficult to get to a part in the game where you can comfortably explore the dense and horrifying world. Worth a try if you like slow but well written games.

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7636 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.09.20 18:35

So I backed this game on Kickstarter, and have been playing since it was in pre-release. Got 127.3 hours on record as of writing this review. And let me tell you, there is still SO MUCH I've not even scratched the surface of in Sunless Skies!
It's got:
- Eerie, slow-building horror, interspersed with moments of wit and wonder
- A stunning soundtrack (when I've not played for a while, the tracks in The Reach hit me like a ton of bricks)
- Gorgeous environments
- Compelling characters and storylines
- Fungus
- More Fungus
- The land of the dead
- Your Aunt!
- Some very angry misplaced sea-urchins
- THE SUN

Now, if you're looking for something fast paced turn around now and keep your money because this is NOT the game for you. But if you want something where you can breathe in the atmosphere and bask in the light of the stars (though be careful with that one, the clockwork sun's light is hazardous to the constitution) this could be what you're looking for.

Hands down, one of my favourite games.

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3513 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 16.09.20 08:08

Hours of fun! I love this game so much. Its is a marked improvement to sunless sea and good fun for any Fallen London fan.

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2776 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 15.09.20 18:40

So far it's no Sunless Sea - but it's worth getting and pretty good.

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931 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.09.20 20:57

A terrifying train ride through space. Prepare to meet gods, save worlds, and lose your mind

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13151 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.09.20 18:50

Incredibly well written, gorgeous hand drawn visuals, exciting exploration, and a terrifying world. I'd recommend playing Sunless Sea first just for the context and understanding of the Fallen London universe, but you don't have to.

There's really no other game like it.

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1613 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.09.20 21:04

Gorgeous graphics and space exploration make for an engaging game with a wickedly British sense of humour and setting.

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5393 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 23.07.20 12:38

Amazing Successor of Sunless Sea.

It has all the qualities of its predecessor and improves a lot of corners which were rough in the Dark Zea.
+ More Soundtrack
+ More RPG/P&P/novel-like reading
+ More Lovecraftian Atmosphere
+ Bigger World(s)
+ Beautiful artstyle, especially all the elaborate environments
+ Smoothed out trading-system and quest-lines

But of course there are still a few minor issues i have with the game.
- Questlog isn't bad anymore but still really hard to keep an overview over.
- Dead ends. It's nice to have more detailed routes in the maps to navigate through, contrary to the open Zea in the first title. But especially in the first 10-20 hours, without reasonable ship-upgrades, the many dead-ends on the maps can simply kill you/your crew.

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1039 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.07.20 15:56

Overview: Strangers in a Strange Land

Sunless Skies is a top-down RPG from Failbetter Games that places the player in a steampunk world where they captain and fly locomotives between patches of land in the sky while avoiding ethereal horrors that lurk in the heavens. While I enjoyed my time with Sunless Skies and do understand the market niche that this game fills, overall I wouldn't recommend this game to many others unless I know they've played and enjoyed similar titles. The slow-pace of the game is part of the fun, but the lack of direction and slow speed of the locomotives really grinds the pacing to a halt.

(+) The Good
• Beautiful in-game environments
• The game is a lot easier to get into than Sunless Sea, thanks to a more robust tutorial and UI design
• Quests and missions deliver storytelling through gameplay
• The horror of questing has its thrills

(-) The Bad
• The game is very slow-paced
• The roguelike nature of the game can be very unforgiving for newcomers unfamiliar with the games controls
• Lack of direction and guidance can leave some players stuck and unsure where to proceed
• Difficulty can ramp up unexpectedly. Given how long it takes to travel, exploration becomes tedious the more you explore as the possibility of losing a captain or resetting a save increases

(-) The Ugly
• The locomotives are incredibly slow and the maps are huge; traveling from one outpost to another repeatedly is tiring

General Gameplay: A Pirate's Life for Me

The player captains a locomotive that flies high in the sky, looking for land that floats between the stars. As you travel, you need to maintain how much fuel you have in your cargo. Travelling consumes fuel and cargo space; if you're shipping cargo from one lonely port to another, you need to account how much space food and fuel you will need to take before you can load up your goods.

