Sunless Skies Critic Reviews

Failbetter finally balances smart gameplay and ingenious prose in this poignant saga of mortality, writ large.

Sunless Skies' bleak pondering of cosmic horror and colonialism is probably one of the best game narratives of 2019, and one that deserves to be experienced.

In the end, what Sunless Skies does do best is harness curiosity. I often found myself travelling to small hubs for specific quests, only to leave with a whole new set of stories, well beyond what I had expected. Each location is so lovingly crafted that even the darkest of places shines. With the combination of incredibly skilled and extensive writing and haunting and varied artwork, Sunless Skies has to be one of the most atmospheric game worlds I’ve ever played within.

The sharpest writing around, wrapped inside a surprising adventure that’s tough but rarely unfair. Failbetter’s finest hour.

Sunless Skies delivers in ways you don't even expect it to. The atmosphere is incredible, and the stories almost addictive. The world is beautiful and the danger is tantalizing. It might be deadly, but it's well worth the trip.

Failbetter’s strange brand of Victorian fantasy meshes with the game’s measured resource management and dangerous combat to define a truly rich role to play, one that inevitably gives way to moral compromise as you operate, with some struggle and no small amount of complicity, under capitalism.

If you like expansive RPGs with engaging combat, a beautiful setting, and near-limitless roleplay potential, then Sunless Skies is definitely for you. For just $25, this is one of the best games you can get on PC right now.

A wonderfully refined sequel that takes everything that was great about the original and expands and improves upon it, making for a much more accessible experience for everyone.

This is a game about stories that has a knack of producing really good ones - when you're doing well, and especially when you're doing badly.

Failbetter continues to revolutionise the RPG - not by burning it all down, but by slipping pages of prose into every crevice it can.

It is challenging, yes, but the sensations that it makes you feel are fantastic and they are a big image about the greatness of this adventure.

Over the couple dozen hours I’ve spent on my current adventure, I’ve made horrible deals with cunning people, lost crew members on woefully unprepared expeditions, and have generally huddled before my monitor waiting for the next calamity.

With impeccable world-building and compelling exploration, Sunless Skies is a haunting journey that is worth traversing time and time again.

Sunless Skies is an excellent game that rewards commitment to its steady pace and steep learning curve. A web of plots and places suggest the infinity of the heavens, but even infinity must end; in this case, it stretches across a million words or so and easily forty hours. The story doesn’t explore every nuance introduced, but that’s a running problem when writers seek to explain the ways of the heavens to mortals. Like many powerful, unique titles, Sunless Skies leaves the player with the desire for more, not because it’s lacking but because it appeals to the mania to solve every mystery, plumb every depth.

If you like well written stories and an atmospheric world, the follow-up to Sunless Seas might just be the game you want.

Sunless Skies is a strange amalgamation of genres with even stranger stories to tell, but the weird world and nightmarish encounters come together to create something special. Combat and repetition may weigh down the Homeric adventure, but the overall journey is well worth the ticket.

Anything with this much text is going to feel slow-paced, and that is for the best. Despite being loads more forgiving than the first brutal installment, Sunless Skies is wicked hard. I’ve only seen half of the games star systems, I’ve botched major quests and started again, and died a dozen times in an hour. But every setback is a learning experience. Some games you play until you get stuck or bored and you quit. Not so with Sunless Skies. Even if I don’t boot it up for a while, I know I’ll be jonesing to captain my locomotive again many, many times.

Sunless Skies is a refined and more organic successor to Sunless Sea. The skies above London are full of intriguing events and charming characters depicted through a fancy, sharp and magnetic writing. The hybrid gameplay which mixes “choose your own adventure” elements with a classic RPG/roguelite scheme works well and offer a deep and satisfying experience. If you don’t mind read walls of text and embrace the rhythm of the slow gaming, Sunless Skies is one of the best games around.

It's an amazing journey — clever, spectacular and exciting. Fire up your furnaces, ladies and gentlemen, but don't forget how treacherous those twinkling stars can be.

Sunless Skies is another well-written story from Failbetter Games. The story and setting carry the game, but the combat mechanics can take some getting used to and may feel limiting. If you like your stories thick in the dark and strange ways of things like H.P. Lovecraft than this could very well be your cup of maddening tea. And you do like tea, don’t you? Of course you do, the Queen wouldn’t allow it to be otherwise and She is watching, always watching.