**DISCLAIMER: THIS GAME WAS PROVIDED FREE OF CHARGE BY THE PUBLISHER, ALL OPINIONS THEREIN ARE ENTIRELY THE AUTHOR’S OWN AND HAVE NOT BEEN INFLUENCED BY THE GIFT**
If you’ve come to this article wondering what Beyond a Steel Sky even is, I wouldn’t blame you for a second.
This is a niche sequel to a near-forgotten point-and-click adventure from 1994: Beneath a Steel Sky. Developed by British studio Revolution Software in collaboration with comic book artist Dave Gibbons, it was equal parts Hitchhiker’s Guide and Judge Dredd. The dystopian backdrop of the ultra-capitalist megacity contrasted beautifully with the humorous characters and dialogue in a way that is uniquely its own in the medium and is regarded as a cult classic in the adventure game genre.
Luckily, you can play this one for free on GOG, so if you’re interested, you don’t need to spend out.
Beyond a Steel Sky was announced in 2019, and as you might expect from a game being released 24 years after its predecessor, it looked very different from Beneath. This time around, you’re making your way willingly back to Unity City. On the trail of a missing child, you control Foster as he infiltrates the city, eager to see what’s happened since he was last here and find out why the city he left his best friend in charge of is now kidnapping children.
The graphics are a stark contrast to the previous game. This is a fully 3D, cell-shaded affair very much along the lines of something from Telltale. Tales from the Borderlands, this is not, but you could be forgiven for mistaking them at a glance. That’s not a criticism by any stretch, mind you, it’s a favourable comparison I’m making there. The cell-shaded graphics and bold outlines lend themselves well to the comic book art style they’re aiming for. In the original game, the limited graphics technology of the time meant you only really saw the comic style in the intro cutscene, but here it’s present throughout and is well executed.
The 3D nature of the game means that exploration is very different here than in Beneath. We’ve graduated from near-static pre-rendered screens to fully explorable 3D environments that you’ll want to inspect closely. Not only do the puzzles rely on you thoroughly looking around, but there’s also a ton of extra fun dialogue and narration from Foster you can find exploring, not to mention the Easter eggs and references for fans.
Related to that, I can’t say I’m a huge fan of WASD controls in my adventure games, but it’s a necessary evil I’ve come to accept with time as 3D adventure games have become the norm for the genre. Beyond a Steel Sky does the best it can with it though, still giving you a decent amount of control with the mouse to keep that point-and-click feel alive. Hooking up a controller eliminates the need for WASD, but that also bypasses the mouse controls, so I spent most of my time bearing with the WASD. Despite my gripes with the controls overall, it does still manage to feel like a true sequel to the ’90s classic brought into the modern age.
The majority of the puzzles are your standard inventory and interrogation mechanics you’ll be familiar with from the original, except for the new hacking puzzle they’ve added here. Hacking is done by scanning certain terminals and robots, giving you access to their programming, represented by a flow chart. From there, you can swap out pieces from the flow charts, either in the same system or, if you’re close enough, in multiple, and create different effects and behaviours with the tech. Positioning yourself correctly and timing when to scan is important to make sure you have access to what you need for the puzzle.
It’s a nice diversion from the dialogue and inventory stuff. Each new hacking puzzle is spaced out pretty decently and ramps up in difficulty throughout the game, making sure it doesn’t bore you by overusing the mechanic, but also making sure it still challenges you. Which, for me, is the entire aim of adventure games, so it’s safe to say I think it’s a good mechanic.
I think the only aspect here I can truly criticise is the soundtrack. It’s nice enough music and well-composed, but I found it very generic compared to the MIDI tracks found in the original. I know the overall sound of those older games is nearly entirely due to the limitations of the hardware, constraining the composers to beeps and boops, but I think the switch to orchestral production—the same as the majority of games these days—didn’t give it any identity of its own. On top of that tracks felt far too similar to each other. It feels like the music is just present to fill the silence rather than lend the various areas of the city some individuality.
So, do I think this game was worth waiting 26 years for?
No, of course not, nothing could have lived up to that.
So I guess it’s a good thing no one was waiting for it. We had no idea this was ever coming until its surprise announcement during the Kickstarter campaign for Broken Sword 5.
But is it a game worthy of calling itself a sequel to the 1994 classic? Surprisingly, I’d say yes, it is! Beyond a Steel Sky is one of those rare nostalgia-based sequels that manages to keep what made its predecessor beloved mostly intact while modernising it in beneficial ways. If you enjoyed the original and were wondering if the sequel was worth the time, I say pick it up, you’ll be surprised by how recognisable you find this new Unity City.
