Abandon Ship first unfurled its mast last month, and excited us with its promise of "FTL-meets-Sunless Sea in the golden age of sail". We've not seen much since, which is why it gives us great pleasure to announce developer Fireblade Software will give its first ever Abandon Ship public demonstration at the PC Gamer Weekender 2017. 

The session hosted by Fireblade will showcase some of the seafaring adventure's core mechanics—explaining how players will control their ship's crew, what each part of their ship does, and some of the gameplay systems they'll come up against such as weather and weaponry. More information on Abandon Ship can be found via the game's site.  

As you may already know, Fireblade joins the likes of Failbetter Games at the PCG Weekender—the latter of whom will be chatting about its forthcoming Sunless Skies.

Both the Sega and Bandai Namco Entertainment Zones are also set to return for 2017—which means you'll have the chance to get your hands on the likes of Sega's Motorsport Manager, Dawn of War 3, Tekken 7, Little Nightmares and many more.  

Microsoft makes it debut too, bringing with it Halo Wars 2—in particular its Blitz Firefight mode—while Torn Banner and Koch will be there with Mirage: Arcane Warfare and Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 respectively. 

And as we've said before, this is far from the full list and there are more games to be announced in the coming weeks and months here, via the PC Gamer Weekender website, and on the PC Gamer Weekender Twitter feed. 

Join us for The PC Gamer Weekender Played On Omen by HP on February 18-19, 2017 at Olympia London. Tickets can be found this-a-way.

If "FTL-meets-Sunless Sea in the golden age of sail" strikes you as a good idea (and why wouldn't it?), then you might want to direct your attention to Abandon Ship, an upcoming high-seas fantasy game set in a procedurally-generated world rendered in the style of an oil painting. As the ship's captain, you must lead your crew through countless dangers, undertake quests, engage in tactical combat, deal with random shenanigans, and make the hard decisions that can impact your fate, and theirs, in all sorts of unseen ways.

Like its thematic predecessors, Abandon Ship promises to be brutal, and trips to Davy Jones' locker are strictly one-way affairs. But the loss of a ship doesn't necessarily mean the end for the Captain: If you can escape to a lifeboat when things go sideways, or even just get yourself stranded somewhere, you'll live to fight another day.

"We always wondered why a game didn't exist that combined the tactical combat of games like FTL with the exploration mechanics of titles such as Sunless Sea, all wrapped up in an 'Age of Sail' setting. That sounds awesome, right?" developer Fireblade Software said. (And yes, I think it does.) "As development progressed, we felt that Abandon Ship deserved an art style to match the dramatic tone of the game, and the Classic Naval Oil Painting style was a perfect thematic fit."

Neither the Steam page nor the trailer (or the Abandon Ship website, for that matter) reveals much about how the game will be played whether you'll "jump" between checkpoints, for instance, or have direct control over your vessel as it sails the murky waters in the way of Sid Meier's Pirates!. But it definitely looks like something worth keeping an eye on. A release date hasn't been set, but it's currently scheduled for sometime in 2017.