Sunless Skies got a major overhaul:

Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is out now!

As promised, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now available on PC and consoles!

This is the game’s debut on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, with many completely new features, fixes, and improvements. And if you already own Sunless Skies here on Steam, you can play it now as a free update!

There are many, many changes, but here are a few highlights:

• Major changes to character progression. We’ve reworked the interface, and added new facets to define your captain – did you lose your soul (and find it again)? Do you have a special connection with spies, devils, talking rats, or Rubbery Men? And legendary captains can now continue to improve their ability even after reaching the cap of level 20.
• A reworked and expanded starvation system. As desperation grows, you can now attempt to eat an unprecedented selection of unwise, unpleasant, or tragic things.
• A new exotic engine. It’s very fast, but not very good at stopping...
  A complete rework of controller support and many improvements to interfaces, to make it as smooth and pleasant as possible.

There are literally hundreds of other improvements, bug fixes, and optimisations – you can read the full change log if you’re curious! And of course it includes everything we’ve added since the original launch in the Wayfarer, Vagabond, Horn, Hoarder and Urchin updates.

We’d like to take the opportunity to thank our excellent porting partners, BlitWorks, for doing such a fine job with the ports. And whether this will be your first visit, or a triumphant return, we warmly welcome you to the High Wilderness!

Thanks Henriquejr!

PC Gamer reports that Sunless Skies' will be getting a free story expansion called Vagabond.

Sunless Skies' Vagabond update, which adds a new officer, new locations, and a new chunk of story, will be out on June 12, Failbetter Games has announced.

Your new officer is the Amiable Vagabond, who will take you to meet the skylarks,  a "community of ragged wanderers who rove the heavens". You're trying to help them find the Sugarspun Garden, "a place surely too good to be true...".

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

The Wayfarer updatate for Sunless Skies has been released:

Wayfarer Released

The Wayfarer major update for Sunless Skies is now available! Here are the key features:

• A completely reworked Albion
• Many new story events for the gods of the sky
• Officer secondments
• New story content for spectacles
• Consequences for some attacks outside of battle
• Petrichor, the food of the Dead
• Balancing adjustments to Terror and Crew recruitment
• Many small fixes and improvements (see the patch notes for details)

[...]

Sunless Skies has been reviewed by Cog Connected.

Which isn’t to say this is an action-heavy game. 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.

*** PC code provided by the publisher ***

88/100

Thanks Farflame!

A new update due in April for Sunless Skies adds plenty of new content.

Announcing Wayfarer

28 Mar @ 7:18am - Adam

Last month, we announced we were working on the first of several major updates to Sunless Skies, with a focus on providing more to see and do during voyages.

We're now ready to talk more about that release: it will be called the Wayfarer Update, and it will be available on 9th April. It will contain a major rework of Albion, as well as many narrative additions – see below for more details!

Albion

For this update, we've completely reworked the map of Albion, with three main aims:

1) Improving the general look and atmosphere of the region. A few screenshots...

Near the Mausoleum:



London:



The Avid Horizon:



2) Adding more terrain to make navigation and combat more interesting. Albion will still be much more open than the Reach, except in a small number of locations like the Ormswald. For comparison, here's a diagram of Traitor's Wood from when we were designing it:


And here's one of the new areas in Albion (the coloured patches and letters in these images are related to agent and discovery spawning):



3) Creating more variety in the creatures, locomotives and discoveries players can encounter on any given journey. Right now, many areas of the game can be quite predictable in terms of what you'll find there. We're hoping that introducing more variation will improve the experience when visiting areas you've already explored; if it does, we'll do more of this in the other regions, as well. Please let us know what you think once you've played the update!

High Wilderness stories

We'll also be adding many more narrative encounters that can take place during voyages, including most (and hopefully all, but we can't promise that just yet) of the following:

• Many new ways to encounter the gods of the skies, draw their attention or their ire, and benefit or suffer from it.
• Suffering the attacks of certain foes may now have a variety of delayed consequences. In particular, caution when engaging Guests is now advised.
• It will now be possible to more closely investigate several of the greatest wonders and horrors of the skies when your travels bring you near them.
• Sometimes, you will be able to deploy your officers to pursue shore-side opportunities – these will be focused around Albion for now, but we'll add more if you enjoy them!

ExpansiveDLC reports that Sunless Skies is a commercial success and the developer is willing to support it long term, meaning more content and DLC.

...

Meanwhile, Failbetter Games are preparing a major update, due for release in March/April time. This will give players ‘more to see and do while travelling’ and include ‘more narrative choice and consequence’

And, of course, there will be even more unusual ways to die.

