‘Star Trek without the manifest destiny’: Saltsea Chronicles, a gently radical vision of the future

Creative director Hannah Nicklin explains how the narrative adventure game offers a far-reaching new take on storytelling

What does it mean to play a video game as an ensemble rather than a single character? How would it change your experience of people and plot? What if there was no single hero, or perhaps no heroes at all? As Hannah Nicklin, a creative director at independent studio Die Gute Fabrik explains, these are questions that narrative adventure Saltsea Chronicles is attempting to answer, all while telling its own charming story of misfit sailors voyaging across a flooded archipelago to uncover a conspiracy.

It's a lofty pitch, and one Nicklin brings back down to earth with a comparison: Star Trek: The Next Generation without the manifest destiny" - a description that hints at the game's politics and its structure. We take that ensemble cast, and we put you in the centre of a mystery that you are trying to uncover," she says. You're on the ship and often get to choose which islands to visit. You choose who forms the expedition party and what they say when they get there." All this plays out across gorgeously rendered environments, like a classic LucasArts adventure game of the 1990s with the visual the flair of a European arthouse cartoon. Logic puzzles make way for an emphasis on character, world-building, and exploration - the simple pleasures of getting to know a people and place.