Being very fresh to adventure gaming I have a rather silly fear of old games: unwinnable states, moon logic puzzles, possibility of dying, strange features as a result of a failed search of something new and bunch of other things that might disturb otherwise interesting story. Luckily, apart from multiple ways of dying, Beneath a Steel Sky has none of that crazy stuff. Furthermore, I found possibility to die to be fun and I think I’ve died nearly all possible ways of doing so (list at the end of the article).

In a nutshell, Beneath a Steel Sky is a classic point-and-click game with few not-so-common features (at least for the games I’ve played): the previously mentioned possibility of death and a robot sidekick called Joey to help you around. It can open doors, steal and describe items, talk others into letting you through and can even give some hints, so it’s always good idea to talk to your little fellow once in a while, especially if you’re feeling stuck.

Joey largely reminds me Crispin from Primordia, he is funny, often sarcastic and solves tasks that the main protagonist is unable to. As I was playing, I found even more resemblance between the two games, so I think Primordia was largely influenced by Beneath a Steel Sky, it was a fun discovery for sure, as Primordia happens to be one of my absolute favorite adventure games so far, and along it, now Beneath a Steel Sky is as well.

In the dystopian world of Beneath a Steel Sky people are divided into those who live outside the city, a deserted land called Gap, and those who live inside the Union City. In turn, those living in the city are divided among themselves based on their class: the higher your class, the lower you live. So as the game itself puts it: “going up means going down”. Oh, and the city is controlled by a supercomputer LINC.

The main protagonist, named Robert Foster is a Gap resident, originally from the Union City, he is a sole survivor of a plane crash, who was found and fostered by a scavenging tribe. Many years later, for the reasons unknown, officials from the city arrive to take him back. The plane crashes once again and Robert is, again, uninjured.

From there we take control of Robert and set on a quest to get him back home to the Gap. The game could be roughly divided into two parts: the city and the underground.

The city part of the game is where we start off and it’s a mixed bag: while mostly great, there are few things that seemed to be pretty off.

First it’s music, and it is just horrible, I can hardly name a game with worse fitting music. It completely ruins the otherwise dark mood of the game. It would be more suitable for a cheesy fantasy adventure where you fight dragons and rescue a princess, but not in a dystopian sci-fi with a dark atmosphere.

Another thing is some puzzles are completely cartoonish. Particularly, getting into the cathedral comes to mind. While not annoying, this kind of puzzles still seem to be out of context with otherwise rather serious game.

On the other hand, what was rather annoying is that sometimes you might be stuck, even if you know what to do, but you simply can’t do the actions you want at that given moment. Solving some unrelated tasks allows to take the previously unavailable actions. This especially was the case as I wanted to get into the wine basement. Given that I would have ended in the unwinnable state, it’s good that the game couldn’t let me progress, but it could have been made better.

The characters Robert meets in the Union City is somewhat mixed bag as well, most of them are completely dorky and funny, with everyone having an unique British accent, which I found just hilarious. Anita, a hacker working at the factory, on the other hand, should have a whole prequel dedicated to her.

The underground part, which is unfortunately much shorter, makes up for everything that was wrong in the first part of the game. Even the music gets more serious and more fitting to the setting. As the plot unravels, it will keep you on the edge of your seat and you’ll not be able to step down from the game until you’re finished.

There are not many characters to meet in the underground and certainly not much communication, but that just adds to the atmosphere.

As I’ve finished the it was obvious why Beneath a Steel Sky is considered a genre classic: great story, rather easy yet interesting puzzles, intuitive and simple gameplay, and nail biting finale makes for an amazing experience. Clocking 23 years as of 2017, with few minor fixes, it could easily be on Wadjet Eye Games.

Here are all the ways that I managed to die in Beneath a Steel Sky:

Shot by security guard at the beginning

Fried by a scanner in police station after trying too many times with stolen ID

Exposure to radiation after opening the reactor door without proper outfit

Eaten by “something horrible” in the underground

Crushed by debris in the tunnel

Strangled by Walter

Killed by the naked android

Consumed by Linc