Play as the captain of a steamship on an underwater ocean surrounding the fictional city of Fallen London. Manage your ship's fuel and food supplies as you try not to go mad fighting off lovecraftian monsters.
Very Positive
6,300 Steam reviews
| LANGUAGE | AUDIO | SUBTITLES | INTERFACE |
|---|---|---|---|
| English | Y | — | Y |
I genuinely do like this game however there are a few major flaws and because of that I can't recommend the game.
The game has a mysterious world with interesting lore but it doesn't fully explore them. It soon becomes an overused novelty.
It is also incredibly tedious and the overall balancing of resources in the game feels bad. This is something I will preach to every dev and player, making a game more tedious or grindy does not make the game more difficult or challenging. There are a lot of ways to die solely from rng and in a game that has a permadeath mode, that is really awful.
The game is also slightly buggy from my experience. I was moving from one area to another and then it told my entire crew died. Because of all the above reasons, I'd suggest you not play the game or play it on merciful mode.
in the sunless undersea, we kill each other for pleasure
average london sewer experience
I want to like the game. The setting, art, and writing are very good. However, it has many things about it that make it less fun as a game.
It's very slow. Navigating the world is long stretches of just watching your ship inch across the screen. It's atmospheric, but also boring. Most of the time, nothing happens except your supplies go down and the 'terror' stat goes up.
Maybe they wanted to leave room for improvements - new ship, better stats, whatever. Maybe. I would recommend they do what the old Sega Genesis Shadowrun game did. You always move fast out of combat, but when speed does matter then it changes your speed to be appropriately slow if your enemies are faster than you.
The ship combat, when it does happen, is unsatisfying. It's slow,. and consists mostly of circling around the enemy and pressing the shoot button once a minute. If it was more like FTL, where you have your crew moving around, and can target different parts of the enemy ship, it would be so much better.
When you do sink another ship, the rewards are middling. Often a few supplies, or small item to sell. Maybe they didn't want to make it a focus of the game, but it's undeniably here and unrewarding when it happens.
Leveling up your stats seems very low, but that might be in part due to how slow everything else is.
Note: The native linux version did not work for me (pop!_os), but it worked fine with proton experimental.
ashore in the dark
Wunderbar!
excellent game, slow to start and can be frustrating but worth it for the storyline. the lack of initial speed makes sense storywise and after playing for longer i appreciate it but it can be daunting to just die over and over
Sunless Sea — очень спорный продукт, который в точности следует заветам Лавкрафта: нагнать жути в стакане воды; завлекая тем самым в пучину, нарастить хтонь, аморфность, неевклидовость и «Как тебя описать? Как тебя описать? — Не надо меня описывать!»; посыпать сверху прикормкой из крупиц истории; наслаждаться содеянным. И хоть местная фауна на монструозность небогата, и главной опасностью выступает неопытность и/или тугодумность капитана (то бишь нас), принцип всё равно сохраняется.
Кривить душой и заявлять, что это плохо, не буду. На такое есть любители, и я не в их числе. Если вы честно пытались, и вам не зашло — вы нормальный, расслабьтесь и испейте зупчика. Всем остальным искренне завидую, не бросить такое дело на полпути — достижение.
Минусы:
— геймплейная нудность и искусственная громадность. Мир хочет казаться большим, чем он есть, и у него есть для этого все задатки, но отсутствие rogue-like составляющей сильно бьёт по динамике. Раз за разом нам приходится осуществлять одни и те же маршруты, интерес подогревается лишь сценарной вариативностью, а технически никакого разнообразия нам не предоставляют. Закупись вот здесь, продай вон там, передай заметки своему преемнику, он будет заниматься абсолютно той же рутиной, и всё это на черепахоподобном судёнышке. Об этом преступно мало говорят, на мой взгляд. Игре катастрофически не хватает x3 ускорения. Я хочу сплавать за моря, но я не хочу постоянно выбирать, какую бы анимешку поставить на фон, «предвкушая» очередной затяжной вояж
— не хочется изображать из себя богему, но текст объективно слабый. У меня нет цели принизить чьи-либо литературные чувства, но это не Диккенсовщина ни разу. Авторы рисуются, используют сложные речевые обороты, порой весьма остроумно вписывающиеся в контекст, но по большей части это лишь графомания, которая тоже сбавляет динамику. Я проходила её как в оригинале, так и на русском. В обоих вариантах лишь иллюзия повествовательной глубины. Я бы не стала всё перекраивать, так как слог в целом вторит сеттингу, но лаконичности явно не хватает
— атмосферность, резко перетекающая в стан минусов после первого прохождения. Есть тонкая грань, которая в неумелых руках пересекается моментально, и превращается в однообразность. Тот самый случай
— судовой журнал по задумке должен радовать глаз и ласкать слух внутренним голосом, но вызывает лишь отторжение своей перегруженностью. Боюсь, пол-литра тут погоду не сделают, нужно вооружаться чем-нибудь покрепче
— игра не сложная, но она упорно пытается убедить вас в обратном. И для пущей водянистости вынудит держать Вики всё время открытой. Я ровно отношусь к такого рода подготовке в песочницах, где чисто физически невозможно запомнить миллион рецептов и есть риск пропустить кучу секретов, но мир Sunless Sea будто нарочно скрывает от вас внутриигровые возможности вздохнуть полной грудью
Плюсы:
— очень интригующее начало, восхитительный сеттинг, максимальная вовлечённость в первом прохождении
— очень стильная графика и интерфейс, обожаю наложение анимированных моделек на dnd-карты
— шикарное звуковое сопровождение, потворствующая иллюстрациям, разворачивающимся в голове. Если сильно захотеть, я могу почувствовать вкус соли, шероховатость ржавчины под пальцами и то, как урчит мой живот после отведанного накануне сокомандника
— хорошая оптимизация, не на что пожаловаться
— механика «умри, чтобы жили и процветали потомки» очень завлекательна, мне такое любо, в этом есть смысл, но он нивелируется вышеописанной тягомотиной. Безликость гг подразумевает полную абстрагированность от него, но это не совсем вяжется с дизайном — мне хочется ассоциировать себя с персонажем, наделить его целями и мечтами, представлять, что это я пускаюсь во все тяжкие, преодолевая бури и невзгоды, но у меня не выходит.
