That’s an intriguing hook for a character, and a fun callback to Myst’s notoriously unreliable narrators. Upon waking from your frosty nap, you’re greeted by a sort of digital ghost known only as Mentor - and literally the second thing she tells you is that she’s going to lie to you.
Considering that you’re released from cryogenic sleep with your memory wiped to find their labors abandoned and in disrepair, things presumably didn’t go too well. While Irrational Games’s classic Ayn-Rand-‘em-up critiqued Objectivism and its emphasis on selfish gain at all costs, Firmament sets up a world of collaborative workers who shun avarice to pursue a mysterious common goal. Indeed, the game seems to be in an intriguing conversation with the ideals and politics of its more famous and murdery predecessor. With its brass-intensive, steampunk-deco environments, Firmament feels a lot like Bioshock, except, you know, pleasant. You can’t necessarily glean answers from the places you explore, but you can start to ask yourself a lot of truly compelling questions. Firmament’s story is simple but compelling, enlivened with shrewd environmental storytelling. (Image credit: Kevin Lynch)Ĭyan’s previous game, Obduction, had similarly gorgeous environments undone by a damp squib of a story - an overly complex saga of warring alien races and dimensional shifts that somehow made less and less sense as it went along. “Socket your adjunct” isn’t nearly as sordid as it sounds.
You can just hang out on a cliff amid falling snow, watching wisps of cloud drift past distant sunlit peaks - and you’ll absolutely want to. More than once, I stopped dead to catch my breath, drinking in some incredible new vista or massive, stunning piece of architecture. Designed for VR, Firmament’s worlds have a sense of scale, especially vertically, that invokes true awe even in two dimensions. We’re not kidding about this game’s look. Firmament: Story, Gameplay, and Presentation It sometimes feels like a job - and kind of a lousy one, at that.ĭisclaimer: Though the author backed Firmament’ s Kickstarter and purchased a copy of the game, we tested this title with a pre-release review copy provided by Cyan. For the first time, playing one of its games doesn’t consistently feel like escaping to some magical new place. Unfortunately, all these graces are sporadically let down by some of the most disappointing puzzle design I’ve seen from Cyan. Cyan’s new title, Firmament, has a lot going for it: breathtaking visuals, a delightful aesthetic, a really fun central play mechanic, and the company’s most intriguing story in years.
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