There are two things that Sunless Skies does really well that Sunless Seas doesn’t.
- It’s a huge and ginormous world. Like…super, duper big.
- It wants you to explore it.
In Sunless Seas, the roguelike mechanic in place in the game made me feel like I had to keep a constant eye on fuel and supplies. I just felt…tethered, really, to Fallen London.
In Sunless Skies, they’ve taken off the leash. Yes, you do still have to manage fuel and supplies, but you burn them much slower, and get to explore far more…and hey! The places to refuel/refit/resupply are fairly easy to find, especially early on.
And so once you take that sort of spreadsheety activity out as a super-big concern for players, it’s just “Welcome to this huge world. Come do stuff in it. Frolic in it. Discover story at your pace. Kinda be amazed as disparate story bits start to come together in these beautifully intricate ways you didn’t expect.”
I love love love this game so goddamn much.