Sunless Sea sequel, Sunless Skies, hits Kickstarter goal in four hours [Updated]

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The 'literary RPG' series goes to space.

Update: Boy, that sure didn't take long.

Original story: 

There are two vital elements to every Failbetter game. Firstly, everything is dark and a bit steampunk. Secondly, London has gone somewhere it shouldn't. In Fallen London and Sunless Sea the capital fell into a vast underground ocean full of strange islands, dark magic and bizarre folk. The upcoming sequel—now seeking esteemed patrons on Kickstarter—plans to send London into space.

Not ordinary space, of course. Failbetter promises that you will "Speak to storms. Murder a sun" and "face judgement" in a void full of clockwork suns, ancient alien cultures and leviathans that eat time. Like Sunless Sea, you'll pilot a vessel around the cosmos, meeting interesting weirdos and intermittently battling nasties in tactical real time combat. 

From Fallen London through to Sunless Skies Failbetter has experimented with new interactive fiction formats, combining detailed choose-your-own-adventure structures with atmospheric art. It will be interesting to see that approach translated into a universe where Queen Victoria has decided to take her Empire to the stars. We gave Sunless Sea a very respectable score of 80 in our review, and the underwater expansion Zubmariner an outstanding 90.

At the time of writing Sunless Skies has already received £39,653 of its £100,000 goal. Stretch goals are due to be announced later, but you can find out more about pledge tiers and the game's setting on the Kickstarter page.

Tom Senior
Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.