Failbetter Games appear to be in excellent financial health following the release of Sunless Skies and the game is continuing to evolve and grow. We’ll have much more on Sunless Skies very soon!

Thanks Farflame!

Some reviews for Sunless Skies.

Wccftech 9/10

There is so much to like about Sunless Skies it’s almost hard to remember all of it. The sound design, from the cities to the sound of your lonely engine chugging through the void is perfect, especially accompanied by the game’s lovely, if slightly unnerving music. The only downside to this game is the occasional long stretches of empty space as you complete a trading opportunity and don’t encounter anything interesting. But even then there is that same constant dread tugging at the back of your mind, a little voice that doesn’t sound like your own telling you about the terror amongst the stars and the things that might be just about to come out and find you. If you like incredible writing, lovely art and impossibly creative and surreal stories, go get Sunless Skies.

Eurogamer - Essential

If that wit and imagination is why we play Sunless Skies, the game's gentler design is what makes it a worthwhile advance on Sunless Sea. It is at once a more florid artwork and a more considerately built one, with a few more toeholds for the wayward captain. There's still much to deter a newcomer, all the same. If you found Sea frustratingly oblique and demanding, and you struggle with the idea that every great story includes a few cataclysmic setbacks, the new game's nips and tucks may strike you as too little, too late. But if you adored Failbetter's previous work, you're drawn to tales of gruesome misadventure or you have a taste for outlandish portraits of imperial hubris, well - your cuppa runneth over.

Techraptor 7/10

Sunless Skies really feels like it underdelivers in the story department. It takes almost everything we already know about the Fallen London universe and then chucks it out the window. London’s expansion to the stars and the new mythology is interesting, but it removes a lot of the intrigue associated with the established lore. It’s still a well-written game, but said writing is also its biggest stumble. The absence of former creative director Alexis Kennedy is quite noticeable. The writing doesn’t have the same bite to it, and there’s more overt humor than in previous installments, which generally ran on a cycle of laughing at what was happening before pausing and asking yourself if you were supposed to laugh at that, oh god, you’re a terrible person for laughing at that but it’s so funny.

Thanks Farflame!

Windows Central has reviewed Sunless Skies:

Sunless Skies PC review: Explore the cosmos in a train in this wacky, wonder-filled RPG

Sunless Skies is a wild, mysterious RPG that blends together a plethora of traits from multiple genres. The result is something unique, engaging, and incredibly fun.

Imagine this: on the cusp of the 20th century, the British Empire takes to the cosmos. Using unique flying locomotives, its people set out to explore the galaxy and carve out a new frontier for the future. Pirates, hostile life forms, and a handful of different factions inhabit this universe — but most important of all are the Judgements, special god-like beings that take the form of stars. Something is wiping them out, though, and you, as a captain of your own crew and space train, have the choice of investigating their deaths, using their downfall as an opportunity to expand British control, or simply ignoring it all and paving the way for your own future.
[...]
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.

Pros:

• Excellent roleplaying.
• Unique combat system.
• Looks amazing.
• Great performance.

Cons:

• Slow start.
• Too much empty space sometimes.

Score: 4.5/5

The Gothic Horror RPG Sunless Skies has been released:

SAIL THE STARS. BETRAY YOUR QUEEN. MURDER A SUN.

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

It is the dawn of the 20th century, and the British Empire has taken to the stars! As the captain of a spacefaring locomotive you’ll behold wonders and battle cosmic abominations in the heavens.

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 Empire’s ambition is savage. They have built a new Sun. The Empress 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?

Learn who you are, in the dark. Die, and leave the world the way you want it for your successor…

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The launch trailer for Sunless Skies which releases January 31st.

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FEATURES

• Multiple, intertwining stories with a depth and richness unlike anything else in games, inspired by CS Lewis, Jules Verne, Lovecraft and HG Wells
• Lush, hand-drawn 2d art to match
• Four giant regions to explore: celestial wilderness, impossible industrial empire, pagan midnight expanse, and the mysterious Blue Kingdom.
• A choice of play styles: build a lineage of captains as each dies, or reload your most recent captain and continue
• Key remapping and full controller support

Sunless Skies will be releasing 31st January 2019, as well as pen and paper supplement Skyfarer.

SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG

By Hannah Flynn, September 22, 2018 · Sunless Skies

SUNLESS SKIES will be released on 31st January 2019. It will be available on Steam and GOG for PC, Mac and Linux.

“We’ve used the time in Early Access to fill the world with the most glorious stories, and to refine the play experience: improving combat, tweaking the skyfaring experience, and closing in on a dark and dread-soaked atmosphere.” says CEO Paul Arendt. “The next update, due on 10th October, will include a complete overhaul of the Reach region and extended mechanics for Terror, fuel, hunger and crew.”

