A first look at Old Skies

At your favorite site (Ragequit, that is) we love Wadjet Eye Games. Being one of the most dedicated companies in the adventure game industry, we always look forward to their every move with great interest, especially when it comes from mastermind Dave Gilbert.

This beloved creator has offered some very interesting adventures from time to time, such as the Blackwell series and of course Unavowed, which is his most recent effort. Until now that is, as he has been developing his new game set in the same universe as the Blackwell's for some time now, called Old Skies.

For our part, we had the chance to try a demo of the game, which gives us a pretty good taste of what to expect from the final product. Old Skies falls under the category of time-travelling adventures, placing the game's heroine, Fia Quinn, in different time periods of New York City.

We are in 2080s and Fia works as an agent for ChronoZen, a company that has time travel technology and uses it to allow its clients to visit a past time period of their choice. For a price, of course. Fia's newest assignment is to accompany Dr. Joseph Anderson, who longed to visit his time as a student and taste one last time, as he is suffering from a terminal illness, the... fine delicacies of the local restaurant where he frequented at the time. That is, more junk food than you can handle.

Ostensibly a simple mission, but one that requires great care, as Joseph Anderson is considered one of the most important doctors this planet has ever produced and his survival is of paramount importance. Therefore, any temporal paradoxes, such as, for example, being confronted with himself, must be avoided at all costs.

During dinner, however, it turns out that Joseph had other plans in mind. Under the guise of wanting to go to the toilet, he escapes Fia's attention, and not only that, but he gets rid of ChronoZen's tracking device, which is placed on customers for security reasons. Inevitably, Fia finds herself in the unfortunate position of having to track Joseph and prevent him from walking free, which would have untold consequences in the time continuum.

The story in question is one of the seven that will be included in the game and is approximately forty minutes long. Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean that Joseph Anderson's story will be carried over unchanged into the regular game, but it still threw just enough bread to keep us interested.

The narrative is therefore expected to be one of the strong points of Old Skies, as the storyline creates many interesting questions and arouses the player's curiosity, while the writing of Fia's dialogues and monologues are extremely well written. However, it doesn't seem to stay behind on the adventure part either, although the demo is too small to draw a conclusion about the level of difficulty of the adventure.

Old Skies is no different from a traditional adventure game, with interaction with the environment and other NPCs being the leverages of the story, while the use of the items we collect plays a big role as well. Nothing we haven't seen before, however a quirky database system is included, whereby we learn information about people from the past that can help us in our research. The database is primarily controlled by combining names and/or locations, and our ally at every step is Nozzo, a guy who helps Fia remotely and gives her valuable advice and proper direction.

In general, the game seems to have been given a great deal of thought, and it is noteworthy that we are being asked to make some important decision at the end of the case, which will obviously have some serious impact in the future. After all, according to Dave Gilbert, there will be several such challenges, and the fact that Fia can die (not happening in the demo) will probably create situations similar to those we saw in the same company's Strangeland.

In conclusion, we have to mention that this is the first HD game of the developer, as it is designed in 1920*1080 resolution, which makes it, by far, the most beautiful game of Wadjet Eye Games. Both the environments and the characters are sufficiently appealing to the eye, and special mention should also be made of the sound aspect, with the stunning voice-over and the wonderful soundtrack by long-time composer Thomas Reign rocking our speakers.

So, the signs are positive and we are eagerly awaiting the full version, which will not see the light of day before 2023. Be patient and until then, make sure you have it added to your wishlist.