Я в любом случае рекомендую опробовать её самостоятельно, но окрашу рецензию в красный, потому что мне горько за упущенный потенциал и потраченные в блуждании часы. Всё полученное удовольствие растворилось в Unterzee без остатка. Тем не менее, если вас игра затянет, то не отпустит уже надолго. Местным странностям, приключениям и атмосферности тяжело найти замену, так что я совершенно точно не называю игру плохой, лишь акцентирую внимание на голости короля в некоторых местах.
Brutally hard and you need to be in the right mindset to play, or you will be out of your mind quickly. But few games have such a great and unique atmosphere.
재밌는데... 엔딩은 못보겠다.. 이정도 플레이 한 거면 충분한듯.
Great text based adventure game - I played a lot in between classes in university, since it's so easy to pick up or put down and jump back into it
终于把Sunless Sea的全成就打通了，看了一下第一次玩这个游戏是16年的3月，所以恰好过去了10年。
对个人来说最大的纪念意义是，我开始玩的时候也刚踏入本地化行业，10年后在各个岗位滚了一圈发现看文本不费劲了（骄傲）。有种从开始玩这个游戏的那一刻自己的一部分就掉进了地下海的感觉，哪怕时隔很久不玩也一直能记住这个独特的世界观
这期间各个结局其实是断断续续打的，有时候单纯是上班同时挂暂停听The Unterzee的声音。简直是完美白噪音 [strike]不怕Terror上涨的话很推荐[/strike]
另外个人觉得这几乎是一个无法本地化的游戏，你永远无法理解为什么writers能在一些地方丢出那么生僻又那么贴切的词，读的同时甚至能感慨自己和自己语言的贫瘠
THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN...
C'est tout bonnement un des meilleurs jeux auquel j'ai joué. Le gameplay est simple, mais l'histoire est incroyable. Le seul défaut est que j'en prendrais parfois encore plus. Un remaster avec encore plus d'options d'histoire serait le bienvenu. Je n'ai pas encore essayé la suite.
Good story, choices matter, the scary dark fog is scary and crabs are big. Also, I am allergic to shellfish, so this was extra scary. Great game 10/10.
Interesting gameplay
Fallen London sieht so gut aus.
Leider viel komplizierter englischer Text. Sonnt hätte man vlt eine Chance.
죽지도 않는데 혁명이나 하지 그러냐 싶은 른단 사람들의 인내심이 돋보이는 게임이다.
남편 잘못 만나느 런던 사람들만 불쌍하기 그지없다,
Are you into Intriguing Snippets? Perhaps some Secrets? Well, then, how about a few Extraordinary Implications, Searing Enigmas, and one Dread Surmise?
All jokes aside, this is an extremely well-written game of weird and strange and unexplained lore. The game assumes that you know what a Blemmigan is or where Polytherem is located or whether or not you should shoot some guy. But that's great, because you then get that immersive feeling of someone who is really thrown into this world -- and next time, when you replay it and remember all the details, you feel like you belong, because you actually had to invest time into learning all that stuff.
No hand-holding, no rails, no hold barred. Go out into the zee, mess up or succeed, then do it all over again.
Wonderful game, 10/10 better than Sunless Skies.
Sunless Sea has strong exploration and story telling, but some of the gameplay mechanics are unforgiving, obtuse, and frustrating. The music, art, and narratives are presented really cohesively and contribute to an oppressive atmosphere. Most ports and locale's feature unique and intricate narratives that make up the majority of the game's strength.
In particular, the inventory user interface is unwieldy and laid out non-intuitively. The items and information received or bought do not have much information as to their best uses, and there's several quests that come to a grinding halt due to a required item being locked behind another long quest. The early game is severely hampered by the game's economic design, it can be challenging to efficiently acquire currency, especially since the game is designed to take some of these revenue streams away after a time. Balancing fuel, supplies, and crew can be an oppressive and nagging challenge while trying to turn a profit.
These early-game troubles are made worse by the fact that this game is (by default) as a half-baked roguelike, which it severely suffers for. I'd recommend using manual saves, there's little value in throwing hours of tedious work away due to a bad roll of the dice.
Through its design flaws, I would very slightly recommend Sunless Sea on the merits of its writing, art, and atmosphere. I found the frustrating portions of the game worth working through, but not everyone will.
Da
[h1] SUNLESS SEA IS AMAZING!!!! [/h1]
An amazing game. As some other reviewers have said the game can be very punishing throughout all stages of the game (especially the beginning), but when you know what your doing you can easily make death a very difficult thing to come by. Either way, death is actively encouraged in the game as each playthrough you can unlock different buffs as well as go down other lore paths to gather a more full experience of the game.
(I wouldn't be making a review so long if the game sucked ass)
[h2] If you really need a hand (SPOILERS): [/h2]
- (This section contains very early game spoilers): Echoes can be gained very easily early game by transporting Sphinxstone from the Salt Lions to Fallen London. Sphinxstone is bought for 200 echoes and sold for 500 echoes (300 echo profit (not accounting for fuel and supply costs during transportation)).