Once you're loaded up, you have to charter a course to another port, with vague direction where it may be. You're able to send out a scout to search for land while you're travelling between the stars, and more often than not, this scout will generally turn up useful information. Sometimes it will find a nearby port, or perhaps a wreck where you can potentially salvage some loot. The random nature of the game can make exploring fun, however, the slow speed of the locomotive doesn't help.

While travelling, you may encounter Lovecraftian nightmares harboring in a dark, forgotten path in the sky. These monsters can damage and even destroy your ship. On top of this, you need to maintain a crew that will help drive your ship, and if your crew experiences too much terror on their journey, it can mean a tragic end for you and your vessel. If you die, you can continue your journey with a new captain or reload your last save.

Ultimately, the goal of Sunless Skies is about forging your own path. You can be a fighter and hunt down monsters for loot, or perhaps you can be a smuggler of illicit goods. This is the crux of the game and while it can appeal to many players, I did find myself becoming more annoyed thanks to long travel times and vague ideas on how to further my career as a smuggler. The game provides hints and leaves a lot of these questions at the hand of the player but given how long you're expected to travel and learn game mechanics before you're able to find a path worth pursuing can be frustrating. I found that the more I played, the more tired and exhausted I became with every commission I received. The problem is that for such an expansive world, most of the time you're just chugging along between ports. Sometimes you're tempted to explore. Unfortunately, the risk of exploration is hard to justify at times, given how long it takes to travel as saving only occurs in ports.

There is a game here that many will enjoy, but for me, I found myself growing tired of the gameplay loop, despite the wonderful world that the developers have created.

Story & World: Darkly Dreaming

You're in a steampunk world, where Victorian London imagery is found everywhere. You're taken back to a time that has found technology and mysteries deep in the stars, where dead gods and monsters slumber in the vast wastes between the small islands that hold humanity.

The story is generally left to the players to explore. While returning from a disastrous voyage to a dangerous part of the world, your captain is injured and eventually passes away, leaving you in charge of your first locomotive. However, in their possession is a mysterious black box they collected from this perilous region and have left instructions for you not to open it, but to deliver it to a buyer in a distant port. From here, you're left to your own devices on how to proceed.

You're able to simply sell the box at the first port and be done with that plot. You could also open the box yourself, provided you have the skills necessary to do so and investigate whatever may come of this. You're also able to complete the quest and discover a whole host of new opportunities as a result. However, if that storyline doesn't intrigue you, you're always left to your own devices and able to pursue a life among the stars that interests you.

The best part of the game is the air of mystery you find as you explore. If you're a sucker for Lovecraftian imagery and storytelling (like me), this game will fill that niche quite nicely.

Visuals, Sound, & Performance: Illusive Wonders

Visually, the game is a treat to behold. You're always exploring dark and mysterious corners of the world and the roguelike nature of the game leaves a lot to discover. Monstrosities are horrifying to see lurking in the shadows, and the iconic lights of small settlements as you travel between ports has always stuck with me.

The music is handled extremely well, with the haunting atmosphere never leaving the player. You're always on the search for new lands and the music generally hints whenever you're approaching an undiscovered port or perhaps a secret doom.

Personally, I have had no issues with the game performance. It runs smoothly and the UI is one of the better ones I've seen. It gives the player a ton of information and is generally easy to navigate. If you found the Sunless Seas UI to be frustrating to navigate, thankfully the devs have streamlined this.

Conclusion: Seeking Sanctuary

While I enjoyed my time with Sunless Skies and found this game to be in many ways an improvement on Sunless Seas, ultimately I wouldn't recommend this game to many players. It's a very specific type of game that won't appeal to everyone who picks it up. It's very slow paced, and given how slow the travel speed is, most of the time you're just whisking back and forth between ports, trying to earn enough for a small upgrade for your ship. Inside of this world, there is something I genuinely like about this game and given a few changes I'm absolutely certain I'd love this. However, certain gameplay elements made it ultimately a tedious experience for me.

If this game still appeals to you despite all of the misgivings I have explained, then be sure to give this a shot. The game will succeed with many players who are fully aware of what to expect and for those folks, they'll be fine with the slower pace. Unfortunately for me, I just found that exploring another vast section of the world for several hours while trying to maintain fuel and food with a slow vessel eventually drove me to seek sanctuary in other games instead.

