Far: Changing Tides review – a stirring apocalypse fable

Xbox One/Series S/X, PlayStation 4/5, PC, Nintendo Switch; Okomotive AG/Frontier Foundry

Singlehandedly manage a steampunk sailboat in this ramshackle but glorious anti-open world game

Far: Changing Tides melds Mario with Cormac McCarthy and a touch of nautical engineering. Human civilisation lies in ruins, and you are a child journeying to the other end of it. You can't do this on foot, however. As in Okomotive's previous Far: Lone Sails, the star is actually your vehicle - a rattling origami hybrid of sailboat and first world war tank. Scurry inside, and the hull lifts away dollhouse-style to reveal a warren of buttons and boilers. This isn't the fantasy of uninhibited traversal offered by car-based apocalypses such as Mad Max: you don't so much drive the craft as maintain it while it plots its own course rightward through flooded cities and glacial seas.

Changing Tides is a game of three moods. First, the satisfying rhythms of ship management - stowing fuel and pumping the bellows while hosing down the overheating engine, or angling pop-out sails to catch the wind. Second, the mild thrill of exploration outside, whether scouting for fuel or to clear the path by, say, operating a crane. And third, the reflective interludes when things are humming along nicely and you have a moment to watch the horizons pass.

Far: Changing Tides is out now; 14.99