Heaven's Vault gameplay trailer showcases the new project from 80 Days studio Inkle

Back in March 2017, Sorcery! and 80 Days developer Inkle announced a new project called Heaven's Vault, a "character-driven graphic novel crossed with an open-world adventure game." In January of this year it released a brief teaser describing the game as "an archaeological science fiction adventure," which is an intriguing concept but not terribly informative otherwise.

Today, however, the studio announced that the game will also be coming to the PS4, and that bit of news came with a new trailer revealing some actual gameplay, and more information about what's in store on the PlayStation Blog.

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"Heaven’s Vault is the story of archaeologist Aliya Elasra, who sails the Nebula with her robot sidekick Six, finding and translating inscriptions written in the lost language of the ancients," Inkle narrative director Jon Ingold explained. "And when we say language, we really mean it: for Heaven’s Vault, we’ve created an entire language for you to figure out as you play."

Ingold said the glyphs are a puzzle mechanic "with a narrative twist," because every inscription in the game tells part of the story, but it's all subject to your translation. Glyphs have meanings that combine into words that form the phrases found inscribed on ruins throughout the Nebula, but if you get one of those words wrong, "you might get entirely the wrong idea about a place or what an artifact was for."

Inkle described Heaven's Vault as its "most ambitious, beautiful and complex game to date" when it was announced, and Ingold didn't back away from that claim, calling it "bigger, better, and deeper" than 80 Days—quite a promise, given how good 80 Days is. (Reminder: It's really good.) It's expected to be out sometime this year; Ingold said a proper release date will be announced soon. For now, you can find out more at inklestudios.com, or on Steam.

Andy has been gaming on PCs from the very beginning, starting as a youngster with text adventures and primitive action games on a cassette-based TRS80. From there he graduated to the glory days of Sierra Online adventures and Microprose sims, ran a local BBS, learned how to build PCs, and developed a longstanding love of RPGs, immersive sims, and shooters. He began writing videogame news in 2007 for The Escapist and somehow managed to avoid getting fired until 2014, when he joined the storied ranks of PC Gamer. He covers all aspects of the industry, from new game announcements and patch notes to legal disputes, Twitch beefs, esports, and Henry Cavill. Lots of Henry Cavill.