PC Specs for this review

The computer specs that I used for this review are listed below:
- CPU: i5-6600k CPU @ 3.50GHz
- GPU: NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1080, 8GB
- RAM: 16.0 GB

Final Score: [5.5] out of 10

Zitat:

Follow our curator page, Alexander's Club Curations if you like and want to see more reviews like this one.

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15 Reviews

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2078 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.07.20 23:11

A text adventure, but with actual game play to accompany the reading. that makes you work for the next bit of writing, and makes it that much sweeter when you do eventually achieve your goal.

or

A text adventure where the reading gets interrupted by annoying game play that locks you out of the next chapter, until you have sufficiently wasted enough time.

I choose the first interpretation.

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1659 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.07.20 18:33

The developers spent a lot of time crafting an interesting world with lots of lore, but very little time in crafting actual enjoyable gameplay. Most of your time in this game is spent cruising along routes you've traveled many times before with nothing happening, rather than exploring new places.

The terror mechanic makes this even worse by forcing the player to regularly travel back to certain places where terror can be reduced. Think of terror as a fun-counter, and once you've had too much fun, you have to spend some time doing boring chores before you can have some more fun.

Only consider buying this game if you are fine with a game that actively seeks to waste your time.

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76 Reviews

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1837 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.07.20 01:19

If you liked Sunless Sea, you're gonna like Sunless Skies. BUT, I've got two tips for you:

1) Get to the Albion area as fast as you can. It opens a metric tonne of quests in the first area, which is otherwise really barren and might turn you off.
2) Get yourself a cheat engine speedhack. It doesn't make the game easier, and it cuts down on the transit boredom a lot. This game is even slower than Sunless Sea, and has less interesting transit (bigger maps, winding tunnels, no boosting, way less terror management).

The first area makes pretty terrible impression, I have no idea why they left it like that.

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1421 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 24.06.20 19:45

Creepy sky train stuff!

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2 Reviews

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948 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.06.20 20:32

A worthy follow up to Sunless Seas, updated in the right ways in the right places. Sharp witted, darkly comic, and with tongue firmly planted in cheek, the brilliant series makes it way to the sky.

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586 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 08.06.20 15:07

10/10, would give obsessed suitors a princess's shed skin again.

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8 Reviews

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5780 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.06.20 22:17

Coming from someone who did NOT like the game's predecessor, the Sea: this game is brilliant.

It's only fair to say it's not for everybody though. Don't be fooled by action-packed looking trailer, it's more like a simulator of walking through the woods, looking around and daydreaming, occassionally stopping by a tree and reading a chapter or two from the book in your pocket. If that sounds boring to you, the game's probably not meant for you, because the barebones of Skies is the same as the Sea's: it's a slow-paced exploration with lots of reading (and, admitedly, grinding) in between, only Skies do this better.

The game is much easier and more user friendly than its predecessor. The permadeath system (the presence of which I failed to understand in tens of hours long grindy game) is purely optional now and does not cost you almost everything like it did in Sea. The trading system is simplified to gain easy profit making all the grind not that painful, even though it's still here. The journal got improved to the point that you can actually find out what are you supposed to do at any given moment, and even though some filtering options would have been nice to have, it's a step up. The combat actually feels challenging now. The setting is much more interesting - instead of sailing a lake in a cave you're travelling with a locomotive through the victorian aether between suns, resulting in much more interesting visuals as you'll be looking at stars and nebulae instead of neverending black. Sure, it will wear off a little after some time, but you'll be hooked up to the story by then, which is something the Sea never accomplished for me.

Because, oh my god, the story. I cannot recall the last time I got so invested in any. It was a hauntingly beautiful experience. I even dreamt about dying stars and formless horrors in the void between them. Incredible experience. Highly recommended.

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28 Reviews

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10325 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 06.06.20 17:30

Okay I have waited a long time to review this game. Having completed it one time and died over ten times I feel I'm in the rare place to say I am pretty good. This game can be infuriating when you die. That is the games biggest obstacle. But it also makes you feel awesome when you win fights against new powerful monsters and locomotives.

