Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition news & patch notes

Hello, delicious friends, Sunless Sea is turning 10 years old on the 6th of February, if you can believe it. Sunless Skies is already 6! My, they grow up so fast. We're having a celebratory sale in honour of the milestone, so a good chance to pick up any of the Fallen London Universe games at lifetime best prices. The game that originated the universe - the Zee, the High Wilderness, and every dreadful thing in them - Fallen London, is now 15! (Anyone making calculations about how old that makes us should probably just let that thought wink out like a false-star.) In celebration, Fallen London is getting a major adaptation for tabletop roleplaying, developed by Magpie Games. Magpie are the team behind Root, Avatar Legends, Urban Shadows, Bluebeard's Bride and many more wonderful games. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/35dce1558f6abc676045aa7c5315e40055b3030b.png We hope this development will excite those of you who have asked us down the years if we could create a TTRPG system for this world. The initial project is to create the core rulebook and a supplement for London, with the dream being to follow that up with a Sunless Sea module, should everything work out well. We hope you'll take a look, and that this will enable you to have further adventures in the Neath, this time working together with your friends in pursuit of a grand, world-changing ambition. Cannibalism is not guaranteed, but can never be fully discounted when improvising a story with friends! The Kickstarter starts on the 11th of February, and you can follow it now to get a notification when it goes live.

Platform: PC (Windows/Linux/MacOS) Build Version: 2.0.5.6e8c8ff Release Date: 27/06/2024 Sunless Skies is now available on the Epic Games Store. There are a number of narrative fixes that have been included and we are updating the Steam and GOG builds with those fixes so there is parity across all versions.

Narrative bug fixes

• The icon for the Dominant in the Reach quality has been changed to prevent confusion over the quality requirements for prospects.
• Your skill qualities will now adjust accordingly when altering a Facet of your past when incarcerated at Piranesi.
• Quality requirements for prospects linked with the Devil's secondment at the Avid Horizon are now visible on the Bazaar interface.
• Many typos and inconsistencies have been fixed.

Today it’s been exactly a year since Mask of the Rose was funded on Kickstarter, and we've just released a demo of the first act, available right now on Steam! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/ffc05f0b301257678331764af25cd74d2bb5e6f6.png Get the free demo on Steam, for Windows, Mac and Linux. Offering a condensed version of Act I of Mask of the Rose, you’ll be able to explore select locations across Fallen London, introduce yourself to some key characters and encounter Mr Pages, one of the mysterious new Masters who have recently taken over London, in its office at the Bazaar. At the opening of Mask of the Rose, Mr Pages has employed your housemate, Griz, who has in turn found a few pennies’ work for you as census taker. The census goes some way beyond the expected (Surface census forms never did ask if anyone in the residence was in love), so you’ll need to approach conversations with care to find out all you need to know. Demo Feedback We're really excited to know what you think about exploring Fallen London from this perspective for the first time. The very best places to talk about it will be the Steam discussion forums for Mask of the Rose, or if you want to join one of our community spaces, there's Discord, our forums, and the Fallen London subreddit. There are a few things it’ll be useful to know before you send feedback:

• In the final game there will be a text log, so you can scroll back through conversations
• There will also be audio sliders under Settings
• And of course, there will be saving in the finished game (the final version of Act I will be fleshed out from this version, so carrying choices over wouldn’t be possible).

Spotted a bug? The demo has been through our internal testing, but if you see any bugs or typos we missed, please let us know by emailing [email protected], attaching your player log. Here are some instructions to help you find your player log. We will probably only update the demo if something pretty bad has slipped through, but this will let us fix everything before we release the full game. Thank you! Release Date News We have also announced that Mask of the Rose will release in Oct/Nov this year. Hopefully this taste will keep you going until then! As ever, your friends, Failbetter Games

Tech bug fixes

• Your headlight will no longer pass through solid terrain.
• We’ve made some changes to address the crashes seen when starting a new game on MacOS builds.

Narrative bug fixes

• It is no longer possible to finish developing Titania without completing two projects.
• It should now be clearer how to expand Titania across different captains within the same lineage.
• Speaking to the Caring Conductor when docked will no longer trigger a warning message that breaks docking.
• You can once again collect a bee from a Chorister-Corpse or the Flower Fields for the Abstemious and Patchwork Devils.
• The Abstemious Devil quest will now update in the journal once you've captured a bee.
• The Studious Companion will no longer incorrectly be mentioned when parting ways with the Pugilistic or Poetic Companions.
• The Pugilistic Companion is no longer incorrectly referred to as the Vigorous Companion.
• If you rid yourself of the Clay Conductor, the quest journal will now update accordingly.
• Once the Clay Conductor has been dismissed from your service, you can no longer continue to help him search for a companion.
• It should now be clear when you lose crew at the Giggling Place.
• The Repentant Devil will no longer incorrectly be referenced when speaking to The Defiant Devil.
• As always, a few more typos have been banished.

You may have seen that we Kickstarted a new game in the same universe as Sunless Skies in February this year. Now we're pleased to announce that it has a shiny Steam page! {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/fa49eacaf876d4fa79f8be1ea83b9a204a18f392.png Mask of the Rose is a romantic visual novel, so somewhat different to Sunless Skies and Sunless Sea. However, it's set in the same universe, and brings all of our expertise in writing deep, surprising, meaningful stories, this time on a more personal level. {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/470e3fb4e375fdb6c763029dd24a2743b9ccf463.png Thanks to an unknown bargain, London now resides in a vast cavern under the earth. Down here, the sun doesn't shine, and Parliament has sunk into the Thames. Queen Victoria never emerges from her palace. Cats spy on their owners and whisper their secrets abroad. The fabric of strait-laced Victorian society has begun to fray. New Masters are in charge. Why are they so… tall? And always cloaked? And why are they so interested in love stories? Even death itself has a twist here: the first murder victim since the Fall is feeling much better, and keen to see justice done. Unfortunately, as the doctor who treated him immediately before he expired, your housemate Archie is the prime suspect... {STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/6c72be26001619faf754429f96633fe4e6848a2c.png

• (Re)invent yourself: who were you before the Fall? Who will you be now?
• Create outfits from a selection of clothing and unusual accessories to unlock different story options
• Fall in love with a cast of diverse Londoners, each with their own secrets
• Matchmake among your friends, or seek love for yourself (by any definition you like)
• Write love stories in a delightful minigame, and use them to impress the new Masters
• Pick up odd jobs to earn money and gather resources. How are you at rat catching?
• Solve the first murder since the Fall, with the assistance of the victim
• Discover cosy, mysterious and magnificent locations in a dark and delicious version of Victorian London
• Seek deeper and deeper secrets over multiple playthroughs

We hope you'll take a look at Mask of the Rose, and wishlist to find out more about romancing bats!

