We’ve been considering our progress, your feedback and the time we have left before launch. We’ve decided, to ensure the game is the standard that you expect from us, that we’re going to move the launch release to January 2019.
There are two main reasons for this.
The first is that we want to do more work on a couple of areas of the game than we originally budgeted time for.
Since we worked on the Reach, we've gotten a lot better at designing and building regions. We're very happy with how Eleutheria has turned out, and we think it's important to bring the Reach up to the same standard, both in terms of atmosphere and the quality, variety and frequency of the experiences during exploration and traversal.
Although we anticipated we'd want to make some improvements to the Reach and had set aside some time for it, it’s significantly less time than we need for the full range of things we want to do. We think the Reach is a particularly important region to get right because of its position in the middle of the other three, and because it's where players are first introduced to the High Wilderness. We've decided it's worth taking the extra time to get it right.
Here's a preview of our work on The Reach
We also want to revisit some of the survival mechanics, which in their current form don't always shape the experience in the ways we’d like – especially Condition and Terror.
This won't add an extra four months of work. We considered launching in November or December, but those are very difficult months to release an indie game. This is partly because of the large number of sales events, and partly because so many AAA games concentrate their releases and marketing in the run up to Christmas.
We'll use the extra time in that four month period to make further improvements to the game, including to the UI and the reading experience. And of course, we’ll be sharing all this work as we go in regular Early Access releases.
We'll be releasing COMBAT II as planned, in the week of 30th August. The next major update after that will be out in early October, and will include the improvements to The Reach. We'll update our road map soon with further details.
Sunless Sea was pretty atmospheric, wasn't great but entertained me for at least 10-12h. Seas and horror goes really well together.. pew-pew spaceships and skies doesn't look nearly as atmospheric. Well whatever, fans of the earlier game will like it i'm sure.
I commanded the flying locomotive for a few hours this afternoon, the impressions are positive. It's very similar to Sunless Sea (obviously) but it makes the initial rinse 'n grind less tedious (a major plus for me ) by also adding scalable settings for fuel/supplies consumption and new legacy modes, with the sense of progression which is enhanced as well.
Wandering through the atmospheric hubs, unveiling the sunless map(s) and facing the unknown is as always the most appealing aspect of the game, that's where it really shines. The combat is still painfully simplistic, though it's an improvement over the original uber-basic pew-y one. As for the writing, I sometimes find it too verbose for its own good (with pandering here and there ) but it's not obnoxious and the stories are unique.
The stories are still as obscure and the wtf? feeling is still as present as in Sunless Seas
Not everyone will like this, and I too sometimes have a hard time with it. For example, characters don't have a name, but more of a descriptive title, like 'The Incautious Driver' or 'The Inconvenient Aunt'. It kinda makes it hard to feel something for the characters and their stories.
But then again, it adds a lot to the atmosphere of being in a very strange universe, way out of the comfortzone of what is supposed to be 'normal'.
The start of the game is quite hard and unforgiving, as the ports are a lot further from each other than you might expect, and the game only saves in ports. But once you found a couple of them and you can start doing your tours, it gets (a lot) easier. It's much easier to make money than in Seas as well, which is good, because the nature of this game is a little grindy.
Also, don't play legacy mode, as this is NOT a roguelike game. Sure, you get to keep a lot of stuff when you die, but you also have to redo most of the stories. This game is more of an interactive book really, so merciful mode is just fine.
Looks like an enhanced edition-like (free) update will be released *soon*:
Quote:
A "greatly enhanced edition" of Failbetter's trains-in-space adventure, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition was first announced over a year ago. Now, the developer has announced that it'll arrive on May 19th, bringing sweeping changes to many of the game's systems.
Character progression has been upgraded with a completely redesigned interface featuring brand new facets (unlockable traits that improve your stats while defining your captain's story), though the selection you can choose from on level-up has now been limited. Reaching level cap is no longer the end of progression either—while you'll not be able to pick up more facets, you can continue improving stats indefinitely.
Starvation has also been completely reworked, and the game now features "new and probably inadvisable" meals of varying edibility. Sovereign Edition sports a more controller-friendly UI, too—and while this is largely for the game's upcoming Switch port, it should also make it easier to play with a gamepad on PC.
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Looking forward to this, I really liked Sunless Sea, so have high hopes for this.
) but it's not obnoxious and the stories are unique.
