SUNLESS SEA

This game absolutely oozes atmosphere! The writing, the art, the music, the setting, the mechanics, almost everything works together to create this creepy, mysterious and fascinating world that you get to explore slowly and carefully.

It's far from perfect, though, and it often ends up being a frustrating experience for me when it leans a bit too heavily into the enigmatic wording in descriptions and tasks plus the dozens of different and weirdly named goods, currencies, status effects etc. that you can spend hours trying to find and gather.
It's one of those games that I would have dropped fairly early on without the wiki, so if you don't like using outside resources like that and aren't incredibly patient and curious, this game might not be for you.

Played for 8 hours and then my game crashed and it deleted my save file for no reason. Just unbelievably frustrating to play this game.

The Dark Souls of Dredge

10/10 would die to the Sea again

Peak :LUV:

The majority of your time playing this game will be spent either:
1. Looking at a small book, reading a choose-your-adventure like novel and making choices. It's well written. Good!
2. Watching a small boat steaming quite slowly across the sea ("zee"). Oh dear.

This game has some roguelike elements that do not mesh well with the languid progress you make through the game exploring the zee and it's islands. Do not play on the default Permadeath mode. By nature of being a heavily text based game, resetting to the start of the game is like a book telling you to go back to page 1. You find yourself skipping over the the small book and spending more time watching that stupid small boat farting it's way from island to island. Imagine if Disco Elysium had permadeath!
This game is not bad. I do have almost 150 hours playing it. As I mentioned before, it's very well written (keep a thesaurus to hand, it throws obscure/archaic words at you often), that small boat in a wide dark zee is quite atmospheric at times, and it's cathartic to get back to home port after spending so much time traipsing between islands. Admittedly, I am currently seething at the sinking of a veteran captain, so consider this a recommendation with a big asterisk next to it. Allow yourself to save, at least if only when you reach home port.

9.5/10 N THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUNTHE SUN THE SUNTHE SUN THE SUN

I enjoyed Sunless Sea and the world its set in, but a lot of frustrating and tedious gameplay aspects became apparent almost immediately. At first, I championed the idea of a story-based RPG roguelike, but quickly I regretted that. This game repeatedly tells you to play it on a permadeath mode, which means you lose your save when you die. This adds tension and means you get to play it just a little bit differently with the next captain you play. It adds to the atmosphere in the setting: the Sunless Sea feels dangerous and it makes succeeding all the more impressive.

It does, however, fail in some regards. While I greatly enjoyed soaking in the atmosphere, I didn't enjoy having to replay certain story quests with seemingly little difference between the previous playthrough. I see that there are some choices and branching paths but they often fall in the "good" and "basically softlocking yourself bad" categories.

Sunless Sea is a story, and an interactive one at that. It is also a game, which means that there is a "winning" and "losing". As much as I tried roleplaying a veteran captain who tried his luck on the unforgiving Zee, I kept thinking about just how bad I was screwing myself over with certain choices, and occasionally dipped into the wiki and forums to find out what I was doing wrong and how I could do things better. I understand that this might also just be a "me-problem", but I feel that the games tedium and, in my opinion, poor replayability really hurts it as a roguelike.

I should mention that I did watch that Rock Paper Shotgun youtube video on Sunless Sea, defending the roguelike design and the tedium as an achievement, not a flaw. I almost agree with it in theory, but in practice I feel like maybe there's a reason Fallen London started as a text-based browser game.

This game doesn't seem to know what it is. Part breathtaking exploration and part walls of text written out on the cramped receipt backs, the only maddening horrors I found in this experience were in the game's design.

A game about exploring the unknown, cool idea, so why then spend 80% of the game on resource menus? What's the part in every great tale of adventure that everyone remembers, that inspired the imaginations of generations to come? Was it stopping by to pick up 15 lbs of fuel and groceries? No, it was not.

Like if you took a really great, imaginative, fun, well-written novel, ripped out all the pages, and dropped them in a windy park for you to awkwardly chase after one by one.
The boat gameplay is atmospheric at first, but quickly gets dull, and adds very little. It's an unnecessary buffer between story beats that would stand well on their own.
I can't not recommend this. Fallen London is one of my favorite fictional universes. But really, you're better off playing the browser game. I don't know why they looked at that and thought, "you know what this written story needs? WASD controls."

Love this game.

I spent an entire class telling my theatre professor why he needed to play this game because Literature™. Vibes/10, would hyperfocus on this game again.

Amazing atmosphere and world.

Fallen London is a gem.
Sunless Sea is a faithful adaptation, and the writing is hauntingly beautiful.
Looking forward to the TTRPG in 2025!

You never stop finding new things. Genuinely terrifying. I love this game.

***Review in progress, may edit and add to it once I progress even more ***

This game is fascinating. It's weird: It took me years to get into it. I heard about it, was quite interested, but on my first attempts to get into it years ago, I didn't understand a lot of things and never got far. Still, it was sitting in my library, kinda tempting me to try again.

