This game occupies my thoughts more than any other I have played - completely hostile, inaccessible, esoteric and inimitable. You are a ship captain on a cursed sea after Queen Victoria doomed London with a secret pact, sinking it into the earth. You are expected to die often and have your next captain continue your legacy and progress, with a wealth of locations and enemies and storylines to ensnare yourself in. Narrative is definitely more the focus than the fighting, which is barebones and risky, and the writing is cthonically spellbinding - I loved it. The world feels alive and angry and by the end of your time in each location you will have just about scratched the surface of its mysteries in a way that is just about enough, collecting secrets and gnostic lore as a kind of currency you can spend to unlock the game's greater mysteries. You are guided by an ambition you pick at the start of the game, which can then be taken over by hidden ambitions you find in the world (these are incredibly ambitious and satisfying - one of them lets you become immortal).

There are large problems. Firstly, the game does not explain anything and the setting can't really be an excuse. You are not given any clue as to how a merchant captain should earn money, and without this knowledge each voyage loses money until you run out of fuel and supplies and inevitably destroy yourself. I played with a Steam guide open in the background to patch this as it's not a fun or fair kind of challenge - some kind of logbook which recorded the prices of goods at different ports would have been enough to get around this but the game does not have it. Secondly, you are given no idea how rare the 'knowledge currency' you build is, and how you should spend it: should you be holding on to your 'searing enigmas' (yes) ? For an impatient player I can see this being extremely annoying as you may find it very difficult to replace something that is later critical. As well as this, your boat is also slow and upgrades expensive so you will spend a long time on the dark oceans between ports, and combat is a bit of an afterthought. Sunless Skies is much more accessible but in my opinion loses a lot of its magic and charm and is worse for it.

If none of that puts you off, this is the best Lovecraftian, open-world survival horror nautical adventure you can hope to have.

This game occupies my thoughts more than any other I have played - completely hostile, inaccessible, esoteric and inimitable. You are a ship captain on a cursed sea after Queen Victoria doomed London with a secret pact, sinking it into the earth. You are expected to die often and have your next captain continue your legacy and progress, with a wealth of locations and enemies and storylines to ensnare yourself in. Narrative is definitely more the focus than the fighting, which is barebones and risky, and the writing is cthonically spellbinding - I loved it. The world feels alive and angry and by the end of your time in each location you will have just about scratched the surface of its mysteries in a way that is just about enough, collecting secrets and gnostic lore as a kind of currency you can spend to unlock the game's greater mysteries. You are guided by an ambition you pick at the start of the game, which can then be taken over by hidden ambitions you find in the world (these are incredibly ambitious and satisfying - one of them lets you become immortal). There are large problems. Firstly, the game does not explain anything and the setting can't really be an excuse. You are not given any clue as to how a merchant captain should earn money, and without this knowledge each voyage loses money until you run out of fuel and supplies and inevitably destroy yourself. I played with a Steam guide open in the background to patch this as it's not a fun or fair kind of challenge - some kind of logbook which recorded the prices of goods at different ports would have been enough to get around this but the game does not have it. Secondly, you are given no idea how rare the 'knowledge currency' you build is, and how you should spend it: should you be holding on to your 'searing enigmas' (yes) ? For an impatient player I can see this being extremely annoying as you may find it very difficult to replace something that is later critical. As well as this, your boat is also slow and upgrades expensive so you will spend a long time on the dark oceans between ports, and combat is a bit of an afterthought. Sunless Skies is much more accessible but in my opinion loses a lot of its magic and charm and is worse for it. If none of that puts you off, this is the best Lovecraftian, open-world survival horror nautical adventure you can hope to have.