Chris Inglis[Editor’s note: Forever Skies has been delayed to February 2023, however the demo has been made available again on Steam, this time with a 40-minute gameplay timer.]
Forever Skies is a post-apocalyptic sci-fi action survival game from developers Far From Home, coming to Steam Early Access later this year with consoles to follow. Set on a decimated future Earth, in the wake of an ecological disaster caused by climate change, Forever Skies thrusts gamers into the role of a lone scientist, charged with isolating specific, life-saving virus strains and finding a cure for a mysterious illness that is wiping out what remains of human civilization.
This version of Earth is a dangerous place where science is the key to survival. Starting in your crashed ship, you must search and scavenge for resources, find a scanner and then scan elements and debris in order to learn about the world, and the dangers it entails. It’s a survival game at its core, so you will need to look for food that doesn’t poison you and drink clean water. You can eat any old food or drink dirty water, but alien diseases are rife. You can learn to craft cures, but you will need to do the leg work in researching, scanning and crafting the food.
The demo has an introductory sequence that introduces you to the mechanics of the game. There are items you can collect by pressing ‘E’, and others you will need to build an extractor. To get that though, you will need to navigate around, scanning things to learn blueprints and history behind what took place with the previous expedition. Once you eventually find an airship and get it functioning, a 20-minute timer starts to countdown. From here, you have 20-minutes to navigate to nearby beacons, landing and scavenging for more resources to slowly build and outfit your ship.
While the 20-minutes goes quick, what is cool about this demo is you can play it again but now you know how to play and what to aim for, so no doubt in your second playthrough you will be able to get further into the game. The demo is designed to give players a taste of the early game mechanics, basics of survival and of course getting off the ground and exploring a portion of the ecologically ravaged world in their airship flying above the toxic clouds that blanket the Earth.
Forever Skies has been on my wishlist ever since it was first announced, and I am looking forward to a release date for when it heads to Steam Early Access later this year with consoles to follow.
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Written by: @ChrisJInglis
Daniel Agius