Forever Skies is a New Action-Survival Game Focused on an Intergalactic Disease
Forever Skies is certainly a timely title being developed by Polish developer Far From Home. This new action-survival game definitely has some Dead Space vibes going on. Evidently, this game will be taking place on Earth during a climate crisis of epic proportions. Hence, a virus is spreading around humanity and decimating the population. Players will take control of an explorer who must venture out into the newly molded wasteland of Earth’s surface to find a way to squelch the disease that’s eradicating mankind. If that wasn’t enough, the animal kingdom is also evolving from this situation and becoming a more dangerous mutated variation of their former selves. There’s a lot to take in with this title and it looks like it is being pieced together with great love and care. Despite the fact that this game is being made from a relevantly small team, there is a surprising amount of depth and detail found in the gameplay.
Taking inspiration from No Man’s Sky and other sci-fi survival titles, players will be free to explore the crevices of a marred Earth to find resources for their ship. Generally, this will be the core of the gameplay. The player’s ship will essentially be a hub for players as it houses everything they will need. A laboratory, workbench, and replenishing zones will all be located at this craft. Therefore, the main mission will be going out on adventures throughout the crumbling infrastructure of Earth and finding ways to constantly upgrade your home. Like a toy, players can build their vessel to make it reflect their own personality. It’s not to say that players won’t be armed, either because they will. There is an FPS dynamic to be found in Forever Skies that kind of sets it apart from its counterparts. There will be no wasted space on the map since it will be teeming with things to find and stories to unfold.
Catching Clouds
Nobody really knows what happened to Earth in Forever Skies. Much like Dark Souls and other games made by FromSoftware, the story is fairly cryptic. Players will be enticed into finding exposition at their own leisure and piece together the overall arc of this plot. Generally, that is half the fun with open-world games such as these. The thrill of opening new pathways and discovering new information is a testament to a well-crafted open-world game. There will be things attacking players from all angles, including planet life. Players will be finding all manners of elements that can be used to make new tools, weapons, and appliances for their ship. From the way things look, the gameplay seems to be a bit elementary in terms of gathering things. A device will scan particular elements and will break them down into digestible data for players to decipher.
In all honesty, it seems to be very similar to Subnautica in terms of how this works. It is a very light-hearted approach to the survival sub-genre that will make things easier for players who are uninitiated with it. Things will materialize automatically after players accumulated enough required resources to build something. This will be done with some kind of handheld “materializing” tool which the explorer holds. Therefore, the traditional methods of gathering resources aren’t really found in Forever Skies. It will be in a much more sci-fi approach toward things, and rightfully so. The story does take place hundred of years in the future, after all. The civilization that we’re all currently a part of is nothing more than a distant memory and vague depiction.
Cosmic Curiosity
The environments seem to be vast and also formatted with verticality in mind. Degraded skyscrapers are erect high above the intergalactic dust that’s corrupting the planet. They all seem to be fully explorable, offering all manners of avenues to take. From the looks of things, the resources that players will need won’t be the standard rocks, minerals, wood, and fauna. Instead, things will be a little more pragmatic and relatable given the situation at hand. Players will dematerialize and collect junk found around the buildings like; doors, panels, laptops, and miscellaneous office equipment. Of course, since this is a “survival” game, hunger, thirst, and stamina will certainly play a factor and players will need to hunt or scavenge for sustenance constantly. How this will work within this type of dystopian environment remains to be seen.
Lastly, Forever Skies will also enable players to take their ship to any point they wish. Of course, upgrading it to reach certain points could very well be an element. Even though this game could be open-world to an extent, the alternative is by having it be more Metroidvania with its layout. The developers haven’t really laid out how the story will progress, per se. However, based on what was shown in the gameplay trailer, there are things that give this title a pretty good indicator of how it will play. Of course, this game is still pretty early in development and there is a lot of details that have yet to be released. There is no question that the survival sub-genre is booming right now and this generation is the best time for developers to dig into it. Given the specs and next-gen hardware that allow developers to build all these amazing worlds, it is interesting to think about how elaborate survival games will become in the future.
Crashing Cities
Forever Skies seem to be very much an underdog story. A person that’s quite literally fighting the world in order to save their ailing family. There is an interesting world to discover here and hopefully, fans of survival-action games will take the time and give this new title a shot. There are some heavy-hitters in Far From Home and they know what they are doing in terms of building captivating environments. Expect Forever Skies to be released for the PlayStation, Xbox, and PC later this year. Hopefully, there will be a more in-depth gameplay trailer dropping soon to help give us a little more insight on what this title is all about.