To accompany SUNLESS SKIES, we’re releasing a free pen and paper RPG system set in the Fallen London Universe, available exclusively via digital download at tabletopgaming.co.uk.

SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG is a pen and paper RPG system by Grant Howitt and Chris Taylor of Rowan, Rook and Decard, the minds behind Spire, Honey Heist, Goblin Quest, One Last Job and many other games. SKYFARER follows in the footsteps of their previous work with a focus on quick-form, rapid-fire play that leaves players wanting more.

“‘Why don’t you make an RPG set in the Fallen London universe?’ has been a regular request from players for – oo, going on nine years, now. Working with Grant and Chris on SKYFARER to bring one of our worlds to the tabletop has been hugely exciting. I can’t wait to hear what delicious and horrifying adventures people have with their friends,” says Narrative Director Chris Gardiner. “We’ve tried to make the game friendly to new and experienced roleplayers, and to provide evocative adventure seeds to get things moving in an appropriately Failbettery direction. The game is completely true to our universe: player will find mystery, adventure, bad decisions, improbable characters, nocturnal horrors, and tentacles.”

About SKYFARER: A Sunless Skies RPG

While SUNLESS SKIES puts the player in the role of a Captain aboard a locomotive engine, cruising the skies looking for adventure and profit, SKYFARER gives players the opportunity to play the crew. Gunners, quartermasters, engineers, signallers – even mascots – are brought to the fore as the Captain is struck down by misfortune and the crew must band together to get out of, and probably into, trouble.

Using a simple dice-based system, SKYFARER allows players and gamemasters to easily tell stories set in the FALLEN LONDON universe with plenty of climactic moments, tense stand-offs, and grim decisions. As characters risk life and limb, they’ll accrue Peril – the more Peril they have, the greater the chance of them meeting a grisly and permanent end.

Luckily, things are made easier by spending Tenacity – a resource earned by acting in accordance with your character’s drives and beliefs. But how will those integrities change, now you’re out on the frontier of Victoria’s Empire?

Download your copy from tabletopgaming.co.uk, and please let us know how your games go!

Psst, as an extra bonus for being a friend of FBG, here are some additional story seeds written by our narrative director, Chris Gardiner:

Skyfarer_SkyStories_Supplement

Gamingbolt reports that Sunless Skies early access has been extended to January 2019 and some new content has been released called the Eleutheria region.

Better known for Sunless Sea, Failbetter Games is currently working on its next big gothic RPG Sunless Skies. The title is currently in Steam Early Access, which will continue until January 2019, as per a recent announcement. The good news is that Failbetter has some new content available – the Eleutheria region. Check out the trailer for it below.

[...]

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Thanks Farflame!

Sunless Skies adds the new region of Albion.

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Wishlist Sunless Skies now on Steam or GOG:

http://store.steampowered.com/app/596970/SUNLESS_SKIES/

https://www.gog.com/game/sunless_skies

We’ve added a second region to Sunless Skies! Explore Albion, the heart of the British Empire's territory in the High Wilderness; and the only place you can reliably get a decent cup of tea -------------------------------------------------------------------------------

SAIL THE STARS. BETRAY YOUR QUEEN. MURDER A SUN.

Set a course for the heavens in your steam locomotive! Lose yourself in a changing universe where even time can be bought. A Victorian Gothic adventure for PC, Mac and Linux. ©2018 Failbetter Games LTD. Sunless Skies is a trademark of Failbetter Games Ltd, 2018. All other trademarks and Tradenames are properties of their respective Owners.

MCV interview Failbetter Games about Sunless Skies and whether early access 'curiousity' is dwindling.

The game has also been hit by several changes to Steam's marketplace, which is affecting Early Access games negatively.

"Valve has reduced the exposure Early Access titles titles tend to get on the platform, very sensibly," Myers mentioned. "It's very sensible, probably as a way to protect people from problematic early access games, ones that end up not getting finished."

However, Myers says there also seems to be less interest from the public with regards to getting stuck into an Early Access game. "Players have sated the curiosity that initially seemed to motivate a lot of players to back Early Access projects, in terms of going through the development process," adds Myers.

"Now, players are more likely to base their purchasing decision on whether or not they think it's the right time to experience the game."

For Sunless Skies, a game with a heavy narrative focus, Myers posits that a lot of players could be waiting for the game to be complete before they throw themselves in rather than experiencing just a small part of it.