Update

We’ve been unable to fully resolve the outstanding bug with the locomotive headlight which is seen on some OSX devices. However there is a workaround; using -force-glcore or alternatively -force-opengl as a launch command will resolve the issue. Full steps can be found in our troubleshooting guide.

Tech bug fixes

• The screen will no longer shake when docking, though the locomotive itself may judder slightly.
• After erupting from host locomotives, Guest tentacles will continue to writhe.
• Dreadnought Guest damage and death animations have returned.
• The animations on Chorister Bee’s wings should no longer freeze.
• Agent headlight intensity has been lowered slightly so it is easier to see their bullets on smaller screens.
• The chart label for the Eleutheria transit relay in Worlebury is no longer blank.
• Tutorial ambient messages and control prompts now have a background layer so they are easier to read.
• Gamepad exclusive fields have been removed from the Controls menu.

Narrative bug fixes

• The Researcher’s Crusade quest is now displayed in the journal rather than on the status panel.
• All references of Ministry-Approved Permits have been replaced with Ministry-Stamped Permits.
• The Poetic Forged Companion will no longer be mentioned when speaking to The Pugilistic Forged Companion.
• You will now always gain Terror when failing to climb the mountain at Lustrum.
• The Patchwork Devil quest will now update in the journal once you’ve captured a live Chorister Bee.
• If the Incognito Princess is on secondment you cannot forge a ring for her at Carillon, or help her meet the Measurer's demands at Crossroads.
• The safer and riskier options on prospect opportunities at Lustrum and Prosper now display the correct chance of success.
• Peculiarities on the status panel will now display a level description where appropriate.
• Several typos have been fixed.

Update

We’re still looking into the docking stutter and some pesky issues on Mac builds, including issues with the headlights. We’ll get these fixes out ASAP. As always thank you for your patience and support.

Narrative bug fixes

• It should no longer be possible to get stuck while speaking to the Phlegmatic Researcher about their requests.
• The need to collect a passenger for the New Street Line before going to the drop off point should now be signalled a little more clearly.
• Searching Elsewhere at the Sun-Shattered Dome will now degrade your suit.
• Captains with Past: A Bell Tolls will no longer see two options to dispose of their death at the Nurseries.
• Once you've dealt with the Vagabond at Old Tom's Well, there will no longer be a conversation option with the Minister which suggests you don't know what became of him.
• Captains participating in the Rochester Race in Albion will no longer be falsely told that they have 30 days to win, when in fact they have 15.
• Various duplicate occurrences of 'the' have been removed from the Court of Mules
• While stepping out of a circle at the Regent's Grave, it will no longer be suggested that you are, in fact, stepping in to it.
• Transporting a Workworld Runaway will no longer cause the amount of cargo in your hold to go out of sync.
• Captains will now be directed to the correct auction house when they receive a Prospect Opportunity.
• Several typos have been fixed.

Tech bug fixes

• We believe we have fixed the issue with avatars not generating correctly on Mac devices. If you still see a blank avatar when creating a new captain then please let us know via the in-game bug reporter. We'd also appreciate reports to confirm the fix is working - thank you in advance.
• Bronzewood has been reduced in size to ensure it never completely blocks the corridors in the Reach.
• Agents in the Blue Kingdom should no longer become trapped by Vaults or Enclaves of the Dead.
• The explosion SFX heard when travelling through the Albion to Eleutheria relay for the first time can now be muted.
• Loading at relays with mechanical problems no longer causes the heat bar to become misaligned.
• After suffering from mechanical problems the heat bar will return to full size after leveling up via the facet interface.
• Tooltips will no longer draw partially off screen, particularly when using the larger font size.
• The player log will no longer be spammed with errors when using a resolution with a non-16:9 aspect ratio on Macs
• Letterboxing on non-16:9 resolutions will no longer flicker and should now be black instead of red on Macs
• Storylets will no longer become frozen and prevent you from making progress.

Update

We are still looking into the stutter that is seen when docking and a number of other bugs. We aim to address these issues and put out another build in the coming weeks, however key members of the Sunless Skies team are now on much needed annual leave and will return in just over a week’s time when work on these issues will commence. Thank you for your patience and the help with testing the beta builds we’ve been releasing.

Tech bug fixes

• Quality Result text is now visible on Mac devices.
• We’ve updated some blur shaders which may be causing UI transparency issues on Macs.
• You can now use keyboard thrust controls immediately after closing an interface, even if pressing the thrust keys with the menu was still open.
• We’ve made some changes to make the scout behave better when it is deployed. If it refuses to be sent out again please send an in-game bug report so we can take a look further into why they are being disobedient.
• Ambient messages should no longer trigger on the same frame causing the text to double up over the top of each other.
• We’ve made some changes to the avatar rendertexture to attempt to resolve the missing avatar in character creation that some Mac players are seeing. Since our office Macs are unaffected, we need volunteers to test this out and report back to us. Please create a new save and complete the tutorial to the point of character creation, then send an in-game bug report to us to let us know if your avatar displays correctly. N.B. If it does we recommend creating an avatar to replace the blank one in your current lineage

Narrative bug fixes

• If your Caged Catch escapes, the ensuing events will now always be described in correct prose.
• Once you have completed the Experimental Engine quest and received the Devourer of Distance, the Contriver's Collaborator will no longer incorrectly show up in your passenger list.
• When you are Assisting a Penitent Nurse, the journal will be less repetitious.
• Captains will now always be able to see some of the exploration options at Port Prosper, even if they do not currently meet the requirements for them.
• It is no longer possible to prematurely abandon your conversation with the Illuminated Archivist, and so become unavailable to reach the end of the associated story.
• It should now be clearer that the Office of Works may offer captains a task twice in a row.
• It should now be clearer that only one of the field samples is required to complete a quest at the Nature Reserve.
• Handwriting in the Abandoned Signal Box ledger is still poor, but this fact will now not be randomly repeated twice in the same passage.
• Paying off a Lustrum prospector will now cost exactly as much as claimed, rather than three times more.
• Captains who defeat a Resurrectionist will no longer be shown two different hull repair options.
• If passengers change their minds and ask to be returned to Port Prosper, captains can now oblige them.
• It is now possible to make a sacrifice to the Burrower Below while Adrift, so long as you have her attention.
• If you labour for Nostalgic Crockery at Worlebury-juxta-Mare, you will no longer be falsely informed that you will receive tea as a reward.
• It should now be clearer that a certain tea-related bargain can be available from a variety of ports.
• The scholars of Traitor's Wood will no longer request or receive consignments of literature if they are no longer there.
• Amberley Murgatroyd will now never falsely claim Midnight's Favour is more scarce than it truly is.
• It is no longer possible to meet Midnight through tea drinking if they have been met through the monastery.
• The Ministry of Public Decency has once again valiantly dispatched a number of typos.