Having played this and the previous game I can say that this game handles combat and exploration better. It's easier to earn money if you take some time to map out places. The previous game only had a few thing that were better in my opinion. First the music. Sunless sea is the one game where I bought the soundtrack. It's amazing. This game has good music but not nearly as good as the old game. Second the fear. The first game is a lot scarier because of the dark cave you are in. This game is in the skies under a thousand suns. You notice that when you reach Elutheria (I can't have spelled that right). Elutheria is a darker region of the sky. And it's the scariest part of the game.

This game however is the best one. The combat, the dialog, the world, the ports, the regions and a ton of other things makes this game extremely hard to put down. BUY IT NOW!

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2 Reviews

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194 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.05.20 18:49

I really wanted to like this game. I love rogue-like/lite games and steam punk. But there wasn't enough there there to keep me engaged. My biggest gripe with the game is the emptiness of the skies. It often feels like I'm just moving along for minutes on end without anything really happening. The same characters keep on popping up in the same locations, leading to the same crew every time. I get it that there's story to the crew and you can progress through that story, but I quickly lost interest in the characters after the 6th time I clicked through their dialogue. It also is strange that the captain dies, but the characters come back to the same spot.

One thing I did like was the fact that each captain had its own personality. This drew me to role play more than I normally would, which was kind of cool. The direct successor of the original really cared about his predecessor, but when he died his successor was more interested in personal profit, and forsook the original captain's wishes to make a quick buck.

Overall, it's not really a bad game. The combat is decent, the exploration aspect is interesting, the dialogue is sufficient (although there's a heavy focus on gender-issues, which I'm OK with but it felt pretty forced). I just cannot recommend it because I have ~3 or so hours in the game and have no interest in picking it back up.

181 Produkte im Account

11 Reviews

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7099 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 30.05.20 01:12

surpasses sunless sea in every way that matters and a lot of ways that don't. probably the single most interesting space setting in fiction from the last 20 years, and that's lowballing it. a deeply tedious game that nonetheless attaches itself to your brain using two squeezing mandibles called story and atmosphere and does not let go for months. has some kind of dumb beats regarding Moral Choices (in that there's usually one objectively good choice and one objectively bad one, and you get to decide whether your character is a good person) and i literally cannot stress enough that the gameplay is pretty at best and tedious at most-of-the-time, but if you liked sunless sea, you'll like sunless skies much much more. if you didn't like sunless sea, or don't know what it is, give this one a shot anyway - even if it doesn't gel with you, it's a good thing to have around in case you're ever bored enough that it does, because it is so, so worth the time.

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5 Reviews

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380 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.05.20 23:59

If you're a fan of the whole Fallen London milieu then you'll probably enjoy this. I just happen to find it a bit hard to get into. Despite that, I've put 6hrs into puttering around in this game looking for something that I can take from it and have come to the conclusion that it's just not for me. Better luck to you.

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5 Reviews

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1539 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 01.05.20 01:36

the map's pretty, a member of my crew drowned in rose nectar
another one to a fungal infection
lost a whole colony to fungus in fact
the queen blew up a sun with a nuclear weapon
almost died to a swarm of killer bees

very narrative, has big atmosphere 10/10 would recommend

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3 Reviews

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97 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 29.04.20 20:20

I think I could like the game, but it keeps soft-locking up. I'll be in the UI, and nothing will progress the game; can't A to confirm, or B to cancel, etc... All I can do is press Start to quit the game.

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1257 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.04.20 22:57

Coming from someone who absolutely loved Sunless Sea, this game is hot garbage in comparison. I always loved the story elements that these games bring, but at least Sunless Sea wasn't dead-set on hamstringing you every step of the way. After 8 hours running 7 different captains, I can confirm that I've accomplished absolutely nothing because of how absurdly dangerous the environments are in this game. Once you die, you're given a pittance of what you'd accomplished up to that point to start again with. Expect many hours wasted on squandered voyages. I understand you can play on 'merciful' mode which offers the ability to load after dying, but I didn't buy this game for the absurdly difficult combat which is constantly forced upon the player. Even if I can load, fuck having to edge around unavoidable combat all the time. I just wanted a good story narrative to gradually work through with a bit of challenge therein.

It just isn't fun; rather its a frustrating drag. Talk about a massive disappointment for a game I was really looking forward to enjoying instead of suffering through. Its been a long time since I've felt truly cheated out of my time, and from a developer I really liked no less. Not so much anymore.

