Sunless Skies review – a galaxy of terrors awaits

PC; Failbetter Games
This imaginative and darkly humorous steampunk survival game has you fearfully chart a vast, hostile universe

Depending on what you want from it, Sunless Skies is a merciless odyssey of oddball sci-fi survival, or a fantasy novel trilogy's worth of wild, written ideas. You're the captain of a spacefaring locomotive, braving cosmic fiends, blunderbuss-toting pirate trains and encroaching madness as you explore a darkly fantastical British empire's faltering colonisation of the malevolent stars. Travel is slow, lonely and lethal: your crew is at constant risk of starvation, your hull at constant risk of destruction and your mind at constant risk of snapping.

At each dock you pull into, an assortment of strange characters awaits. Each has their own unexpected short stories to tell - if you can draw them out by meeting their demands or passing tests of chance. The frequently twisted flights of both fancy and language in these tales are delightful. Characters and places burrow their way into your memory thanks to acid-tongued words or unexpected twists - secrets, lies, diseases, murders, devils.