This time, 6 or so years after purchasing it, it clicked. Yes, it's mysterious, has a fascinating Lovecraftian vibe, and the world and lore of it can be confusing at first. I guess that, if you are familiar with the concept of Fallen London, it's easier to get into it.

So basically, you cross the mysterious and dangerous ocean in your ship. You have to manage your fuel, food and the terror level of your crew. There are other ships and sea monsters that may attack you. Pick your battles carefully, as your ship may get damaged, and you may run out of fuel too.

More and more, you will explore the map, find new ports, compile port reports and hand them in for money (echoes). You may also try raising money by doing certain trade routes which you have to figure out (or look up on the web).

By now, I have explored most of the map, am slowly gaining more money to get a better ship with better (and more) weapons. I try to avoid most combat, and raising a certain stat (iron i.e. imcreases your damage, veils make you more stealthy, so you will be less easier to detect etc.) helps with that.

There are quests you can do, which are a bit confusing at first, as you won't be told exactly what to do and how in some cases... you actually have to explore, read quite a bit and try things out.

My journeys are quite fun, and you actually feel like it's an achievement when you return to your home harbour, your ship slightly damaged, your hold full of stuff you can sell, your log full of port reports to hand in. It's an adventure, and I have finally started to enjoy it quite a lot.

So: This game will not exactly hold your hand. You will die, but you will keep certain advantages of your previous character if you start over. You may run out of fuel or food in the middle of the ocean. You will have to read quite a bit and actually spend some thought, but if you do, you will find a fascinating game world with a mysterious, yet beautiful land- and seascape that offers risk, reward, challenges, insights and weird occurences.
Give it a try! I sure am glad I did.

Atmospheric

Unforgiving

Fun, until you're killed by bats after a terrible string of luck and you realize how much time you've sunk into it. If you're just a casual gamer, turn on manual saving asap and just don't bother trying to get the hard-mode achievement.

Really enjoyed probably the first 60 hours of this game. The atmosphere and storytelling was awesome. The problem with a game like this is eventually you've read all the unique little stories of what is going on on each island and your run out of new options of dialogue then everything starts repeating. Once you've discovered most of the mysteries of what each item is for and what is at each location it starts feeling very repetitive. At the end it's actually very grindy.

I would say avoid going online and reading the wiki for information and just play it but I've found the game is very fickle and you can die from simple mistakes. This wouldn't be a big deal if the you'd only invested a few hours in your character but If you've invested 40+ hours then you do something like sail off the edge of the map and find out that kills you it makes you want to never play again.

Often you'd also find that you invested a lot of time doing a major side quest only to find it's an alternate ending and if you complete it your game will be over and you won't be able to complete you main objective. There is also a quest later in the game if you simply return some documents to London your game is instantly over and you've lost the game.... The dialogue in the game needs to be much more clear of the consequences.

I highly recommend playing with the no manual save function. It's much more fun and you're choices will have more meaning. I played one round with Save/Load and it got real boring because the temptation to save/reload when something doesn't go your way is really easy to get sucked into.

Lastly they need to change a few of the game mechanics. Specifically the "Something awaits you" mechanic, Once you find out it refreshes every 60 seconds you can just sit outside ports to basically get free items or keep doing certain events say like buying red honey..... Pretty soon you're just farming high dollar items by sitting at a port for an hour. This is not fun but you can't help doing it because it's easy money. I good solution would be that you have to go to a different port for a "Something awaits you" or you have to go back to London before you can go back to the same island again.

Another thing they need to rework is the terror counter. It goes up every few seconds so you can time when to click on your lights so save fuel. When sitting in port you can count 5 seconds and flash your lights to prevent it from going up. Then the game becomes a count to 5 click a button repeat game....very boring but hey you don't want more terror right? So you keep doing it. Not fun gameplay. A great solution would just have it do a constant gradual climb not something that happens every few seconds.

All complains aside it was a good game but could be much better by addressing some of the issues above.

You need a lot of patience but it's amazing.
One of my favorite games ever!

I slain God's Son, Mt Nomad in my Frigate, The Windmill
My crew clambered upon it's peak, and seized the golden heart and a brilliant diamond
What did i get for that? Couple thousand bucks after some trading
Killing son of god, good business

i shouldnt rely on my memory

A masterpiece I couldn't handle without serious guidance.

I've never made it particularly far in Sunless Sea, but I still think it's an amazing game. The atmosphere is done very well, you can really feel the oddly fascinating unease in the gloomy world where Mysterious Things happen.

A little slow but tons of atmosphere. It is definitely a story telling game and involves a lot of reading but tends to be fascinating as well as pretty macabre. I ate a crew member (!!!) within a few minutes of starting.

Incredible, exciting game with its stories and locations. In some moments I even had goosebumps on my skin. I'm not even talking about the fact that for 50 hours of leisurely play I've opened barely 50-70% of the content.

You can name your personal island B____r Off. And rival powers will be forced to write this every time they address mail to you.

Worth it, even at full price.

