During last year's Summer of Gaming, one of the standout trailers was for novel post-apocalyptic survival crafting game Forever Skies.

In November they delayed their early access launch into this year so they could implement more features. They've just unveiled the first of those and it strikes us as pointless.

The research station adds a unique and exciting layer to the game's progression system.

That's their claim but we don't buy it.

Forever Skies' core concept is unique in the saturated survival genre.

Instead of being a lone survivor beginning your journey in a post-apocalptic forest, town, island etc., you begin atop a skyscraper then proceed to build an airship and explore the wasted landscape from the top down.

Essentially turning the typical game experience upside down.

Simple but clever and potentially offering players something they've not experienced before.

This research station?

As in many other survival games you will unlock blueprints by scanning objects you find while exploring.

Their "innovation" is an intermediate step not typical of other games - queuing blueprints at a research station before they can be used, which also requires a sample of the materials used to craft it.

Does that make the game more fun or strategic?

Queuing technology to be researched is common in strategy games and in those does add a strategic layer.

From the outset you have the full spread of possible technologies to research and can choose which to prioritise.

Which is not the case here.

This research station looks like an arbitrary step between scanning objects and being able to build them.

Describing it as "unique and exciting" is slightly tragic.

This being a self-publishing indie developer (i.e. probably minus any marketing expertise) and the game early in development we aren't writing it off, but this isn't an encouraging start to their year.

Forever Skies is due out in early access this year on PC (Steam), and is also being developed for Xbox X|S and PlayStation 5.

[ Main Image: Forever Skies research station trailer. Credit: Far From Home via YouTube. ]

References

Forever Skies (March 7, 2023). Forever Skies | The Research Station Gameplay. YouTube.

Steam. Forever Skies. Far From Home.