• The micro stuttering seen on locomotives, agents and projectiles has been resolved - this has introduced a stutter when docking, we're looking into it.
• Prospect quality effects are once again visible.
• Mr Menagerie, the Inscribed Tinkerer and the Portsmouth Arsenal now state the correct level requirement for equipment and scouts.
• Several typos have been fixed.

We're working on more bug fixes next week so expect further builds soon. Thank you for your patience and all the help with testing the FPS issues on the beta builds.

As promised, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now available on PC and consoles! This is the game’s debut on PlayStation, Xbox and Switch, with many completely new features, fixes, and improvements. And if you already own Sunless Skies here on Steam, you can play it now as a free update! https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/73d46eb56bd90aee3e1786f99f8dab82638a77f4.png There are many, many changes, but here are a few highlights:

• Major changes to character progression. We’ve reworked the interface, and added new facets to define your captain – did you lose your soul (and find it again)? Do you have a special connection with spies, devils, talking rats, or Rubbery Men? And legendary captains can now continue to improve their ability even after reaching the cap of level 20.
• A reworked and expanded starvation system. As desperation grows, you can now attempt to eat an unprecedented selection of unwise, unpleasant, or tragic things.
• A new exotic engine. It’s very fast, but not very good at stopping...
• A complete rework of controller support and many improvements to interfaces, to make it as smooth and pleasant as possible.

There are literally hundreds of other improvements, bug fixes, and optimisations – you can read the full change log if you’re curious! And of course it includes everything we’ve added since the original launch in the Wayfarer, Vagabond, Horn, Hoarder and Urchin updates. We’d like to take the opportunity to thank our excellent porting partners, BlitWorks, for doing such a fine job with the ports. And whether this will be your first visit, or a triumphant return, we warmly welcome you to the High Wilderness!

Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is now live. For the full patch notes please see the following post: https://steamcommunity.com/app/596970/discussions/0/3132794099846307448/

We’re glad to announce that Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will be released very soon, on Wednesday 19th May. This will be the first version of Sunless Skies we release on consoles, and will also be a free major update for everyone here on Steam! https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/73d46eb56bd90aee3e1786f99f8dab82638a77f4.png This is a greatly enhanced edition of Sunless Skies, containing all additions and improvements we’ve made to the game since launch as well as many more completely new ones. Here's a link to the trailer! For the Sovereign Edition, we’ve reworked and extended the starvation mechanics. Captains will now find a range of increasingly dubious gastronomic options available to them as desperation grows. We’ve improved character progression, with a new interface, a greater range of facets to define your past, and even a way for experienced captains to continue improving their capabilities after reaching the level cap. https://cdn.akamai.steamstatic.com/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/f2d5c3ce3451511682e9008b66b89398050fb5ae.png There are also new trading opportunities to exploit, an exotic engine for your locomotive, better performance, greatly improved gamepad support, and literally hundreds of fixes and small improvements. If you’d like to know more, we’ve included a more detailed list below. This ultimately took longer than we’d hoped, partly due to the considerable scope and partly because it turned out to be pretty difficult to achieve the level of performance optimisations we wanted. But all is now well, and we’re very glad to be able to share it with you. We think this will be by far the best version of the game for new players, and we hope the new features and many quality of life improvements will make it exciting for the veteran captains among you, too.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/7b79f9c08ae05edf04af69d0e57555e9604c2dcb.png For a while now, we’ve been working on a couple of new projects. Today we’re very excited to announce the first of them! Mask of the Rose is a romantic visual novel and prequel to all our other games set in the Fallen London universe. Here’s the trailer: https://youtu.be/QujJ4oVaFKI Mask of the Rose takes place in 1862, mere months after London was stolen by bats. Londoners are still adjusting to life underground. The old street signs are being erased. New ministries and new festivals are being established. The mysterious Masters of the Bazaar seem to be in charge. You share your boarding house with a few other lodgers: Archie, a medical student discovering firsthand that Death works differently here. Griselda, a close aide of the new Masters. Horatia, the landlady with a soft spot for the Neath's native inhabitants. Harjit, the local constable looking for a missing person of his own. As you make a new life below, you may find yourself visiting the underwater ruins of Parliament; intervening in a murder trial where the victim is a witness; or steering a hooded, vocabularious Master through the subtleties of a London courtship. However you choose to live in the Neath, you have your own friendships – and your own heart – to look after. The art of Mask of the Rose draws on Film Noir, Victorian photography and Blitz-era Britain, and is an evolution of the Fallen London universe’s painterly style, keeping the atmosphere of the original but with more detail and depth. If you’re a fan of the Fallen London universe, Mask of the Rose offers a glimpse of events we’ve never shown before, as part of a more personal story. You will get to explore the origins of beloved characters and institutions, as well as encounter brand new mysteries. Mask of the Rose is also an excellent introduction for players just getting started with the Fallen London universe. We’ll be running a Kickstarter campaign for Mask of the Rose in February 2021 - sign up on our Kickstarter page to be notified when the campaign goes live, and join our Discord or forums to discuss the announcement!

What about Sunless Skies Sovereign Edition?

With our porting partner, we’ve submitted builds for certification on all three console platforms. This is the process in which Sony, Nintendo and Microsoft sign off on them as ready for release. We don’t know exactly how long it will take, and it’s common for certification to throw up a few issues, but this puts us in striking distance of a release! Much of the work on the console editions is being done by an external team who’re much more experienced with porting games than we are. We're looking forward to being able to share the fixes and performance improvements they've made with you!

New projects, plural?

That’s right! We’re working on two new projects. We can’t tell you much about the other yet, but we can say that its game mechanics are very different from our past work, and that it takes place in a new setting. Sign up via Kickstarter to be informed as soon as the Kickstarter campaign for Mask of the Rose goes live.