Sunless Sea: A Unique Experience for the Patient Explorer

This review has been a long time coming. I've been playing Sunless Sea on and off for years and likely have way more hours than listed on my profile. I'll start by saying that I recommend this game, but only for a select few. For the vast majority, I would probably suggest staying away.

There are several people like me who both love aspects of this game and despise others. The game is interesting in that there are phases where I feel like I've figured something new out and really enjoy it, but then monotony settles in.

Initial Impressions

The atmosphere of this game is incredible. The art style, especially of the islands, is basically perfect. The sound and music complement it well. Starting out, unless you have played Fallen London, most players will likely be pretty confused as to how the game works. It's somewhat like a visual novel with a lot of text and ability to make choices. Layered on top of this is a vast world filled with a TON of lore that is barely ever fully explained.

You do start to piece some things together, but there is an intentional ambiguity that I personally find a little irritating. Once you start out, you're given some barebones tutorial-like quests to get you used to some of the mechanics, but this lasts only a minute. The initial exploration of the game feels amazing. It's scary sailing on the sea, not knowing if you'll stumble on anything.

Early Game Confusion

Pretty quickly, though, confusion sets in. Where are you supposed to go? How do you make money? What the heck is the "something awaits you" mechanic? The design decisions of the actual gameplay boggle my mind.

Much of my early play was basically running a loop between a few cities where I knew I could make a little bit of cash, but it was barely enough to subsist and was painfully boring. Everything can be a struggle and a grind and if you die (which is pretty likely) you have to basically start over and do all of these things again which can be brutal if you haven't set up some of the inheritance/legacy system which is also somewhat difficult to figure out early on. It literally took me coming back a few years later to understand some of the rhythm of the game and how to get things going.

Gameplay Mechanics

One thing the game does, which I can't tell if it is irritating or smart, is that most profitable trade/quest routes will either completely shut down or limit themselves through certain mechanics, forcing you to continue to find new avenues to make cash.

I would say the best part of this game comes when you've been reading a lot of these little quest bits with characters from far-off lands, and then you actually make it to those lands and see them firsthand. It genuinely feels cool and like an accomplishment.

Late Game Frustrations

Following this second spike of interest is where the game mostly started to fall apart for me. The progression in this game is nearly non-existent. The new ships are not that much better or exciting. The fastest engine in the game is still somewhat of a crawl, and you can just feel your time being wasted as you realize you forgot to trade searing enigmas for a dread surmise or to bring enough foxfire candles.

The combat feels like an afterthought and is extremely simple. Leveling up your stats really doesn't do a whole lot except help pass skill checks, which sometimes don't even make a difference. There are so many random mechanics and weird things about the game that are just not explained; you need to figure them out or look them up, and I wouldn't say they are all very rewarding.

Story and Writing

There are a few questlines and stories that are genuinely good and make you think a fair bit afterwards, like the sigil-ridden navigator, but many are pretty vague and hard to follow or connect with. That being said, the writing is excellent and the creativity is off the charts.

Conclusion

At the end of the day, I'm glad I played the game, and it is incredibly unique. However, I just wish so badly it was implemented differently so it didn't feel like there was so much repetition or that so much time wasn't wasted just sitting there. I absolutely love aspects of this game, but I know there was a way to do this that could have been so much more fun and accessible.

For those with the patience and the interest, you'll definitely love this game (but still be frustrated). However, I think many, if not most people, will likely just not be able to stick with it long enough to figure it out. Sunless Sea is a niche game that offers a truly unique experience for those willing to invest the time and patience to unravel its mysteries.

Great game. Really like it. Highly replayable.

Based Lovecraft game with a cool sequel.

Yes

liked it

Despite quite a few attempts to enjoy the game I am simply not able to.
The creators decided to sacrifice gameplay for sake of mood. The music is really good and cohesive with the content of the game. I enjoyed uncovering mysteries and for the most part the writing. What stuck out to me was inconsistent style as if some locations were written separately by someone trying to imitate the 'main line' writing (if that makes any sense).
The progression is insanely padded for how little content there really is. Some might enjoy managing fuel and food and venturing deeper, risking not getting back, but it gets old really fast and it is the main gameplay loop . Your cargo hold can barely hold any wares on top of neccesities and a lot of expedition interactions are locked behind having specific items on hand. This forces you to backtrack... a lot. It would be bearable if the ship sailed any faster but even at 2x speed and the best engine the fallen london can provide - it was still slow. Mind you at the time of writing this review I spent (only?) 35 hours in game although it feels as if it was twice that or more. Most of my time in this game was excruciatingly slow stumbling from port to port and reading passages like: 'Blugortia: the tupperware here sits upright at the tables. The crows taught them to. It is monday?' 'use 1x Drowned Lemons to access the trampoline hall' . I just don't think this is for me.
If you're thinking about getting the DLC, it is more of the same - if you like the base game you will enjoy it. I however regret buying it.

One of the best games I've ever played. Deep storylines, and very satisfying progression.

An excellent world and game. It is a great exploration game and has many horror elements. There are many upgrades to make.