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351 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.04.20 10:25

So, I've been at this for about 4 hours according to steam, normally I give these about a 10 hour or so run to ensure I've grasped it but I'm at a point in the game where, unless there's some hidden secondary mechanic, I've got a reasonable amount of the scope plotted out.

I'm going to say for the record that this is a middling recommendation, not a high praise, there's some good points and some bad points and I'm going to compare Sea to Skies here:

Graphics: Clear winner here is Skies, I always hated how well drawn the world was, and then how much the character headshots and other graphics looked like they were cropped out of a flash game from the early 2000s, now everything looks detailed in the same manner in stunning detail, though I will say that the Corporate fellow (the stovepipe's guy in Winchester until you mess with the balance of the war) looks like he was carved out of stone, the character art matches the rest of the game's motif.

Movement and Combat: Skies takes movement by storm over Sea here again, simply put the movement system allows for more action to take place, have a more action-packed fight compared to Sea, my only gripe is that the AI seems to be a bit dotty for the enemy ships, frequently I'll see star-mad explorers firing off their broad shot well out of range of you, though that might be because they are mad it makes it more of a matador struggle as you dodge their charges than be concerned about their actual fire in most cases.

Sound: Skies takes the sound and sound track as well, it really matches the themes and puts you into the setting right from the get-go and keeps you there with a methodical chugging of the steam engine as you stare out into the winking abyss.

Quests: This one goes to Sea, not sure if it's because you need to progress the quests or what the story is but quests seem to be a rare commodity in Skies, not to mention once you complete a quest on one life, it's gone, meaning you can't take the first quest (The clock person) to the port again for the start on a new life like you could taking the casket to the tomb city in Sea.

Crew: Sea takes crew as well, much like quests it feels like the crew are just equipment you bolt in that say things from time to time as you navigate the sea of stars, not to mention I have yet to see in 7 lives different crew for the same job like you could get in Sea, The test pilot fellow, the princess, and the navigator all show up over and over again.

Ships: So I was praising combat a moment ago, and this may be something that I haven't really gotten to in my runs, but Sea had WAY more ships under it's belt than Skies does even in just the starter city, not to mention that frankly only one ship is a clear upgrade while the other is a trade-off despite them being substantially more expensive than the starter boiler. Don't even bother looking at the trade ship, in no universe is +3 storage slots worth all the penalties that rig brings.

The World: Sea takes this one hands down, as much as I love how Skies looks, it's very... small, most places are very close by so it's not hard to gauge how many barrels and crates you'll need to maximize profit, and if I'm estimating correctly you could probably cross the map on four barrels from edge to edge, five if you include physical blocks, not only that, there are far fewer places to visit, so far I've found Five of the cities, and if I was being honest, getting to New Winchester from even the worst one would only take a barrel and a half (that one's on the world border) Compared to Sea where you have long, lonesome stretches of dread, potentially fraught with pirates and ne-er do wells or more sinister things, the oppression of darkness is far more palpable.

The Inheritance System: So it's back, you hand down your boiler and whatever the in-laws didn't make off with to some other random who you may have made your first mate during your voyages that didn't wind up getting killed at the same time you did. Though this one's hard to say, on one hand I like that you don't have to chose between hanging on to your favorite ship bit and your maps, but now it seems like it's more reductive of both options. In Skies you get the last map you had based on the last time you got to a port (so port often, even if you don't intend to do anything there) and you get your basic boiler back, minus any parts they didn't find (like my mining drill I had just gotten) and about 1/3 or so of your shillings on hand and 75% or so of your exp (so it is possible to downgrade if you get blitzed two or three times in a row.)

Personally I like this system a bit more than the one in Sea, but I'd like it to be a choice if possible, say putting more weight on recovering ship parts that reduces your shilling amount or even your starting exp bonus, though if you incorporated that into some kind of will that you update each time you hit port much like your map you can keep the sailor's will concept you start the game with going forward.

At the end of this I like Skies, I like Sea, If you were to chose one over the other though... it would be Sea for me, if only because Skies feels hollow, for all of it's improvements it doesn't have the undercurrent of dread for me, just quiet panic as I dodge angry space bees to steal their honey so I can afford a new pair of shoes.