- Guns are not particularly important in the early game, avoid enemies (keep in mind some enemies have long ranged attacks but are countered if enemies never see you, this is good general advice too), also focus on bettering your engine. This makes the whole game a much smoother and more enjoyable experience.
- Get a house in Fallen London to get a child, you can reduce terror significantly through doing this. Houses also allow you to create an [spoiler] Ironclad Will [/spoiler], this makes dying less harsh.
- Echoes can be gathered quickly through [spoiler] selling sunlight [/spoiler]. Boxes can be bought at [spoiler] Khan's Shadow [/spoiler], collected at [spoiler] Aestival [/spoiler] (this can give you wounds (KEEP IN MIND YOU DIE REACHING 3 WOUNDS, 2 WOUNDS MAX)) or the [spoiler] Cumaen Canal, at the surface [/spoiler] (this option is much more reliable but is more expensive due to the [spoiler] prerequisite of 20 fuel and supplies, more is recommended however [/spoiler]. This can be sold at [spoiler] Fallen London [/spoiler] for large profits. Note: Having the related menace above 100 can lead to the [spoiler] spontaneous gaining of wounds, which can KILL YOU [/spoiler], as well as this; NEVER choose the [spoiler] "Rise and be lost" option at the Cumean Canal as this WILL 100% KILL YOU!!! [/spoiler]
This can be avoided through sleeping at your lodgings or the [spoiler] Cladery Heir officer. [/spoiler]
- Get the cargo ship ASAP, this ship has a very large hold capacity and is helpful for trading (especially [spoiler] sunlight [/spoiler]), storing fuel and supplies as well as being generally useful.
It's a roguelike game that encourages exploration and then punishes you harshly for it. You can lose 20 hours of gameplay on a Captain on one bad roll. And then you get to start it all over again, from zero. And oh god does it hurt to start from zero. You'll be back to running around the same starter area, repeating the same motions and running the same short path to collect port reports for HOURS before you can start playing the game again...
I'm not one for unfair gameplay most of the time, and I find roguelites exhausting generally. But something about this game rubs me so right. The atmosphere and writing, the slow pace, the need to learn every island so you can navigate them just a bit better, get just that bit more loot, the slow slow pace of travelling between islands. The way you can defeat ennemies much stronger then you if you cheesily hang behind them. The strategy of planning out your next route! There's alot I just enjoy. I think this is the kind of game you need to find your rythm with and get to know, it has taken me so many years of playing it on and off, to finally enjoy it properly.
The atmosphere of the game is very interesting, but the gameplay is extremely slow and brutal.
Like some other negative reviews, this game doesn't have much of an economy and the world is quite static; you have two primary resources, fuel and supplies and it seems like a real slog to try and get more as you run out.
After 4x hours, I don't have the time to find the fun; I'm a dad of an 10.5 month old and I barely get time to play any games. Given the overwhelmingly positive reviews, I'm surprised this game didn't deliver for me.
3.5/5。此游可以当作攸伦葛雷乔伊及他几个弟弟的一体模拟器。对海洋那种未知氛围的营造做得非常好，很多时候真的会有那种对是否该继续前行的迟疑以及对未知岛屿和高风险事件的退却，不过游戏主体内容也就停留在深海对人的异化或者一些常见的克系小故事，没有什么很新奇的情节。世界观的话，我觉得这部讲得云里雾里很模糊（就和续作mask of the rose一样），可能得玩了fallen london才会有更全面的了解吧。
可重玩度我觉得不算很高，剧情也并不丰富，就是不停地跑图展开地图黑雾里的岛屿和暗礁，何况地图出海几次就能跑得差不多。我也不是那种喜欢对角色抽丝剥茧的人，至于复杂的任务物品要求我只觉得疲惫。
Art
Its very good. Very soothing. good if you want a game thats quiet. not overstimulating. some people might say understimulating and maybe sometimes but awesome if youre in the right mood. I really like it :) also you can eat people (very cool)
Soft, creepy music. Intricately done weird and chaotic storylines. Cannibalism. Ships. Giant eyeballs. What's not to like?
Просто скучный нечестный кал.
Нет русского языка, а читать надо очень много.
Единственный минус - нельзя женится на Тоскующей Дьяволице
Well. I like it and I hate it.
Alexis Kennedy is a creative person, without a doubt, and he is great when it comes to atmosphere and setting creation. Lore in his games is magnificent, and you always want to explore the world this man created.
The key problem here is a process of the exploration. As he's good thinking up the environment, as he's terrible in other aspects such as gameplay. The beauty of his worlds is shattered by the repetitive, grindy actions, which you should do over and over until you learn the game and the consequences of your choices, and even after.
The concept "choose your own story" also doesn't work as expected, I think, because there is no plot actually but a fragments of small stories.
In my opinion all Failbetter and Kennedy stuff would be better if it was tabletop role-playing game. Something to focus on things they can do great without a fly in the ointment.
Yep, I spent almost 100 hours here. It's a hard decision to not recommend the game after that, but playing was a painful pleasure, guys.
While I like this game, and I've spent 69 hours (nice) playing it, I can't recommend it. The strength of the Fallen London universe has always been in the sheer wonder and amazement of the worldbuilding, the characters, the stories, and of course the mystery and intrigue surrounding all of the concepts. The greatest weakness of Sunless Sea is the mechanics of the game.
As fun as it is initially to explore a blank map and scratch off the blackness to uncover locations, the stories and characters get quickly buried underneath the sheer amount of time it takes to get to each place. Additionally, active quests are hard to access, and it is difficult to remember or rediscover what special items you have or don't have, or are in the process of making for a specific quest, or where certain components may be found. This makes it an exercise in frustration to plan ahead before you set out and make a costly, dangerous, pointless journey that takes up hours of your real life. I didn't enjoy that in order to get around this, I needed to always have the wiki open so I could check and double check myself before I went to an island without the macguffin I needed to progress a certain storyline. Adding the Zubmariner DLC only compounded this problem by adding more content without addressing the underlying mechanical issue.