#LoveIndies celebrates indie games and the teams behind them. We started this event in 2018 by rating, reviewing and recommending our favourite indie games, and inviting our community to do the same. This year's event takes place from the 1st to the 12th of June, with the Review Hour in the middle, on the 6th of June. #LoveIndies Review Hour is simple: spend just an hour going through your Steam library and leaving a quick review for any indie games which you've played, but not yet reviewed or recommended! Even a couple of words is great; every review helps us so much. If you want to participate in the rest of the celebration, which takes place on social media, here's the complete guide to #LoveIndies 2020. Feel free to share this with your friends and other indie devs who you follow. The more the merrier! On behalf of indie developers everywhere, thank you for your support. By taking part in #LoveIndies you're really helping us to reach new players and keep making more games for you to enjoy!

{STEAM_CLAN_IMAGE}/28053189/b687b3d919c08caa10f25db9fed83770f2bc952b.png We're very pleased to be part of LudoNarraCon for the second year running! This is a virtual event hosted within Steam: a celebration of narrative games starring many of our own favourites, featuring developer streams and interviews, and a lovingly-curated Steam sale. It starts at 1800 BST on Friday the 24th of April. We hope you'll be there! Set yourself a reminder to attend!

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/2da891519e90db186ed3321018178e7cf8b21f64.jpg Surprise! Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is coming out for Switch on 23rd April and XBox One on the 24th! You may have heard that we’ve been working on console ports for Sunless Sea, and Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition. Initially we’d expected Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition to release for PC/Switch/PS4/Xbox One first, with Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition following. Schedules on both projects have moved around a bit, meaning the release dates are now as follows:

• Sunless Sea comes to Switch on 23rd April
• Sunless Sea comes to Xbox on the 24th
• Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition comes to PC, Switch, PS4 and Xbox in August/September

We'll have more to share about the Sovereign Edition for Sunless Skies as work continues, but we hope that for now, the opportunity to return to or discover Sunless Sea is an enticing one. See you in the dark, Your friends, Failbetter Games Note: Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is already available on PS4 and Sunless Sea is available for iPad.

Releasing a game is a fiddly business. There’s no giant red button you can press to launch your baby into the world. In fact, there are so many buttons that when we released Sunless Skies on January 31st last year, everybody in the office got to click at least one of them. It took about half an hour. We stood around sipping champagne out of plastic flutes, taking turns with the mouse. That little ceremony marked the end of an arduous 17 months in Early Access, but we had no intention of stopping development. Since then we’ve released four major updates to the game, added new characters and stories, new enemies, new mechanics and innumerable smaller improvements. We’ve changed offices, changed bosses, said goodbye to old friends and welcomed new ones. Today, a year to the day since launch, Sunless Skies has grown a great deal, and we’re not done yet. We still have a major update to release before we move onto new (and secret) things, but now feels like a good time to look back at some of the key changes in the last year...

January-March

The Undeparted now depart on death, instead of clinging tenuously to existence. We marked launch week with a charity streaming event that raised £10,000 for the gaming charity Special Effect. Meanwhile, the first reviews for Skies - the best reviews we’ve ever had - began to arrive. We watched streamers, scoured forums for feedback and squashed many bugs.

April

Officers who'd managed to go on secondment while also staying aboard your engine will abandon their secondments and cease to infringe the laws of physics and narrative plausibility. The first major update, Wayfarer, was focused on giving players more to see and do on their long voyages through the dark. We completely reworked the geography of Albion, the second of the game’s four regions. The Gods of the Sky made their presence felt, you could visit cosmic spectacles like the still ticking corpse of Big Ben, and leave your Officers at port to make money or cause havoc. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/b5a22a7353f3fa2d565230dfd16bb753828bb7f1.gif

June

Tackety scouts have had their brandy rations rationed and should now be less of a menace to passing traffic. The Vagabond update added a hirsute new officer of no fixed abode with his own quest, and three new enemies joined the fray; the fire-belching Tackety Liberator, the snipe-happy Ministry Monitor and the repulsive Colonised Cantankeri. Worlebury Juxta-Mere gained a new spectacle, St Anthony’s Lighthouse, and we added new stories to the existing wonders and horrors of the sky. Meanwhile, the conceptual entity that is Failbetter Towers shifted location - for the second time in as many years - to a swanky new office in London Bridge, where the elevators move at right angles to reality and the snack jars refill with KitKats overnight. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/680cf1ffc2a7e7bc2491469a319e5e42afc0caa4.gif

July

The Empyrean Outrider's projectiles no longer shed hair. A small update granted a long-requested player feature: horns for locomotives. We’ve had more entertaining mail about this entirely useless item than anything else. Players sent us a chocolate train, a Powerpoint presentation on the importance of tooting and an actual whistle made out of wood. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/0bca0bf7638e82c074281f18966d8f21740923a2.gif

September

It is now possible to leave the Now-Triumphant Priest's cottage without eating pie. The Chiropterous Hoarder, a winged horror of profound cunning and unreliable manners, joined your crew in search of immortality. Meanwhile, the new Albion-Eleutheria Transit Relay completed the connection loop between the regions, provided you had the resources to build it. The Hoarder update introduced brand new travel mechanics, offering the means to upgrade your engine and engage “Full Steam Mode” for jolts of expensive, dangerous speed. This particular feature was a tricky bit of coding and an even trickier bit of naming. For a while it was “Advanced Cruise Control”, until our Narrative Director drily noted that the name “does not suggest giddying speed and excitement”. We flirted with excitable words like Ultra, Nitro, Injector and even Clockwork before settling on Full Steam. The argument that streamers would *really* enjoy yelling it during moments of crisis was what tipped the scales. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/301da2576efd75889e5e5418646478494387ff3c.gif

November

Activating Full Steam Mode will no longer cause the Dendrified Vagabond to play a jig on his harmonica. Finally, as the year was coming to an end, The Sky Worn Urchin joined the crew. We created this new mascot character in honour of War Child’s Armistice 2019 fundraiser. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/49ea5d2616ef9719ce6509c99be771a879d2b59b.jpg In total, Sunless Skies has raised £17000 for charities this year.

