The space-faring continuation of Fallen London and Sunless Seas has flown onto Steam, where players can test-drive an early access version of the game. Announced in 2016 and quickly crowdfunded in early 2017, Sunless Skies is set in the same neo-Victorian world as its predecessors and takes place ten years after the events of Sunless Seas.
In a post to their Kickstarter page, developer Failbetter Games went into greater detail on what we can expect from Sunless Skies, and from the piece of it that is now available to play. In early access, players can explore one of four regions in the game: the Reach. The demo involves scouting the region in a Victorian space ship, visiting the eleven ports in the area, battling with beasts and other ships, acclimating to some of the game’s mechanics – specifically Terror, Hunger, and Heat – and exploring stories.
“We designed this to give players something akin to a vertical slice—an industry term that means a small but functional piece of the entire game,” Failbetter games wrote in their post. “This is one of the major reasons we decided to launch with only one region at the start, so we could give players a small taste of what the final game will be like rather than a big taste of an emptier, less representational world.” Even with this piece of the game already launched, Failbetter is planning updates, including character creation and progression, trade, discoveries, difficulty settings, Kickstarter exclusives, and more.
The full Sunless Skies is currently expected to release in May 2018 for Mac, Windows, and Linux. In the meantime, Failbetter is welcoming feedback and discussions of their progress with open arms, encouraging players to report on their Sunless Skies experience via Steam and their own community forums.