Visually interesting? Yes. A well built world that is clearly fascinating and mysterious? Yes.
But the actual gameplay experience leaves much to be desired.
[h1]고딕 호러풍의 텍스트 기반 로그라이크 항해[/h1]
광기와 비밀로 가득 찬 지하의 바다를 항해하는
[b]로그라이크 생존 RPG[/b]입니다.
플레이어는 선장이 되어
[b]Unterzee[/b]라 불리는 지하 바다를 누비며
섬과 항구를 탐험하고,
무역과 전투를 통해 생존을 도모해야 합니다.
이 세계는
“런던이 지하 바다로 떨어졌다”는
기묘한 설정 위에 구축되어 있습니다.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]선택과 광기의 항해[/h2]
선원들은 끊임없이
배고픔과 공포에 시달리며,
때로는 배 안에
어두운 비밀을 숨긴 존재가 탑승하기도 합니다.
당신의 선택에 따라
누군가는 미쳐버리고,
누군가는 조용히 죽음을 맞이합니다.
식량, 연료, 정신력은 모두 필수 자원이며,
섣부른 모험은 곧 침몰로 이어집니다.
죽음은 [b]영구적[/b]이지만,
후속 캐릭터가 일부 유산을 이어받을 수 있어
반복 플레이에 의미를 부여합니다.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]게임플레이의 중심은 이야기[/h2]
전투는 단순한 도그파이트 방식이며,
이 게임의 본질은
[b]텍스트 기반 선택과 서사[/b]에 있습니다.
세계관은 매우 심오하지만
친절하게 설명해 주지 않습니다.
플레이어는 주어진 상황과 단서들을 바탕으로
스스로 추리하며 이해해야 합니다.
이 과정 자체가
게임의 가장 큰 매력이자 진입 장벽입니다.
[hr][/hr]
[h2]텍스트의 무게[/h2]
엄청난 텍스트 양으로 인해
출시 당시에는 한글화가 없어
접근하기 쉽지 않았던 작품입니다.
이후 유저 한글화가 공개되어
비로소 많은 플레이어들이 경험할 수 있게 되었지만,
여전히 읽는 것 자체가 힘드신 분들에게는
[b]비추천[/b]드립니다.
반대로
각 항구와 퀘스트가
저마다의 이야기를 지니고 있으며,
이를 하나씩 탐험해 나가는
미지의 공포와 고독을 즐기는 분들에게는
더없이 잘 맞는 게임입니다.
[hr][/hr]
[b]별점[/b] - 4 / 5
[b]한 줄 평[/b] : 어두운 바다 위, 고독한 배 한 척
[h3]Эта игра прекрасна во всем своем проявлении, она как элитное выдержанное наичистейшее наивкуснейшее вино, пропитанное историями и атмосферой. Разрабы виртуозы в плане построения историй, атмосферы и той самой лавкрафтовской жути, когда тебе страшно от неведения. Я получил неизмеримый кайф после прохождения первой концовки. На это ушло всего... 11 лет [/h3]
Игра тебя ненавидит. И ставит много барьеров
[h3]Из минусов: [/h3]
[b]1. Языковой. [/b]
Она на английском и 99% текстовая, нет тут используется не обычный английский B2 где "ну знаю английский, пойму". Тут слова и хитросплетения которых бы Шекспир побоялся и которым бы позавидовал Льюис Кэрол со своим стихотворением про Бормоглота (Благо есть русик уже)
[b]2. Игра байтит тебя и практически не учит. [/b]
Каждую механику нужно понимать потом, кровью и откатыванием прогресса ибо смерть может наступить от любого неаккуратного чиха (Можно играть с сохранениями но все же)
[b]3. Некоторая зависимость от Вики(исходящая из прошлого пункта) [/b]
При достижении хоть каких то успехов рука сама тянется в гайды, страшно же терять весь прогресс.
[b]4. Однообразный геймлей, и низкая реиграбельность. [/b]
Истории в начале каждый раз одни и те же, и если умереть раза 2-3 подряд, то начинать сначала и заниматься ранней рутиной очень надоест. Разнообразие приходит спустя часов 10 игры
Я игрой доволен и когда-нибудь вернусь, но ее стоит воспринимать ни как разовую игру, а как испытание и книжку к которой будешь возвращаться раз в год, чтобы с прошлым опытом пройти чуть дальше и снова окунуться в эту атмосферу, умереть и снова забросить
No matter which way you choose. This game is everytime unfair. I hate it.
I ate my crewmembers. Great game. No notes.
They need to invent a genre title for games where you do longwinded routing procedures in dangerous environments while characters lie to you.
Found it a bit of grind. Not very replayable
Why aren't games made like this anymore? Incredible lovecraftian world building and a great soundtrack.
Sunless Sea is worth playing for the lovecraftian atmosphere and story. I like that sort of thing. The game doesn’t give you a quick play though; travel speed with your little ship starts to feel tedious after a while. There is some replayability, although once I played through each of the different character types once, I felt done with the game. It was worth the purchase.
this game made me wet
nice
This is a great game in my opinion. It has a super amazing atmosphere that enthralls me every time I pick it up, with an soundtrack to match. Seriously, I get engrossed in the atmosphere this game has every time I play it! I'm a massive Lovecraft fan though, so I enjoy this game more than most would I feel like. IDK why, but I just love slowly sailing through this dark, unforgiving Zee
If you're a person that's huge on graphics or gameplay, unfortunately this game is probably not for you.