December

Only spider-sweepers may sweep the well. As is traditional, the Failbetter gang sacked off to visit an educational tourist attraction before our annual Christmas party. This year, we chose the rather spooky Old Operating Theatre Museum. Here we are in a room whose very walls are marinated in screams: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/d606937d9863d7c3f9566d51c0edbf4c9b8f1e04.jpg

The Future

A captain who successfully escapes the Eaters of the Dead will no longer be endlessly haunted by the sound of their jaws. We are currently working on features for what will most likely be the game’s final major update: the Sovereign Edition. The Sovereign Edition will launch on Switch, PS4, Xbox One and PC. Featuring massive overhauls to controller support and character progression, new stories, enhanced trading prospects, a radial menu, tragic new options to mitigate starvation, an extremely dangerous exotic engine, and much more, it will be the definitive version of Sunless Skies. And after that? Something new! Possibly more than one something! We can't say more just yet, but we think you’ll like what we have in store...

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/61191a447a1cedc0f12928698adbb152fe4817a3.png If you've played Sunless Sea or Sunless Skies, you might be familiar with Fallen London! Fallen London is a text-based browser game set in a subterranean city inhabited by Victorian Londoners, talking rats, and people with the faces of squids. In the last decade, it’s grown from a handful of stories to a 2.5-million word epic with tens of thousands of monthly players. We’d like to think that it’s remained popular for the kinds of stories we offer. Not just the weird, inventively horrifying world, but the fact that you get to act on fantastically bad ideas, from publishing horrendous poetry to feeding your soul to a cat. To hear more about the celebrations we have in store for Fallen London's 10th birthday, follow us on Twitter or join our Discord.

Storridge's Definitely Umarked Playing Cards

In honour of our 10th birthday, we've produced some gorgeous, special edition merchandise with Gametee: Storridge's Definitely Unmarked Playing Cards! Perfect for long zee or High Wilderness voyages. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/182c812423510f7bce7c851ab58e062cb2ed3fef.jpg

Sovereign

We're also busy working on the Sovereign update to Sunless Skies, which will be launched across PC and console. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/807200aede1abda3b4585c3ef1f5efc93d354679.png Sovereign will feature new starvation content, trading opportunities and facets, along with a redesign of the character progression interface. It will introduce a new exotic engine, the ability to continue to raise stats after reaching the level cap and an equipment stat rebalance. Along with fixes for outstanding bugs, performance improvements and a number of quality of life updates, it will feature a redesigned control scheme and interfaces optimised for controller support, plus a fancy radial to make UI navigation more intuitive.

Sunless Skies Patch Notes

• The correct category can now always be selected when submitting bug reports.
• High Wilderness inhabitants and other locomotives will now keep more distance from ports and relays.
• Curators, Logoi and Eaters of the Dead are less unrelenting in their pursuit.
• Various small adjustments have been made to ambient messages.
• The bug report interface now includes a link to the troubleshooting guide.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/1860dee8b3cffae12467098f0ff56f8cc9a0fc8f.jpg The longest nights of the year are upon us: the perfect time to lose yourself in the dark of Sunless Sea and Sunless Skies! (With apologies to the southern hemisphere; they do play equally well in summer.) Sunless Skies has a recent review score of 95% positive, and has been named a game of the year by The Washington Post, The Guardian, New Yorker, Kotaku AU, Paste and Slant. It's 50% off in the sale! Sunless Sea is also 95% positive, with 66% off in the sale, and its expansion Zubmariner is also reduced, by 60% - it really completes the experience, so we hope you'll give it a go.

Celebrating 10 Years of Fallen London

The browser game that started it all! Fallen London, the internet's finest text-based Victorian alternative history roleplaying game is going to be ten years old on the 11th of January. In celebration, there'll be a lot of events in-game, and competitions and other diversions for our community! For starters, we've collaborated with the wonderful GameTee to produce some special edition merchandise: Storridge's Definitely Unmarked Deck of Playing Cards. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/182c812423510f7bce7c851ab58e062cb2ed3fef.jpg A true collector's item, these cards are equally at home in your parlour, at Zee or to pass the time in the Skies. If you'd like to get more involved with our birthday plans, and future plans beyond that, you'd be most welcome in our official Discord. Thank you for a phenomenal 2019. We'll see you in January! The Skies are yours, Failbetter Games

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/49ea5d2616ef9719ce6509c99be771a879d2b59b.jpg We are proud to be taking part in War Child's annual gaming fundraiser, Armistice 2019, which encourages peaceful gameplay during the month of November to coincide with Armistice Day.

What's new in today's update

Recruit a new mascot: the Sky-Worn Urchin. Orphaned by the Winchester War, she now stows away on locomotives, intending to see every corner of the sky. If you give her a home, she’ll share what she’s learned of the heavens. To recruit the Sky-Worn Urchin, first visit Lustrum. Then return to the sky, and watch for signs of a stowaway…

About War Child and Armistice 2019

War Child is striving for a world where children’s lives are no longer torn apart by war. They protect, educate and stand up for the rights of children caught up in conflict. They aim to reach children as early as possible when conflict breaks out, and stay to support them through their recovery - helping to keep them safe, give them an education, and equip them with skills for the future. The Armistice fundraiser is an annual event which includes a Steam sale. 30% off our profits from the sale (after taxes and fees) will be donated to War Child! For more information about War Child or to make a donation directly, please visit the War Child website or follow @WarChild_Gaming on Twitter.

Updates

• Some balance adjustments have been made to lateral thrust.
• The highlighting and spacing on Storylet panels has been improved.
• Changes to your qualities are now presented more clearly.
• Storylet logging is now capped to the last few branches selected.
• The left stick on gamepads now scrolls and highlights branches (you no longer have to use the left and right stick together together).
• Storylet logging is now capped to the last few branches selected.

N.B. With regards to scrolling with gamepads, R3 is still used to move up to see logged branch choices and down to view long quality results. There are a few outstanding issues with R3 scrolling, in particular on non-hub bazaars. We will address these issues in a future update.

Bug fixes

• Curators will no longer pursue you endlessly across the High Wilderness.
• Focus can no longer be lost from the control menu when using a gamepad.
• Activating Full Steam Mode will no longer cause the Dendrified Vagabond to play a jig on his harmonica.
• You can no longer travel under terrain near Tiggelaar's Haunt.
• Headlights will no longer pass through terrain near Prosper or New Winchester.
• You will no longer collide with invisible obstacles near Braley Rock.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/807200aede1abda3b4585c3ef1f5efc93d354679.png Sunless Skies: Soveriegn Edition will be released for PS4, Nintendo Switch and Xbox One in the first half of 2020! Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition will include new content and various improvements, and will be released on PC at the same time as on console. Players who already own the game on PC will receive the Sovereign Edition for free. It's been a great year for Sunless Skies, thanks to your support, and we're delighted to be able to celebrate it with this enhanced edition.

What's new in the Sovereign Edition?

