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.



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

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).

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.



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.

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.

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...

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.



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.

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.

• 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.

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.
  
  
  
  
  
• The Devil's Calculator is a new, non-profit math game for numberphiles and lovers of logic and brain teasers.
  
  
  
  
• Heartbound is a non-traditional role-playing game about a boy, his dog, secrets, and sanity.
  
  
  
  
  
• Final Assault is a WWII themed Action Strategy Game that capitalizes on the full power of Virtual Reality.
  
  
  
  
• Epic Tavern is a fantasy-management-RPG where you rule the land from your Tavern.
  
  
  
  
• Deleveled is a cooperative single-player puzzle-platformer with no jump button.
  
  
  
  
  
• Deathbulge: Battle of the Bands is a role-playing game featuring musical themes with an affinity for the sick and righteous.
  
  
  
  
  
• Boomerang Fu is a frantic physics fighting game with an adorable cast of food characters.
  
  
  
  
  
• Plunge is a turn based rogue-lite set in a wacky medieval prison.
  
  

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

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:
  
  
  
  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:
  
  
  
  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.



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!

• 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.

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?

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

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.




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.

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.



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!

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!

• 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.

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.)

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.

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.

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

We're honoured to be taking part in the first ever LudoNarraCon!

LudoNarraCon is a digital convention celebrating narrative video games, taking place right here on Steam. All the fun of discovering new games without the barriers of access to a physical event!

From 10th to 13th May, developers from across the world will showcase their work in a celebration of interesting and innovative narrative games. This felt like a great idea to us, and we're so pleased to be selected to take part.

We'll be showcasing Sunless Skies with a special pre-recorded stream, featuring interviews with Chris Gardiner (Narrative Director) and Paul Arendt (Art Director). If you want to catch the recording, it's on Tuesday 7th May at 1630 BST, with the incredible Callofcthulhu on Twitch!

You can join in by watching the event live from 10am PT on the dedicated Steam landing page, and by checking out the live streams on the individual games' pages, starting at 11am PT.

Thank you to indie game label Fellow Traveller for inviting us to take part!

The Wayfarer major update for Sunless Skies is now available! Here are the key features:

• A completely reworked Albion
  
• Many new story events for the gods of the sky
  
• Officer secondments
  
• New story content for spectacles
  
• Consequences for some attacks outside of battle
  
• Petrichor, the food of the Dead
  
• Balancing adjustments to Terror and Crew recruitment
  
• Many small fixes and improvements (see the patch notes for details)

We've fully reworked the game's second region, Albion. It's now significantly smaller than before, while still being a lot more open than the Reach. We've also worked to make the possible encounters more varied.

We hope these changes will make it more interesting and enjoyable to explore and traverse – please let us know your thoughts! We may do further work on encounter variety in Albion and other regions, especially if people feel it makes a difference.

Our artists have also been working hard on the look and atmosphere:




You can learn more about the Albion rework in our last Steam update.


In the Wayfarer update, the capricious gods of the sky will tease, torment, and occasionally reward skyfarers.

New story events will fire while you are traversing the heavens, granting opportunities to earn the gods' attention or their wrath. Once the gods have noticed you, further – more perilous – events may occur.



Manage your crew's superstitions. Deal with a frost-fingered visitor. Negotiate with the Whisperwinds. At all costs, do not call at the Empty House.


A number of your officers have found new ways to be helpful. If you can bear to part with them, establish them at a port and let them make themselves useful. Perhaps they will establish an exclusive salon, or a handy workshop!

You will have to do without their counsel in the meantime, of course, but officers on secondment may be able to furnish you with story items, advantages at port, or new Prospects and Bargains.



In this update the Inconvenient Aunt, Incautious Driver, Repentant Devil, Felined Eccentric, Captivating Princess, and Fatalistic Signalman all have secondment opportunities. Talk to them to learn more.


The heavens are replete with wonders and horrors. Originally, skyfarers could only marvel at them, and thrill or lament at their effects on your crew's Terror.

But now, a number of spectacles can be interacted with. Come! Approach! Disembark and explore some of the skies' most enigmatic mysteries. Visit the last vestiges of the Kingdom of Hours. Join the dead in their observances. Excavate the corpse of the Silent Saint.

Here is the full list:

• The War of Fossils
  
• The Grave of the Silent Saint
  
• The Rotting Celestial Behemoth
  
• Skyhenge
  
• The Avid Horizon
  
• The Horologion

Let us know what you think – if people like them, we may add more!


Sometimes, attacks will do more than just damage your hull. They may now trigger story events shortly after the battle. Perhaps you will suffer damage to your engines, or find an unexploded shell lodged in your plating!

Fortunately, you can repair critical damage at each region's central station. Usually, repairing your engine's hull will sort it out, but some damage may require more dedicated treatment.


Ports in the Blue Kingdom no longer sell Supplies. Instead, they sell Petrichor, the same spun-sugar delicacies on which the dead subsist. Living captains and their crew may consume petrichor with what we are assured are only trivial side-effects.


We've been listening to people talk about their experiences and watching streams, and we've come to the conclusion that the balancing for some of the survival mechanics is currently not creating the best experience for most players.

These mechanics both have very important roles to play in shaping the experience, and we feel it's important to get the balance right. For this update, we've made some adjustments: somewhat increasing the rate at which Terror goes up, slightly reducing the amount of Terror removed when returning to a hub or discovering new ports, and reducing the number of Crew available at hub ports.

We think these changes might be controversial, and we're not certain yet we've got the numbers quite right. We considered putting these particular changes on an opt-in branch so we could watch people play and gather feedback, but we were concerned that might result in misleading feedback since we might disproportionately hear from particularly skilled players.

So we decided it would be better to include it in the main Wayfarer update. It's possible we'll make further adjustments in smaller updates before the next major one. And it's likely we'll make further changes in future – for instance, to provide more potential solutions for captains struggling to maintain more than a skeleton crew, or to rebalance easily exploitable methods for managing Terror.

As always, we'd love to hear what you think, especially once you've spent a few hours with the update – please let us know on the forums.


We're still not done improving the game. We'll be ready to talk about the next major update in a few weeks, after we've had time to read and discuss your thoughts on Wayfarer.

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.