Sunless Sea is a game about exploring a murky, Lovecraftian ocean landscape, getting eaten by a monster, restarting, going mad and eating your crew, and finally making it a bit further before getting eaten again.
Until now, the clunky combat system’s been the Early Access title’s weakest point - that might change with the launch of the new ’Steel’ update, which adds more reactive real-time sea battles.
Rather than awkwardly clicking on skills in a static menu, you can now take on vessels and monsters directly, maneuvering your chip around while trying to get a decent firing solution on enemies inside your arc. It’s early days yet, and developer Failbetter admits ”there are issues, quirks and missing features”, but it already looks far more engaging and fun than the previous system.
Outside combat, you’ll find ten new islands with their own quest lines to explore, as well as a tonne of smaller additions. Read more about the new update here.
As this is an early access title, players should expect further changes and tweaks to combat down the line. You can grab (the really very good) Sunless Sea over on Steam.