Here's our Narrative Director, Chris Gardiner, with more detail: “The Sovereign Edition will add new stories when your crew is starving. As their desperation grows, you’ll be able to try and eat a variety of unwise, unpleasant or tragic things. By that point, your mascot probably looks quite tasty.” “We're overhauling the character progression user interface, and introducing a range of new Facets to define your captain's past. Perhaps you lost your soul (and found it again), or attended a seance. Perhaps you have a hobby, or are close to rats, Devils, spies or Rubbery Men. Experienced captains will be able to continue to raise their stats even after reaching the level cap, extending the late game experience.” “We’ve made significant changes for the console versions to enable smooth and intuitive play using a controller. And there'll also be new opportunities for traders to exploit, and a new exotic engine to acquire, which skilled players in particular may find rewarding. It's a big, exciting update which we like to imagine will be the jewel in Sunless Skies' crown.”

Exciting news for Sunless Sea fans, too!

Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition is already available for PS4; later in 2020 it will join Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition on Xbox One and Switch. All of these ports are being developed in conjunction with Nephilim Game Studios, and will be published by Digerati. We hope you're equally as excited about this news as we are! The Skies are yours, Failbetter Games

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/e6e7162107816ea93680e58dd0b7873c83f1946e.jpg Sunless Skies is nominated for three Golden Joystick Awards! If you've enjoyed Sunless Skies, you can vote for it under Best Storytelling, Best Indie Game and PC Game of the Year. Vote Here Sunless Skies is also nominated for four TIGA Awards, which are awarded by the UK trade body for games. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/f2d6ee51d37b1d445aba77e24a816a7af928c2e0.png We're up for the Creativity Award, Best Game by a Small Studio, Best Roleplaying Game and Game of the Year! Game of the Year is decided by public vote: Vote Here As if all of that wasn't enough, today we were also awarded a Best Places to Work award by GamesIndustry.biz, which is very meaningful to us. Being a workplace where people can thrive and be happy is so important, and to have our efforts to that end recognised is wonderful. Thank you for all of your support. The Skies are yours, Failbetter Games

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/2fbf74bdfc5aed3f2c184903dcf106b23b45e4b3.jpg The Hoarder update for Sunless Skies is now available! This is one of our largest updates since launch – here's what's new:

• Engine upgrades for your locomotive (the only feature people asked for even more than a horn).
• Full Steam Mode, which will let your locomotive travel even faster, at some risk...
• A new constructable transit relay. This is a substantial and dangerous undertaking, but once completed, it will allow direct travel between Albion and Eleutheria.
• A new quartermaster, the Chiropterous Hoarder.
• A way to report bugs and send feedback from directly within the game.
• More devils.
• Various smaller fixes and improvements (see the patch notes below).

Engine upgrades and Full Steam Mode

All locomotives now have equippable engines that can be upgraded to increase speed at a small premium in fuel. The better engines have minimum crew requirements. If your crew count drops too low, your speed will be limited to that of a basic engine, but there are otherwise no ill effects. To make these a little easier to meet, we've also increased the Quarters values of many locomotives. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/fb706cc2051b077cb6cccdfc612f4d33ad794bd3.jpg The best engines also grant access to something called Full Steam Mode. Engaging this will grant your locomotive a large further boost to speed, but will also consume considerably more fuel and limit your manoeuvrability. NB crashing while in Full Steam Mode is not advised. In general, Full Steam Mode should significantly speed travel along familiar routes. It is not recommended for ventures into the unknown, pirate dens, Cantankeri bases, tight corners or enclosed spaces.

The Albion-Eleutheria transit relay

This new quest will allow seasoned captains to leave their mark upon the sky. Assist an Insistent Surveyor in establishing a new transit relay that will directly link Albion to Eleutheria. Be warned: this is a costly, perilous, and demanding quest. But once the relay is completed it will be available to all future captains in your lineage.

The Chiropterous Hoarder

Recruit a winged horror of profound cunning and unreliable manners. Rumoured to have been one of the Masters of old London, this peddlar of immortality has fallen on hard times. Take it on a macabre journey to perfect a new method of prolonging life. Perhaps you might become friends on the way. Perhaps you might become more...

Bug reports and feedback

In this update, we're replacing our support email with a way to submit feedback directly from within the game. Pressing F8 will bring up a short feedback form. Sending this will submit it to our database, and automatically attach a screenshot, save file and game log. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/6c21a086dd67f610fe20ce90243a8ebd269bcd29.jpg Our hopes for this are that it will make it much easier to submit reports and also help us understand and fix issues more effectively. It was helpful to have an email during early access as fixing issues sometimes involved tweaks to people's save files, but now the game is very stable we think this will work better – and of course, we'll continue to keep an eye on the forums for anything that can't be handled effectively this way.

Devilry

Have you discovered the Abstemious and Patchwork Devils, yet? Have you delivered them to a howling well? If so, you may be interested to learn that a 'Retired' Devil now needs a similar service. Completing his story will unlock a third and final revelation at the Well of the Wolf.

Additional patch notes

• Scouts now insist on being fed the correct amount of Supplies, even if this means opening a new crate.
• Tooltips for quest objectives are no longer indiscreet about potential plot developments.
• Sounds no longer get out of step with their animations when interfaces are opened.
• There is now a sound effect for arriving at transit relays.
• Many locomotives now have higher Quarters.
• The Agravain's base Hull has been increased.
• Cramped Quarters are now available at St Dominic's Augmentations in London.
• Engine Problems are now known as Mechanical Problems.
• Heat now accrues and dissipates smoothly, rather than in steps.

Keep in touch

If you'd like to keep hearing from us, you can follow us here on Steam or on Twitter, or join us on Discord. And as always, thanks for playing!