It's a tough blow for Failbetter, and has unfortunately seen them part ways with several members of staff, delaying the game past its initial launch date. Work on the game continues, rapidly, and both Myers and Flynn say there's no risk the studio won't deliver.

[...]

PC Gamer reports that Failbetter Games has some financial problems:

Failbetter Games lays off employees, Sunless Skies delayed

The studio said the game will ship, but it's taking a more cautious approach to the future.

2017 was a "mixed bag" for Sunless Sea developer Failbetter Games, and it's resulted in some unfortunate changes at the studio and on its next project, Sunless Skies, which has sold far fewer copies than Sunless Sea and isn't going to make its scheduled May release.

Sunless Skies was a huge success on Kickstarter, breaking its £100,000 goal in just four hours and finishing with nearly four times that amount. The Early Access release has been a very different matter, however, as sales have only achieved about 15 percent of what Sunless Sea achieved over the same period of time. The studio cited a number of reasons for the slippage, including a premature rollout, changes to the marketplace, and the wild success of the Kickstarter, which led to fewer Early Access purchases and thus lower visibility on the storefront.

Despite that rough start, development of Sunless Skies continues to move ahead, "and there's no danger of us failing to deliver the project you backed," communications director Hannah Flynn wrote in a blog post. "But the business has a lot less cash in the bank than we wanted to have at this point."

[...]

Thanks henriquejr!

@RockPaperShotgun Sunless Skies has entered Steam early access.

After exploring a cheerygrim subterranean Victorian city in Fallen London, the seas around it in Sunless Sea, then beneath those seas in the Zubmariner expansion, Failbetter Games have blasted off to the dark and dreadful cosmos above with Sunless Skies. Continuing in the same explore-o-trade-a-cannibalise RPG vein as Sunless Sea, Skies today rocketed into early access. The full release should follow in mid-2018 but if you'd like to develop space madness sooner and maybe help shape the game, you can now buy into early access.
[...]

The Adventure RPG Sunless Skies, successor of Sunless Seas, will be available as Early Access version at the end of August:

Enriching the Reach: JANSKY

Our JANSKY sprint leads us to a very special announcement—Sunless Skies is coming to Steam Early Access and GOG Games in Development the 30th of August! With that in mind, all teams have of course been working on buffing, polishing and bug fixing the Reach, our initial area for Early Access / Games in Development.

[...]

Thanks Farflame!

Here's the new Sunless Skies roadmap - thumbs up for using Agile Software Development:

Sunless Skies roadmap

Below you’ll find the roadmap for the production of Sunless Skies. Like many developers, we work in 2-week periods called ‘sprints’. This roadmap will allow you to see which general features we’re working on from now until Early Access (we’ll update it with more sprints once we enter Early Access!).

There are a few important things to note:

• Whilst the tasks and features have been outlined and planned ahead of time by our producer, Lottie, game development is quite a fluid process.
• Some tasks turn out to be more complicated than anticipated.
• It is also very rare, for example, that we would complete a huge component of the game, like all combat, art or writing, within just two weeks. Large features will be developed across multiple sprints.
• Time for polish at the end is also key. Since game development is iterative, production schedules are basically set as a skeleton of what needs to be achieved. Once we start getting player feedback, we can confirm what is working and what isn’t, make adjustments, and then flesh everything out with final art, prose, audio and animation.

Once a sprint is completed, we’ll update the information below to reflect more specifically what was accomplished, and link it to the individual development blog, in case you’re curious to know more!

KICKSTARTER – EARLY ACCESS ROAD MAP

last updated 19 April 2017

Sprint 9 – Traveling Through the Reach: APHELION Part I
ART: initial UI pipeline set up, initial locomotive designs
CONTENT: initial region work on The Reach
GAMEPLAY & DESIGN: beginning mechanics on hunger/death/fuel/time, procedurally generated movement through the game world

Sprint 10 – Traveling Through the Reach: Part II – APHELION Part 2
ART: terrain pipeline
CONTENT: Port: Traitor’s Wood
GAMEPLAY & DESIGN: implementing fuel/hunger, initial work on Terror, beginning character progression

Sprint 11 – Traveling Through the Reach: Part III – BIG BANG
ART: beginning art and animation greyboxing
CONTENT: vessel classifications
GAMEPLAY & DESIGN: combat AI specifications for tactics, error report capturing, hold management

Sprint 12 – Combat in the Reach: CHROMOSPHERE
(Extremely hot red part of planetary atmosphere. Our first heavy combat sprint!)
Terrain, AI combat behavior, player movement prototyping, commissioning first sound effects

