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.
Sunless Sea players are no strangers to freakish stories, but Eleutheria in Sunless Skies will take things a step further. As CEO and art director Paul Arendt states, “Eleutheria is designed to give you goosebumps. It’s dark. The enemies are about as scary as we can make them, and we put a submarine-sized spider that feeds on terror in the last game. The stories are among our weirdest and most haunting. We can’t wait to get into some streams after it’s launched and watch people lose themselves in the dark.”
Why is Sunless Skies being kept in Early Access for a longer period? Deputy CEO Adam Myers feels that while Eleutheria has been well developed, the central region of The Reach could use some tuning up.
“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. As the central region, you spend a lot of time there, so we really want to ensure the atmosphere, and the quality, variety and frequency of the experiences there reflect the lessons we’ve learned since. 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,” said Myers.
Though that won’t require much time or additional work, Myers feels that skipping the Holiday season and releasing in January 2019 could also “give the game its best chance.” Considering how crowded the release calendar is going to be from August 2018 onwards till the end of the year, we’re inclined to agree with this decision.
