Failbetter Games’ skybound sequel to indie game Sunless Sea has been successfully funded on Kickstarter. Tripling its initial funding of £100,000, Sunless Skies now has £377,952 of investment money to help make it a reality.
Failbetter Games asked for £100,000 because that’s what Sunless Sea originally raised, but the game’s actual budget is £330,000, now raised entirely through Kickstarter.
Sunless Skies is set in Failbetter’s Fallen London universe. “Ten years have passed since Sunless Sea , and Queen Victoria has led an exodus from London to the heavens. There, a revitalised British Empire - ambitious and authoritarian - begins to expand across the skies,” reads the summary on Kickstarter.
Similar to Sunless Sea , there is no set end condition for the game. You can choose to set up an Ambition, such as charting the farthest courses of the Wilderness, winning your own throne or retiring with enough money to buy your own London. Exploration is its own reward:
“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.”
Unlike in Sunless Sea, when you die, your actions are not erased. Your effect on the world will be remembered and may help or hinder your new replacement captain’s journey.
Stretch goals for Sunless Skies added new Character Origins as a Zee-captain, a Revolutionary or a Ministry Auditor, three legendary wrecks for your crew to discover, the ability to be a smuggler, a new locomotive chassis called the Moloch “manufactured by refugees from Hell,” a new officer in your quartermaster slot called “An Inconvenient Aunt,” wriggling little mites known as the Guests that can overtake a whole locomotive, and an advanced Ambition known as “The Martyr-King’s Cup.”
Sunless Skies is due for a summer 2017 release date on Steam Early Access, with the full game planned for a May 2018 release date.
Did you fund Sunless Skies? Are you interested in the sequel to Sunless Sea ? Feel free to let us know in the comments section below.