Speaking of shoes... the conflict between the rebels and the crown (nice parallel between the formation of the US and whatnot, are you going to have a New Boston Happy Hour Party?) seems really... poor. The few ships I do see of each group are rarely in combat, and the ones that are in combat with each-other not only can't hit their intended target, often times they'll hit me as I'm just kinda trying to skirt by being a battlefield vulture until I realized that they are fighting a faux war.

I haven't seen such a lackluster civil war since Skyrim... and really to fix it you need to draw on the times of the civil war, honorable Crown Ships forming a firing line while the treacherous Colonials strike at them from the sides like cowards! I mean without all the trappings of a civil war movie the game really needs some kind of real civil war fight, the bitter struggle for independence versus the iron hand of the empress who holds the throne of hours in a vice-like grip should not boil down to three ships having a skirmish every time you want to go from New Winchester to Port Prosper.

249 Produkte im Account

31 Reviews

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1628 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 21.04.20 02:12

Picked this up after watching a YouTuber play it for awhile and getting very mad at how bad it was going and being convinced I could do better.

My first game burned through 30 crewmen in the span of a few weeks, as I slowly got haunted by what I can only assume were the ghosts of my dead redshirts as my remaining crew slowly lost their minds to the madness of the skies ending in a mutiny in which I blew myself up.

And then I went on to play it for 8 more hours that day. Worth every penny.

33 Produkte im Account

5 Reviews

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708 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 19.04.20 04:52

I love the Fallen London universe. The Neathverse? I don't know. Whatever you call it, I love it. I love the lore. I love being able to explore the cosmos and see what has happened since London passed through the Avid Horizon. The music and the graphics are beautiful, the characters are interesting, there's a wealth of content to explore. I'm 11 hours in and I'm like maybe 1/4 of the way through the game. I am on a long pause from it because I keep running into things and dying, and it was making me a little too anxious, but nobody said it was an easy game, even with resurrection mechanics on. I honestly wish every game had lore that was as deep and interesting as this. I play for an hour or two and then I swear I spend an hour or two thinking about what I've learned about this bizarre and fascinating universe.

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1 Reviews

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5476 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 12.04.20 04:17

Great gameplay improvements on Sunless Seas while keeping the same truly unique and engaging storytelling. Mechanics are easier to parse and more user-friendly than its predecessor. Especially love the new level-up elements, gets me so invested in my captain every time. The tension and difficulty are still thrilling, especially for players who can see sudden death as a feature and not detriment to the experience. Will say however, that I miss the nautical theme; being a captain on a sea ruled by unsympathetic gods had more cohesion than the... sky-trains?

94 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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4825 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.03.20 14:35

In Sunless Skies, you play as a series of captains of space-faring locomotives, in service or in opposition or in indifference to Her Majesty the Queen. London has taken to the skies -- or somewhere approximating them -- and made its home among the horrors of the stars. Now it's up to you to find your fortune, your fame, or the truth behind it all.

If you've played Fallen London, then you're already familiar with the phenomenal quality of the writing that this studio outputs. Sunless Skies is more of the same, taken up several notches in horror and grandeur. The surrealist prose is backlit by stunning graphics and underscored by sweeping musical tracks. The gameplay is much improved from Sunless Sea: there are now some very welcome anti-frustration features, including more nuanced difficulty sliders and more options when you run out of fuel/supplies or when your terror gets too high (remember, folks: things can always get worse!). There's a ton of map to explore, a huge number of storylets to play through, a bunch of engaging and interesting characters to recruit, and enough choices available to make the replay value on this one really high.

My only complaint so far is that the tooltips skip out on some information that's not critical but also is not very intuitive: I don't remember ever being told that officers needed to be equipped in port in order to provide their bonuses, or that large weapon slots could accommodate small-sized weapons as well. I could be misremembering: it has been several weeks since I started playing. It's a very minor complaint, though, and didn't really impact my enjoyment of the game.

All in all, I would highly recommend this game to anyone who wants a really low key survival horror game with beautiful graphics and a lot of replay value. I love it, and I hope you do too!

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7 Reviews

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2988 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 14.02.20 13:48

A bit slow at the start but it has great stories and amazing hand-drawn backgrounds.