Sprint 13 – Combat in the Reach: DARK MATTER  
(The mass that explains all the astrophysics we can’t explain. First part of combat complete and first bits of audio.)
Player combat mechanics, initial work on difficulty settings, adding environmental features in-game

Sprint 14 – Populating the Reach: EXOGENESIS 
(Theory that life originated elsewhere in the universe and was then transported to Earth. People of the Reach!)
Welcoming a new artist and designing denizens of the Reach (crew, vessels, beasties)

Sprint 15 – Populating the Reach: FORTUNE
(Dante’s personified cosmic intelligence responsible for Earth. People/denizens/character sprint.)
People of the Reach continued, character creation and character progression, closed-beta preparation

Sprint 16 – Enriching the Reach: GANYMEDE
(Jupiter’s largest moon, and the ninth largest object in our solar system. A smorgasbord of tasks all aimed at enriching the environment of the Reach.)
Closed-beta begins, audio, legacies, scouts and taking player feedback from the beta

Sprint 17 – Enriching the Reach: HYPERGALAXY
(A usually spiral galaxy surrounded by smaller satellite galaxies, like the Milky Way and Andromeda. Smorgasbord fleshing out the outlines of the Reach.)
Early Access tutorial work, shop functionality and bug fixing

Sprint 18 – Out of the Reach: INVARIANTTHEORIE
(Einstein’s preferred term for special relativity. Fine tuning the Reach!)
Bug fixing, preparation for Early Access and our first look at a new region (Albion)

Sprint 19 – Out of the Reach: JANSKY
(A unit of spectral irradiance; a big bright burst of light. Heading towards Early Access fast!)
Creating a responsive world, galaxy-wide game mechanics, and prioritising tasks to be finalised ahead of Early Access

Sprint 20 – Out of the Reach: KEPLER
(Planetary motion and celestial physics. Now it’s time for Early Access to begin!)
Smuggling implementation and finalising the Reach for Early Access

Thanks Farflame!

Farflame spotted that Failbetter Games succeeded with their Kickstarter campaign for Sunless Skies - Congratulations!

The stretch goal Smuggling for Sunless Skies has almost been reached:

You’re on fire!

Delicious friends,

You’ve temporarily exhausted our supply of superlatives. We’ll have to squeeze the writers for more. (They won’t mind.)

We’re now within £4,000 of adding smuggling to the game - something we were very excited about when we came up with it during pre-production, but which we couldn’t add to the game without your support. Thank you for getting us this far!

Sunless Skies is now live on kickstarter and has already exceeded its 100K goal with 29 days remaining.

Sunless Skies is a 2D, top-down, story-led game of exploration, corruption and jeopardy from Failbetter Games. It's the successor to our first game for PC, Sunless Sea, but you don't need to know Sunless Sea to play and enjoy Sunless Skies.

It is the dawn of the 20th century, and London has taken to the stars! As the captain of a spacefaring locomotive you'll behold wonders and battle cosmic abominations in the furthest heavens. Stake your claim. Fight to survive. Speak to storms. Murder a sun. Face judgement.

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At EGX the Sunless Seas developer talked about their new game coming to kickstarter 2017 Sunless Skies. They also talked about an expansion to Sunless Seas.

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The team behind Sunless Sea and Fallen London will reveal the title and details of their new game. Plus there will be heaps of new information on Zubmariner, the upcoming expansion for Sunless Sea.

Failbetter Games announced a sequel for the exploration and survival game Sunless Sea called Sunless Skies:

7 facts about Sunless Skies

1. As with Sunless Sea, it’ll be rich with stories. The Victorian Empire in space – the High Wilderness – a “blistering, wonderful night” among the thrones and domains of the stars. The Empress has abandoned London and led an exodus to the High Wilderness, to carve out a new British Empire. With the Empire being increasingly authoritarian, bohemians, revolutionaries and outcasts – like you – are trying to make a life for themselves on its fringes.
2. It will elaborate on Sunless Sea. We’re enhancing the stuff we liked, and refining the experience. It will be a punishing game, but respectful of your time.
3. At full release, it will be available on the same platforms at launch which Sunless Sea is available on now: Windows, Mac and Linux.
4. We will use Early Access again, taking on board all of the lessons we learned from Sunless Sea.
5. Why the name? The stars are dying. The stars are the Judgements: the inventors, arbiters and enforcers of the universe’s laws – but a revolution has begun, and the stars are being murdered.
6. Our influences include: the science fiction of H G Wells and C S Lewis, the planetary romances of Leigh Brackett, Art Nouveau, Event Horizon, trains.
7. We are running a Kickstarter for it in February! Stop the clocks, mark your diaries, save your pennies!