This game can be hard until you get your figure out how to get your footing, and if you're not prepared to lose a few times and restart, once again this game is probably not for you.
If you don't mind spending some time learning the mechanics, you enjoy reading and challenge then I would recommend trying this game out.
Sunless Sea deserves more than mostly positive on here, but unfortunately folks with less than 4 hours of gametime are leaving negative reviews talking about how difficult they found it. I hope this review will save some folks their time, and this game their reviews.
The only thing I wish the devs would've done would be to add the controller controls from Xbox. Makes it a lot more cozy to play, and it played really well on controller
If you like Sunless Sea, I would also recommend checking out Sunless Skies
This is a game I desperately wanted to like, to the point of ignoring negative but reasonable reviews and my own instinctive skepticism. And it does have some things going for it: the map looks nice and the world is incredibly unique and imaginative.
But that's where the good ends. Firstly, it is just objectively bad as a game. It's not a good game I dislike. It's just a poorly designed game. It mistakes difficulty for challenge, monotony for tension, and opacity for immersion. The UI/HUD is one of the worst I've ever encountered, with most of your interaction through pages and pages of tiny text in a a tiny logbook at the bottom of the screen. I never even figured out how combat is supposed to work. The worst part is how terribly the roguelite mechanics clash with the open world exploration nature of the game (those genres are two great tastes that go horrible together).
Secondly, the experience isn't worth the punishment of the gameplay. The writing aims for quirky but lands in pretentious and weird for the sake of being weird. The art outside of the map is mediocre, and the music is nice but forgettable. Combine all this with the barebones gameplay and it just feels amateurish and dated.
If you want a whimsical, Tim Burton influenced Lovecraftian nautical economic sim, play Dredge. If you want a charming but unforgiving ship captain roguelite, play FTL. A combination of both would be amazing but this relic of the early New Tens "get gud" boom ain't it, cap'n, and should stay at the bottom the ocean.
The Magician is slower to smile than he was, but the smile, you think, is more sincere.
It's interesting, and challenging.
If you think there isn't more, or there isn't an optimised way, just try another route. The sheer amount of content is incredible. So, so much story. If you've played Fallen London, this is a good game to try.
Goated game.
Attempted to redownload this a few years after giving up on it before. How do people find this game fun. Its just too hard. You die, and die, and die and die. With no sense of progress.
I have tried many times to get into this game but have failed each time very quickly. The writing is odd and nonsensical. The gameplay is super slow and very repetitive. There is tons of text you have to read that (again) is oddly written and uninteresting. It just is not fun and is not my jam at all. I give this a 5/10 overall.
분위기 좋고 coc느낌도 나는 인디게임
It's been ten years since this game came out and I bought it. I've finished it just now. After a hundred hours of gameay. When it released I had no idea what it was about and having played every other installment of the FL series, I still don't. What do you mean the Sun is god? I just want to bury my long lost father's mortal remains. No, I don't care about the chess playing octopus man in the talking cave under port Cecil, best of luck to him. Oh he's a puddle now. Anyway thanks for the writers of the wiki on the game, I couldn't have done it without y'all. And has to why I decided to beat this just now after so many years? The game called to me. Not once. Many times. Now I understand the eldritch nature of it. Having done something so mundane as burying a parent, compelled by a sensation of the oppressive powers that be, all the while not understanding it all. Just a small task that lingers in the background of your mind but requires a great deal of mental fortitude and dread from the unknown and the unknowable. I love it. Maybe ten years from now I'll give it another go and explore more of it. Maybe next week. Who knows.
love the writing
Который раз начинал и каждый раз меня не хватало на прохождение. Игра одновременно очень интригующая, но при этом и невероятно нудная в плане игрового процесса, а именно в плане менеджмента ресурсов. Тебе в любом случае надо плавать по схожему маршруту, чтоб у тебя и топлива хватало, но при этом под разные штуки и место в трюме было. И этот момент очень скатывает все происходящее в рутину. Но опыт интересный, и по мне путешествие первого каптана получаются самыми интересными, а когда начинаешь заново...Ну слишком занудно повторять уже сделанные вещи.
TL;DR: I overall recommend this game because of its interesting mechanics, fascinating universe and cool atmosphere. However the game is unecessarily hard to understand and once you do, its slow progression leaves you for too long in a tedious loop.
--
I have had it for ages and could not get into it until I tried this year for a 3rd time. I would say at first the game is very hard to understand and you could just give up then. If you persevere and start being able to explore the world and build up your captain successions, you are rewarded with the rich lore and some fun discoveries. However after this point, the gameplay became a bit stale for me as you just go into a routine of trying to get enough money while doing a few quests before accessing more advanced content. After 30h played, I only could afford to buy a new ship once and decided I did not want more of this gameplay. It's a shame because this left me with a bitter note while I actually had fun before.
世界观和文本很有魅力，但数值管理部分实在有些烦人，找cee借点钱体验会好不少。
Way back when they were first making this game, the sea combat was turn based and exactly what I was looking for a the time. I hate the sailing experience and wish they had never changed it. It was way more fun. I don't mind how quirky this title is... but the ocean stuff is not for me.
10/10 game. I could not hype up the writers or the game itself more. The writing does an amazing job of pulling you into their universe and keeps you wanting more. I've honestly never played a game like this and I've loved every second. PLEASE make more in the Sunless series and take all my money. Highly recommend
committed ritualistic cannibalism, stopped a war between rodents, cheated on my wife with a lady made of clay, almost went insane by forcing my crew to eat various slaughtered sealife, started a fling with a crewmember then moved onto another immediately after her death, smuggled illegal cargo into london on numerous occasions and got very rich. died by running out of fuel on my way to sell cheap wine in the closest town purely to free up cargo space.