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1 Reviews

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7206 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 05.02.20 02:12

Great narrative, killer ost and sound design, artwork that blows the first game out of the water, much improved combat (that still could be much improved) and it’s way more accessible than the previous game thanks in no small part to difficulty options. Sunless skies proves to be the superior deliveryman game over Death Stranding.

216 Produkte im Account

21 Reviews

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418 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 04.02.20 15:04

To explain this game, imagine you go to a very fancy restourant. Service is amazing, decor is beautiful, but the meal... the bloody meal is bland and stale as you can possibly imagine. Spend your money elsewhere, my advice.

100 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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1302 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 03.02.20 23:15

Great Lore, Atmosphere, OST and the gameplay is not too bad either.
It gets genuinely creepy later on.

71 Produkte im Account

3 Reviews

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2553 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 02.02.20 13:17

Deep game with interesting setting and narrative, although beware the treacherous difficulty.

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21 Reviews

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344 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 26.01.20 11:31

I always wanted to love this dev's previous title Sunless Sea. But the rouge-lite systems always felt too punitive, the world map too sprawling for its own good. Enter Skies. More forgiving, more focused. The presentation got a shot in the arm with colorful and varied maps to traverse. Gorgeous visuals and UI design. The writing is impeccable. I love how confident & comfortable the world lore is. It's strange and often unsettling. Off kilter like a Twilight Zone episode that looks normal on the surface but has hidden unusual oddities lurking in the shadows. But the writing doesn't try to draw attention to itself, pointing out how wild and wacky the world is. It's just another day sailing the stars of Fallen London.

221 Produkte im Account

6 Reviews

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3493 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.01.20 20:54

Loved the Atmosphere, hated the errands. Shame.

Don´t get me wrong. I really enjoyed this game, but some of the mechanics are tiresome. Quest´s do get repetetive fairly quickly. Some of them can be repeated till the end of times. Some quest´s will give you just few lines of text and send you to another port (Another settlement needs our help!).

AI and combat is a little bit dull. Fairly straightforward and easy to learn but the enemies. Oh boi. They are just sponges that take a lot of damage to defeat. The AI is confused most of the time. Just crashes into everything. Even friendly AI tends to steamroll right into you. When you acquire the Moloch-Class Liner. You don´t have to worry about anything. You just ram into things and shoot away. With 130 hull, there is nothing that can stop you.

And the stats. Oh boi. I could not hold my rage, when i failed a roll, that had 100% success chance. You should min-max one (max 2) stats or cry in the corner. Sometimes.. the game just wants to watch the world burn.

Now the atmosphere is great. Writing is great. Music is great. Just that most of the time, the game is a little bit booring. I had to listen to podcast´s to progress in this game. Everything is slow. Even with the best equipment. The world feels really empty and the AI just straight pull you out of the immersion.

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6 Reviews

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6022 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 25.01.20 07:52

Lost beneath the Sunless Seas,
You rose beyond the Sunless Stars.
Far from the oceans of Moribund Sunlight,
You zailed upon the Eternal Twilight.
Forever wrapped in the wake of your Immortal Queen,
You voyaged into an eldritch celestial dream to never again be seen.
vita sed somnium est

This is a game worthy of your coin if you liked Sunless Sea. How much better for you to fly upon the invisible currents that flow through these Sunless Skies. This game has superb writing, is easily 3 times larger and is even richer in scope and depth of storytelling than its illustrious predecessor. I recommend this game to all fans of H.P. Lovecraft's Dreamlands saga and for all of my fellow Captains who traveled the same inky twilight depths of eldritch horror that brought this setting to life for me. So if you love Lovecraft's prose and style mingled with a dose of humor, Victorian steampunk fantasy, and are a fan of surreal dreamland settings of sanity-sapping awe and truly alien majesty, then this game is definitely as much for you as it has been for me.

302 Produkte im Account

2 Reviews

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5606 Std. insgesamt

Verfasst: 22.01.20 03:57

If you like Lovecraftian horror, excellent writing, dying a lot, or trains, you'll love this game.

- ePrison

84% Online-Magazine (1)

Rating auf Steam Sehr positiv

84.87% 2058 367

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Release:31.01.2019 Genre: Adventure Entwickler: Failbetter Games Vertrieb:keine Infos Engine:keine Infos Kopierschutz:keine Infos Franchise:keine Infos

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