A man who knows how to
pose for the camera.
Beyond a Steel Sky
PREVIEW
9
RELEASE
TBC 2020DEVELOPER
RevolutionPUBLISHER
In-houseLINK
revolution.co.ukNEED TO KNOWA forest of skyscrapers and smokestacks
stretches for miles into the sky, circled by
an impenetrable wall, and the scene is well
and truly set. A boy, Milo, has gone
missing, and the trail has led Foster here.
Beyond a Steel Sky is, as you might
expect from Revolution, a fairly
typical adventure game. You talk to
people, pick up items, and solve
multi-stage puzzles to progress.
The two hours I played had the
slow, laid-back pace that I’ve come to
associate with this developer. There’s no
urgency or time pressure, leaving you to
explore at your own pace, getting a feel for
the world and the people around you.
At the end of Beneath a Steel Sky,
Foster left the running of the city in the
hands of Joey, a sarcastic but
fundamentally good-natured self-aware AI
he built as a child living in the Gap. Now,
years later, it seems Joey is regarded as
some kind of deity.
In previous demos of the game,
Revolution has only shown one area: a
freight depot outside the city gates. But in
this new hands-on preview build I’m finally
able to enter the city itself.Foster is posing as a dead man he
found in the Gap named Graham Grundy,
whose citizen ID he transfers to a chip in
his hand. Everyone in Union City has one
of these, and pretty much everything
involves using a hand scanner.SKY HIGH
When you enter, you’re treated to a series
of establishing shots of the city. It’s a
dramatic looking place, with a dizzying
sense of scale. Look down, and you can
see networks of buildings and streets
below the criss-crossed walkways; look up
and those smokestacks you saw from afar
in the desert seem even more massive.
Watchmen artist Dave Gibbons is
Beyond a Steel Sky’s art director, and the
game’s toon-shaded visuals do a great job
of replicating his distinctive drawing style.
I end up using Grundy’s chip to access
his apartment, where I find his wife and a
bureaucratic city official waiting.
Apparently I (well, Graham) have been
absent from work for several days, which
turns out to be a severe crime in this
supposedly utopian city.
Next thing I know I’m searching his flat
for clues about him, so I can convince
the official that I’m actually him. His
wife, clearly scared of the city
authorities, urges me to play along.
Nosing around in people’s personal
space is a staple of the adventure genre,
and I end up knowing far too much about
this dead Grundy guy.
He’s a cleaner, he has a heart implant,
and he and his wife sleep in separate
bedrooms because their relationship is,
unfortunately, on the rocks. Like the
original, Beyond a Steel Sky has a very
idiosyncratic, quirky sense of humor.
I mostly manage to convince the
official that I’m Grundy, but I slip up a few
times. A cute touch when I’m being grilled
is Grundy’s wife in the background,
miming the correct answers. When I’m
asked what my hobby is, she mimics
clicking a camera.
The bureaucrat eventually leaves, but I
can tell his suspicions have been raised.
However, before I can see what happens
next, the demo ends. Foster is convinced
Grundy was involved in Milo’s kidnapping,
but I guess I’ll have to wait for the finished
game to find out if that’s the case.
Andy KellyY
ou’re introduced to Union City, the
setting for this sequel to cult point-and-
click adventure Beneath a Steel Sky, in
the first act, and it’s an impressive sight.
After trudging through a sandstorm in the Gap—a
post-apocalyptic name for the Aussie outback—
hero Robert Foster crests a sand dune and finds the
city looming ominously over him.A new adventure from the creator
of Broken SwordB E Y O N D A
STEEL SKY
FOSTER IS POSING AS A DEAD
MAN HE FOUND IN THE GAP
NAMED GRAHAM GRUNDYPLAYED
IT