.
This is probably the best game I have ever played! At first I was afraid of the amount of text that I should read. Then I was afraid of UI because it also had a lot of text. But then I got sucked into the story. My captain died and then died again! I'd never played games where you don't need to have 1 character to complete all of the stories. I wish I could experience the stories once more with fresh mind oh how good they are! Totally recommend!
This game has it's charms but it personally is not for me. I like the concept and what it is trying to do, but everything feels purposefully sluggish and impersonal. This intentional slowness that feels like it would take tens of hours to complete the main story, alongside the UI that I would call old school but uncharming, and the resource management that feels like the actual point of the game rather than the horror or the story, makes this one a no go for me.
I want to get in a game, and start playing it. Not be met with a wall of "you have to spend X amount of hours farming to get to a playable state in the game"
游戏题材和故事文本都很好，画面太古早，操作也很难受，毕竟是十年前的游戏了
Наиграл 50 часов, вроде разобрался без гайдов (с русиком). В итоге зашёл в [spoiler] Морозную крепость [/spoiler] и там решил лутануть комнату, получил проклятье шторма и без шансов отъехал всей командой
10 из 10
UPD: Узнал что это было из силы кошмара, почитал побольше про игру думал может что-то не так делаю, а нет, с 10-20 часов игра становится однообразным фармингом голды и если вы не читали гайдов, то не самым эффективным, сюжет будет медленно продвигаться, мне кажется что классная история, но геЙмплей её убивает, играть много не хочется
The FBI is deeply corrupt. We have no hope.
i love this game. dont play it unless you're an extremely patient freak
Как же я люблю эту странную, местами устаревшую, местами кривенькую, но невероятно увлекающую игру. Это невероятный опыт иммерсивности, погружения, который надолго остается в памяти. В бессолнечное море хочется возвращаться снова и снова.
Более конструктивно:
- саундтреки это огромная часть атмосферы, они здесь невероятные, дошел до той стадии, когда слушаю на работе
- текстуальность. Мне кажется в первую очередб именно работа с текстом, а не лор, как таковой, являются главным достоинством игры. Недосказанности, акцент на некоторых словах и образах, черт, да даже капс во фразе ЕСТЬ ЛИ МОРЕ ГДЕ ЕЩЕ МЕНЬШЕ СОЛНЦА? или E SUN THE SUN THE SUN THE SUN TH - создают постоянную интригу. Хочется проходить по историям, хочется погружаться в море слов
- экономика. это приятное дополнение, к сожалению мир не такой наполненный событиями, врагами или другими кораблями, основной интерес в этой плоскости обеспечить пропитанием себя и команду с помощью торговли пока распутываешь очередной клубок рассказов
- геймплей. Тут снова немного грустно, многих фишек которые появились в бессолнечных небесах здесь не хватает, что делает значительную часть игрового опыта наблюдением за оченб маленьким кораблем среди бесконечной морской поверхности, что конечно тоже по затягивает, ситуацию спасает прекрасный ост и воображение, ну и конечно увлечение историей.
好
It's a very strange RPG. Difficult, too. Unforgiving.
Great Dialogue yet boring mechanics going back and forth to report your status and earn resources at one single port is not a good design choice.
So far, a lot of fun. A little bit janky combat at times, and a bit too slow paced. We'll see how long my run lasts... but I don't see myself playing multiple runs. Overall a fun, chill, sometimes intense experience, definitely worth the purchase with the 66% sale.
Been playing this on & off for the last few years.
Is a good exploration game, challenging, rewarding, a must for people who enjoy large worlds to explore, but the Terror mechanic really drags it down. Wouldn't mind it, if it was reduced to 0 every time you returned to London.
Only recommending because the writing is well done.
This game is basically a narrative sandbox story generator. Rather than focusing on a long continuous narrative, your journey is built up by all these little self contained story arcs, that you can come across every time you make dock.
It's a wonderfully weird setting, that plays around with a lot of interesting ideas and stories. Whether it's negotiating a truce between nations of warring rodents, or full on cosmic horror, the writing of this game is impeccable, and has no problem selling you on even the most out there concept.
Where the game falls a bit short, is the actual exploration part of it. It's a gorgeously drawn world, and incredibly atmospheric, and exploring the world rewards you with more narrative content to engage with. The actual traversal and combat just isn't all that interesting on its own. The resource drain it incurs can lead you to making decisions out of desparation, which again, feeds into the whole narrative sandbox element.
It is a very open ended game, to the point where it can be a bit obtuse, but it's well worth putting in the effort to figure it out. It does put you into the permadeath mode by default. I would recommend switching that off, there's really no drawback to it, unless you really enjoy replaying the same stories over again.
Zail the Zea! Mostly you buy things to sell at other ports for a profit, collect Port Reports for the admirals in London, and go on strange adventures in the monster-ridden "Unterzee". The world of Fallen London is basically Victorian England, but with lovecraftian horrors and strange mystical things. Also comedy, it's a lot funnier than it sounds.
Sunless Sea is definitely a slow game. Travelling by ship is not fast, even with the fastest boats and best engines, and the main reward at port is text-heavy storylets to read. This is NOT a fast-paced combat game full of action; the main engagement is the mysteries and intrigue.
Sound like fun? Well, it's alright. What's here is fine. I wish it was a bit more polished and fleshed-out than it is, but I have been having a good time with it.
Some tips for new zailors:
- Get a notepad, physical or virtual. This game has a LOT of things to remember, you're gonna want to write it down. Flavour text USUALLY doesn't have info in it, but you'll wanna keep track of shop prices, opportunities that need items, and the results of randomly-rolled things.