We’re busy preparing for PAX West, which starts on Friday! We're hoping to see some of you there. This will be our first major US event. We’re honoured to be selected for the PAX 10, which is a showcase of the 10 best indie games of the year, as chosen by their mysterious panel of 50 industry experts. Here is the whole PAX 10 for your perusal:

• Wytchwood is a crafting adventure game set in a land of gothic fables and fairytales. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/544f628e85f3efde27a92e22b143688cf9dfde9a.jpg
• The Devil's Calculator is a new, non-profit math game for numberphiles and lovers of logic and brain teasers. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/396ba549724934e0d8bc49dc30be770ab27afc80.jpg
• Heartbound is a non-traditional role-playing game about a boy, his dog, secrets, and sanity. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/7d0723b639b1c3095312f0eabb46d6157c19e159.png
• Final Assault is a WWII themed Action Strategy Game that capitalizes on the full power of Virtual Reality. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/295aa3dd83ca52647d97408f9e6f7a9393e35de9.jpg
• Epic Tavern is a fantasy-management-RPG where you rule the land from your Tavern. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/a43178da680b9bb15ecd072f2dadf1971fdb1583.jpg
• Deleveled is a cooperative single-player puzzle-platformer with no jump button. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/42fd2453dbf2eaa42099aecf13f836c8df6238a9.jpg
• Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is a role-playing game featuring musical themes with an affinity for the sick and righteous. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/aae6331cfcee9f7e3d9f179ee4317050a0a27356.jpg
• Boomerang Fu is a frantic physics fighting game with an adorable cast of food characters. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/c7ff16e48ea52ce3e8d2f12e05759e19087aaf99.jpg
• Plunge is a turn based rogue-lite set in a wacky medieval prison. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/2075ed1d03c86c81c8fd0bad3d322f4ddaa82a11.png

We’re delighted to be showing in such weird, wild and wonderful company! If you’re coming to PAX, we’ll be at booth 7314 on Level 6 of the WSCC. We’ll have a big picture of a train. Can’t miss us. The Skies are Yours, Failbetter Games

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/bd4b1657e32b4309e52385342dc6ccf084c9fb8e.jpg Hello skyfarers! We've got a small update for you today, and news of the next one. Here's what you can expect in today's update:

• Several creatures and locomotives have gained new attacks, improved AI, or visual updates. Here's a quick look at the new, much more menacing Scrive-Spinsters: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/f85ed613029552aedcb9a9616a91cc3b0ae628ac.jpg More details on the specific changes are in the patch notes below.
• A horn for your locomotive. This has, bafflingly, been the second most requested feature since launch, and the number one source of creative gifts and submissions, including a chocolate train, an actual whistle, and a slideshow: https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/d4cd101c93a7ad3cf4b09917efbabaad6f5de791.png The horn has no gameplay effects whatsoever, but we think it sounds quite nice. You're, umm, welcome.
• More variety for agent encounters in Eleutheria, bringing it up to the standards of the game's other regions.
• Many other fixes and improvements – see the patch notes below for the full list.

We're also ready to announce the next major update: Hoarder. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/2fbf74bdfc5aed3f2c184903dcf106b23b45e4b3.jpg Here's what to expect:

• A new officer: the Chiropterous Hoarder! Recruit a winged horror of profound cunning and unreliable manners. Rumoured to have once been one of the Masters of old London, this peddlar of immortality has fallen on hard times. Take it on a macabre journey to perfect a new method of prolonging life. Perhaps you might become friends on the way. Perhaps you might become more...
• Engine upgrades. Your locomotive will receive a new slot for engine equipment. When equipped – and when you have enough crew members to take full advantage of a superior engine – your locomotive will be able to travel faster, at a premium in fuel...
• An opportunity to construct an additional transit relay. This will be a substantial undertaking, but once complete, it will provide captains with a quick and convenient route between two previously unconnected regions of the Skies.
• Probably, various other features and improvements we're not ready to talk about just yet.

All being well, the Hoarder update will be with you in September. If you'd like to hear from us when it's out, you can follow us here on Steam or on Twitter, or join us on Discord. And as always, thanks for playing!

Patch notes for the Horn Update

• Empyrean Outriders, Curators, Scrive Spinsters, Senior Scriveners and the Undeparted have had their movement and AI adjusted.
• Scrive Spinsters and Senior Scriveners have new models and attacks.
• The Empyrean Outrider no longer uses barrel bombs.
• The Curator's scream attack is faster, but no longer arcs towards targets. Its close range attack has been replaced with an area-of-effect attack.
• The Undeparted have a new attack.
• Nearly 100 new ambient messages have been added and another 40 or so have been updated.
• Blue Kingdom spawns have been adjusted for difficulty.
• Some enemies in the Blue Kingdom have had their stats adjusted for balance reasons.
• Active wells now exert gravity and damage engines that stray too close to their centre. A warning klaxon will sound if you are taking damage.
• The Incautious Driver will no longer speak on approach to the Fragment's Refuge if they have been seconded somewhere.
• Abandoned structures now have a chance of spawning Guest Dreadnoughts.
• Vitrified Structures will sometimes now reward captains with Condemned Experiments.
• Wrecks and Windswept Habitations now always display appropriate ambient messages.
• The ambient messages for the Shadow of the Sun platform in The Blue Kingdom now appear in the appropriate location.
• Several interaction prompts and messages on transient discoveries have been corrected.
• Resurrectionists are no longer referred to as Grave Robbers.
• Reach Marauders are no longer implausibly restrained when shot.
• There are no more invisible rocks around Polmear and Plenty's.
• The Empyrean Outrider's projectiles no longer shed hair.
• It is no longer possible to sell more items than you possess.
• Ratbite will now leave your engine at the end of her quest.
• Dining with the Deathless will now properly unlock new bargains at the Most Serene Mausoleum.
• The Ozymandias and the Orphean have now received the italics that were their due.
• Unidentifiable Squirmings will now direct captains correctly to St Anthony's Lighthouse.
• Captains may no longer visit the New Somerset Hunting Club if they have worn out their welcome in Port Avon.
• Interlocutors at Regent's Tears will no longer shift identities in the middle of a conversation.
• Several more quests are now marked complete in the journal when they should be.
• The Collective Conclusion is now tracked under events, rather than as a quest.
• The Researcher's Crusade is now tracked under Peculiarities rather than in the journal, since there is always something you can do for them.
• The time before you can learn the outcome of your efforts when meeting the Researcher's requests is no longer affected by how many of them you complete.
• A number of time delays that could be unreasonably long will now consistently last for 15 days.
• You will no longer receive messages about changing areas.
• There are now fewer extraneous full stops.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/2d844d3cbc8a4782d36d1c16cab7dfede44e3a27.png We're delighted that Sunless Skies has been chosen as one of the ten best indie games of the year by the mysterious and influential PAX 10 panel! It's a huge honour to be selected, and it means that we're able to make a rare US event appearance at PAX West in Seattle, from the 30th of August to the 2nd of September. We'll have as many pin badges as we can cram into our suitcases. Will we see you there?

