Sunless Sea Reviews
Sunless Sea is a masterpiece of interactive storytelling, atmosphere and exploration that spins a unique, tense and frequently tragic new yarn every time you play. It's a shame that the spiteful economy and repetitive early game gradually forces you to focus on the systems, not the stories, but the quality of the writing elevates Sunless Sea into something rather special indeed.
Sunless Sea is a great video game and the team at Failbetter Games has clearly invested a lot of love and attention into its development.
Sunless Sea is ultimately a chronicle of tragedies. Success is dependent upon you building up achievements, stacking your legacy high enough that the next captain can set sail with a proper cannon and better rig, which is in turn entirely in service of exploring whatever remains in the vast darkness out East. As someone who played Skyrim and spent hours wandering every square inch of the underground kingdom in Blackreach, I found Sunless Sea's heady darkness appealing.
Sunless Sea truly does capture what it must feel like to be a ship's captain on a dark underground ocean - sometimes it feels exciting and wondrous, but usually it feels lethargic and dreary. I should've stayed in London and became a shopkeeper.
'Sunless Sea' is the perfect game for someone who's been waiting for a subterranean, steampunk, nautical, difficult, heavily text-based adventure. I highly recommend it for everyone else as well, especially those who appreciate deliciously whimsical, macabre prose and don't mind a bit of backtracking and dying.
Explanations of the lore, the world, and your place in it are in short supply but over time, you live, die and learn, rewarding those that stick with it with some of the slickest, well implemented writing in gaming.
A unique setting makes this survival/exploration game stand apart from the pack, along with it's RPG elements. If the sound of well-written stories of captains facing the horrors of the sea piques your interest, look no further. Sunless Sea is a standout in a well-saturated genre.
Do I own the game or does the game own me? I can no longer tell, and truth be told I no longer care.