- You're not a warrior. Shoot a little, but be ready to RUN from any fight that's not going well.
- Press F to engage full power for a short burst. Your boiler MIGHT explode for some damage, but that's rare and it won't kill you. Like, don't do this for travel, but YES do it for fleeing.
- Fuel runs out faster than food, and going hungry isn't instant death. But running out of fuel means you'll almost certainly die. (Food will run out faster if you have a lot of Crew.)
- Port Reports almost always exchange for a Fuel, and money besides. If it costs less than a Fuel to get one, get one!
- Check the shop prices at every new port, and record them if you're writing things down. Two shops sell Fuel for LESS than London, so keep an eye out!
- Ships mark their speed in "weight." Lower weight, faster movement.
- Dying is expected, and not that bad. Several Steam achievements require dying in different ways.
- If your successor is a Correspondant, they'll keep the same chart as the last captain; this stacks with itself, which allows you to slowly build up a complete map across characters. But if you ever don't select it, the whole map will go dark AND a lot of the islands will shift around. This'll make it way harder to find things, BUT you can re-discover those locations for free Fragments (basically EXP) so there's a tradeoff, kind of.
- Scion successors are extremely good, but take a lot of work. It starts with finding romance on the shore of London. Romance at Zee will reduce Terror sometimes, but you won't gain any offspring that way, so no Scions.
- And finally: If you see Mt. Nomad, and you don't want to die yet, RUN.
While the game mechanically is a bit rough in places - the setting and writing is absolutely brilliant writing done by a clearly passionate indie team
Sunless Sea is the rare game that makes exploration feel like a calling. As a steamship captain in the Fallen London universe, inching through the dark, fog-choked Unterzee is equal parts discovery, survival, and storytelling. Every voyage pushes you to balance fuel, supplies, and rising terror while chasing your chosen ambition, and the legacy system makes each captain’s death a new thread in a longer tale rather than a hard stop.
What kept me playing was the slow, satisfying uncovering of the map. Ports and islands aren’t just icons, they are places with characters, customs, and consequences. The art is superb: stark lighthouses, glittering ice, spider-crewed hulks, all framed by music that turns tension into atmosphere. I loved stumbling onto new trade opportunities, hauling Sphinxstone back to Fallen London, and dealing in those eerie Mirrorcatch Boxes. The economy is purposeful: trading, smuggling, and careful routing let you fund upgrades.
Discovery never stops. New islands bring strange towns and stranger items, and the loop of gathering rare components to build better engines and guns always gives you a tangible next goal. The horror elements land too. It is grim, occasionally grotesque, and yes, you can choose to eat your crew when things go very wrong. That choice, and many others, fit the game’s Lovecraftian, grim dark tone without feeling gratuitous; they serve the mood and the myth.
Combat is not the best, but it does the job, and the real-time ship handling adds stakes to the long, quiet stretches at sea. The Zubmariner content deepens the experience further, opening up the depths for even more stories and risks. Thought you had seen horror travel to the depths for more using the Zubmariner.
If you enjoy text-rich narrative, slow-burn exploration, and a world that rewards curiosity with discomfort and delight, Sunless Sea absolutely delivers. Recommended 10/10.
Be warned this game does not hold your hand, your first captain will die, and more than likely the second one also.
As you build your linerage you will progress further each time.
In this sunless sea, curiosity is a lantern, courage is your rations, and death is only the beginning.
It took me a while to fully appreciate this game. It's very immersive and fun.
文字很多，世界观完善，是yy的好素材
Absolutely critical tip: Use cheat-engine speedup for sailing and frankly even fighting.
Overall it's a wonderfully messy game. Beautiful art, utterly ridiculous world with very strong art direction and sometimes hilarious comedy. I can't say anything that hasn't already been said. The gameplay does bring the game down somewhat though cheat-engine for speedup really helps alot though it sucks that for some of the missions/achievments grinding for skills is kinda required which is why...
Second critical tip: Don't wait to do Submariner as it has some enemies and events which help grind skillchecks and even money alot faster.
A game that embodies the saying "the journey is the destination". 10/10
理论上我应该是要喜欢这种游戏来的。但是实际上玩下来剧情的获取被低质量的玩法拖累太多了。
I absolutely love this game.
The worldbuilding, atmosphere and visuals are all outstanding. I adore the narrative style -- it's relentlessly gothic, intelligent and beautiful. I wanted to explore it all.
I remember when I first bought it back in 2016, the combat was a bit frustrating -- it never felt worth it to engage. When I went back to it years later it seemed to have been tweaked to be easier, which was a welcome change. Combat still feels challenging, at least when you're starting out, but not as hopeless as it once did.
Exploration feels rewarding, and honestly I just enjoyed steaming around from point A to B. The music and the atmosphere are perfect. There's always a degree of tension, between your fuel reserves and the gradual increase of terror, which feels well-balanced. You have to be strategic about your routes, ever mindful of your supplies. I can't count the number of times I barely scrapped into port, running on fumes. I enjoyed every minute.
ocean
Если книгу почитать захочу, то куплю книгу, а не игру... Физически невозможно играть, после часа чтения мелкого текста начинает все плыть в глазах((( Еще и все оооочень медленно и как-то абсолютно не структурированно, не говоря уже про неудобные механики. Неудобно и неблагосклонно к игроку, думаю, придется и не вникать в данный амбициозный нишевый проект
It give's the impression of a large lonlly exploration. It's the most accessible Alexis Kennedy within a game context that there is. Cultist simulator and Book of Hours are pretty opaque. This one is as grounded as a sea adventure launched from a London stolen by bats can be.
시커먼 동굴바다를 탐험해가는 배박이 게임
이지만 게임의 최고 매력은 항해 컨셉이 아니라 '불친절함'이라고 생각한다.