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/315b35ec6f856ad706be3cd317741a8328aad743.jpg The Vagabond update for Sunless Skies has been released! The following additions and improvements await your captains:

• A new officer, the Amiable Vagabond
• New story content for three of the Wonders of the Skies
• A new location in the mists of Worlebury: St Anthony's Lighthouse
• New agents for players to encounter in the mid-game
• Two new discoveries
• Numerous smaller fixes and improvements, including adjustments to spawning rates in Albion, which should be a little less intense now

The Amiable Vagabond

Offer a commission to this gentleman of the skies (and no fixed abode), who will take you to the abandoned quarters of the sky. Experience a tale of fortunes lost, found, and lost again. Meet the 'skylarks': the community of ragged wanderers who rove the heavens, and help them find the way to the Sugarspun Garden - a place surely too good to be true... Meet the Amiable Vagabond at Polmear and Plenty's, or sometimes in London. He's partial to a sky-story or two.

Wonders of the Skies and St Anthony's Lighthouse

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/72253f7bfe99378cf3f6d45791d995f5573a9c0e.png Bold explorers will discover that several existing spectacles now have stories attached to them:

• Climb to the bracing springs at the Regent's Tears in Traitor's Wood
• Tarry among the gargantuan flower-fields of the Apoidean Gardens, deep in the Leadbeater & Stainrod Nature Reserve
• Bear witness to the ceremonies at the Xanthous Moon on the outskirts of the Eagle's Empyrean

In addition, a brand new spectacle has been added to the skies! Skyfarers in search of respite may stop at St Anthony's Lighthouse, a gothic addition to the mists near Worlebury.

New agents

The Winchester War is hotting up. Upon visiting London, skyfarers will witness the inauguration of a new class of locomotive in the service of Her Majesty – a development that the Tacketies are unlikely to allow to go unanswered. Meanwhile, in the depths of the Reach, a fungal menace is stirring. https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/62e96f066a3f885f2daefdb6e3e3976edd05382a.gif Three new agents with unique challenges, behaviours, and stories will begin to appear in response to your explorations. We've designed these to add more interest, variety and challenge to encounters in the mid-game, when the player is sometimes revisiting previously explored locations in the Reach – we hope you enjoy them!

New discoveries

In order to reward captains who have invested in assaying equipment, two new types of discovery have been sprinkled across the heavens: Celestial Ruins and Windswept Habitations. Each has its own stories, and can host a variety of encounters. Excavate treasures from crumbling ruins that predate humanity! In Albion, seek refuge and plunder in long-abandoned homes and factories. Perhaps you'll even encounter a band of skylarks squatting there, eager to swap stories!

Other fixes and improvements

• Tackety scouts have had their brandy rations rationed and should now be less of a menace to passing traffic.
• When the workers of Brabazon drink your tea, this will now actually remove it from your possessions.
• If you have the attention of the Burrower Below this will now be noted on your profile.
• All the Winchester War event missions now appear in the journal.
• Backing out of Jubilation Day should not now prevent you from accessing it again
• Captains who learn the Third Rule of Piranesi will no longer easily forget it.
• Tolerating the intrusions of the Thing on the Mantlepiece now increases Terror, as it naturally should.
• If you order that a certain mirror be destroyed, you will no longer be able to dispatch expeditions through it.
• Your scouts will now appropriately report Fungal Fragments as ghastly rather than grave.
• Unlicensed charts will now be consumed at Faith's Fall.
• Several backer labels have been corrected.
• An unsuitable pronoun used to refer to the Energetic Mechanic has been corrected.
• After selecting a facet, the character progression interface will now display the appropriate Past.
• Various qualities will now appear in more suitable sections of the profile.
• Various typos and content inconsistencies have been eliminated.
• The Clockwork Sun is now hazardous to approach.
• The Medea is now a little more manoeuvrable.
• Weapon balancing:
  • The Uninvited, Blackjape, Jubilee and Saintfire weapons now do more damage.
  • The heat cost of the Golgonooza and the Uninvited has been reduced.
  • Range values for the Golgonooza, Blackjape and Saintfire have been adjusted.
  • Knockback values on the Tears of Astolat exotic weapon are somewhat calmer, though still considerable.

#loveindies

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/a6a5bf15254d1c76ee22d871dd395134e56ac6e7.gif We're in the middle of this year's #loveindies campaign! This is a community celebration of indie games. Reviews mean so much to indie teams. If you have time to poke about in your Steam library and leave a couple of reviews for indie games you've enjoyed, you'll be making someone's day! (If one of them were Sunless Skies, it'd be ours.)

Follow development

We still have more improvements planned for Sunless Skies! Now Vagabond is out, we'll be shifting our focus to other areas of the game, including character progression, game balance, a range of quality of life improvements and journey times. To keep hearing about development and updates, you can follow us here on Steam or on Twitter. You can also talk to other skyfarers on the Failbetter Games Discord.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/315b35ec6f856ad706be3cd317741a8328aad743.jpg Hello skyfarers! We're ready to announce the next major update to Sunless Skies – the Vagabond update. This one will allow you to recruit a new officer: the Amiable Vagabond! A gentleman of the skies (and no fixed abode) who will take you to the abandoned quarters of the sky. Experience a tale of fortunes lost, found, and lost again. Meet the 'skylarks': the community of ragged wanderers who rove the heavens, and help them find the way to the Sugarspun Garden - a place surely too good to be true... The Vagabond update will also include:

• Stories at more of the great Horrors and Wonders of the Skies, such as the Xanthous Moon and Regent's Tears
• New agents and discoveries to encounter on your voyages
• Something new in the mists of Worlebury...

It will be released next month, on 12th June. After this update, we'll switch focus from events and encounters during journeys. Some of the things we plan to look at are character progression (particularly in the mid and late game), UI, survival and journey times. To keep hearing about Sunless Skies development and updates, follow us here on Steam or on Twitter. You can also talk to other skyfarers on the Failbetter Games Discord.

https://steamcdn-a.akamaihd.net/steamcommunity/public/images/clans/11789502/30f1ed60ed0ade4d9f2abfade174660d8b5a9457.png We're delighted to bring you another #loveindies celebration! #loveindies is a chance for players and developers of indie games to share their favourites with one another, discover some new games to play, and raise up games which deserve more attention. This year it'll be two weeks long, from the 3rd to the 14th of June in response to the excitement over last year's event. We've also introduced the #loveindies Review Hour, a global push to leave as many reviews on indie games as we can in one hour! #loveindies is open to all. Here's full participation guide. Feel free to share it with friends, your favourite streamers, or indie developers who might benefit from getting involved. Thank you as always for your support of our games and those of our fellow indies. It means the world. As ever, your friends, Failbetter Games