게임을 시작해보면 트레일러나 인트로 없이 바로 배 한척과 어둑한 항만에서 시작하며
'암튼 출발하셈' 문구로 게임 시스템을 설명해주고
'컨셉이 뭐임? 여긴 무슨 배경임?'라는 의문이 들 때마다
'이건...이거임. 이건...뭐...그럼.' 수준의 은유적이고 애매모호한 설명들만 나온다.
게임의 주 진행방법이 불친절한 게임은 많이 봤어도 배경설정이 이렇게나 불친절한 게임은 처음 봤고, 이는 비판이자 극찬이다.
이세계 전생물 설명하듯이 친절히 좔좔 읊어주는 스토리텔링도 있지만 과속방지턱 없이 현지음식을 양껏 쑤셔넣는 스토리텔링이 별미가 될 수 있을 줄은 몰랐다.
항해 시스템이 별로였다는 것도 아니고 탐험과 무역 등 뱃놀이 시스템도 꽤 재밌었다.
불친절한 시스템에 꽤 단련된 사람들에게 추천
Absolutely beautiful game
如此优秀诙谐的游戏，我非常喜欢
Great Game, I fail a lot and was never able to get to the deep end of the game but that is the fun of it..
Recommend for sure.
This is a top down view, sail your ship between ports, read short paragraph and decide on which decision event to click, slow, low stress game, with beautiful graphics with a hard grind at start for beginners to learn its strategy of managing rising fear while at sea, dwindling fuel and food, with ability to restock if you've earnt enough trading in far off port reports for money back at your base in port London. It's a spooky feeling game with compelling stories from officers who join you to man ship roles with specific boosts, progressing their stories for rewards.
I messed around my first 3 tries, about 12 hours, died a lot and lost everything until i got the hang...you won't get steam award for doing so, but I manual saved in every port to save my sanity after 3rd try loosing everything. Made game more enjoyable.
Really enjoyed the soundtrack, graphics and story lines and driving ship around and the rare battles I chose. Getting upgrades and following stories to finish missions between many ports soothed my complete to end of upgrades completionist OCD. I also enjoyed playing it for a day and coming away relaxed and my mind not tired like with some other intense games. Enjoyed searching game wiki's for strategies and overall game big stories to understand, I'm not a do it blind sort of guy as I am a play through once after a few restarts sort of guy. Map spawns differently every time so it was fun to explore without a guide to find ports and islands on my own although I enjoyed using guides for a lot of decision making.
Wasn't such a fan of what a time sink the game is for little reward. After 20hrs play I felt comfortable to relax and take risks, but after completing in 55hrs, I had only really upgraded a ship twice, weapons twice and an engine twice, and upgraded my house but with hours of just sailing between, manual saving religiously. There were more missions to finish, but some just take hours of sailing between 8-10 ports sometimes, just felt really slow and as if i hadn't achieved much, yes I could go onto 200hrs and complete it all but i'm a play once, then get bored guy, and game was sadly getting repetitive after 60hrs.
Don't regret playing it, but you need lots of time for this game, tough beginning, great mid game, but a repetitive end game for me.
A beautiful setting, a dark foreboding atmosphere and some excellent writting are wasted on an extremely slow paced and very unforgiving game in terms of finding money and advancing the plot. The exploration element is boring as you mostly travel a dark and very empty sea with very few points of interest.
Only recommended for people who like permadeath games and the horror theme of the setting. It’s implemented well, but the whole thing is just not for everyone.
It’s a difficult game at first but after getting killed a few times you might actually have a decent run. So don’t give up too soon. There seems to be a bit of a hump you need to get over starting out before you can have a decent run.
I got tired of it after 30 hours, but YMMV.
Goated game, brilliant writing, extraordinarily punishing in ways that make sense as a player - highly recommend for a slow burn game. Don't expect to finish it in one run, don't expect your first captain to survive, and don't expect to see everything the world has to offer all at once. Make choices and live with (or die to) them. One of the coolest games I've ever played.
I seem to have spent 80 hours sailing these zees, and expect to spend more, so I guess I enjoy it? The endless tedium of a sea voyage, madness, deadly festival, masks and mirrors, a bit more tedium - oh, faceless clay pirates! Better flee. Oops, my ship was just eaten by a hostile iceberg. Back to the beginning...
Sunless Sea has an interesting concept. In a lovecraftian dark world you explore the sea, gather stuff, trade, stumble into stories, shoot sea monsters. The music is great and underlines the eerie setting.
However, the gameplay makes it hard to access. You are thrown into the game with these tons of menus, not knowing what to do. The tutorial barely scratches the surface. I was traveling the same route over 3 ports several times, barely making enough money for the fuel and supply for the next trip. But I was wrong because I hadn't calculated for terror reduction and ship repairs. I had to sell all goods I had to scratch money together for another trip, hoping the best.
A friend told me to start a new game on a lower difficulty. But clicking new game, there was no option to set the difficulty. Plus, it had autosaved over my previous game state, as I wasn't allowed to save manually.
Seriously, you shouldn't need any skill to change the difficulty of a game.
The gameplay is tedious und frustrating. Apparently, people are able to enjoy the game by reading tons of guides and by cheating or cheezing money. So you might be enjoying the game depending on your approach but I did not.
one of most unique and fascinating games ever made
One of my favorite games of all time. The roguelike element allows you to explore all narrative options. And then, the multiple endings give you lots of freedom. It's fantastic, even better than it's sequel. The music is sublime as well. Damn, wish I could give it a double thumbs up.
When you like reading but your mom forces to play video games you pick this one.
Great quests, great ambiance and mystery ! Sometimes a tad grindy, you'll want to play it with a podcast
