Forever Skies

For some reason the developers went from a pre-release look of clear skies, vast and beautiful cityscape to a caustrofobic and ugly pea soup with minimal visibility. They created a stunningly beautiful world - and right before release they completely hid it from sight, never to be seen again. I am at a loss as to the reasons. And I am not coming to the game ever again. I remember it being beautiful all too well.

This review started as a "yes with caveats," but I realised partway through that the only positive thing I can say is that it's pretty when it runs, and a fun way to kill time. I played it when it first released in 1.0. It was very fun, but should not have been released as a 1.0. It was chock-full of bugs, lagged if you built out your ship to the minimum tutorial spec regardless of PC build, and the zones were almost all the same. It was even more difficult to play co-op at any decent framerate especially near certain types of islands. There are already several detailed reviews, steam forum, and reddit posts listing these issues. Was it a deal breaker for me? Nah. I played most of Icarus co-op at around 8 fps. This one was a little harder to tolerate, but I still made it to the end. Speaking of which, the end was sorta underwhelming. I'm not one to complain about the lack of input in games - that's unrealistic to expect. This particular end felt meaningless considering that it clearly was made to make you think about how we spend resources. It's really admirable that they had little conservation artifact DLC, but I think that would have been better served as part of the base game that would then get donated. Now they have a fast-fashion plush coming out, and I feel like that negated the whole conservation of resources thing. Makes the ending feel even more performative and rushed. There for the nihilism or hope, and nothing else. Not to remind us that the world is finite and that we can either care or give up. Admittedly, I haven't played the game since the big re-do. I don't tend to play games more than once. I think that when a game releases, it should be done. And this one was a pretty big offender in the long list of Steam games that aren't done upon release. I will be very skeptical of any further releases from these devs.

I originally wrote like a huge essay but it was getting too long so here is the tl;dr: There is not a single thing this game does good and steam reviews are botted.

Compré Forever Skies pensando “un survival relajante en el cielo, voy a flotar como un hippie con ciencia”. Realidad: soy un piloto de Uber Aéreo que pasa más tiempo reparando fugas que explorando, mientras una tormenta tóxica me grita “bájate, pringao”. Lo que mola (cuando no te mata): Tu airship es tu novia: la decoras, la mejoras, le pones luces LED y hasta le hablas bonito. Mundo post-apocalíptico precioso… y vacío. Muy vacío. Como Tinder después de las 3 a.m. Exploras ruinas, recolectas basura y sientes que eres el último idiota con curiosidad del planeta. Cultivas en la azotea mientras evitas pájaros mutantes que parecen haber comido esteroides. Momentos que nunca olvidaré (por trauma): Mi primer aterrizaje: choqué contra una torre y mi nave quedó colgando como piñata. Olvidé cambiar el filtro de aire y empecé a ver elefantes rosas… en un mundo sin elefantes. Una tormenta me empujó 3 km y terminé en un bioma nuevo. Celebré… hasta que me quedé sin combustible. Planté mi primera patata en la cubierta y la cuidé como si fuera mi hijo. Se murió. Traición nivel máximo. Críticas (porque el cielo también tiene nubes negras): Mundos procedurales tan repetitivos que las ruinas se parecen más que mis calcetines. Rendimiento que a veces cae más rápido que mi dirigible cuando se me olvida la gasolina. Combate que se siente como pelear con un plumero contra bichos cabreados. Te aburre si no te gusta ir despacito. Esto no es un shooter, es “Slow Life en el Apocalipsis”. Online casi desierto. Si ves otro jugador, probablemente es un bug… o tu clon de otra dimensión. En resumen: Forever Skies es un survival bonito, atmosférico y bastante único, pero te va a hacer sufrir con bugs, repetición y tu propia torpeza. Perfecto si quieres algo chill con toques de pánico existencial. Si te gustan los juegos donde construyes tu casa voladora y hablas solo… este es tu cielo. Si quieres acción rápida… mejor quédate en tierra, crack. 8.5/10 cuando flota bien. 6/10 cuando se estrella. PD: Si ves un dirigible lleno de luces navideñas, plantas muertas y un tipo gritando “¡NO, MI FILTRO NO!”… soy yo. No me ayudes, ya me acostumbré a vivir en las nubes. 🌫️🛸

Getting to the new biome after 20 hours of taking my time in the first area (doing sidequests, exploring every location) just to immediately land on a POI in the new biome that is a copy-paste of one of the 5 repeat POI's from that starting zone...that is an awful feeling. It's a feeling made even worse when I realize almost every location in this new area is the same as the last. This is the devs telling me "We have nothing to show you. That's it. That's everything we've got." I'm sure it's not. I'm sure there is plenty I have not and probably will never see. I just refuse to slog through these same POI's again and again and again. I'm falling asleep thinking about it. Regardless, any immersion I'd been holding onto for that first 20 hours was gone. It was an immediate quitpoint for me. There is a lot of good about Forever Skies, but a game primarily bout exploration that has nothing to explore past the first few hours takes a steamy fat dump on all that good.

There are some interesting parts but the negatives out weight the positives. Other than having a unique premise everything else about the game feels under cooked. Some major issues are combat is atrocious and easily cheesed with little variety, inventory and UI QOL that makes all the things you loot a chore to organize, exploration is far more boring than expected,. There are more but I feel these are the biggest issue. Would recommend if you liked raft and the general game play loop of that game this should feel pretty similar. Overall would not recommend the game to the general populace as it is right now.

Steam Store Trash. Forever Skies feels like Steam store filler more than a fully realized game. It runs poorly, and the visuals do not look nearly good enough to justify the performance issues. If a game is going to struggle this much, I expect something impressive on screen, and this is not that. The story has been boring so far. It mostly feels like a chain of fetch quests with very little payoff, and none of it has been engaging enough to make me care about what happens next. Instead of building momentum, it just feels repetitive. The gameplay is the biggest problem. It is severely lacking in anything that feels fun, satisfying, or memorable. I kept waiting for the loop to become enjoyable, but it never really did. Everything feels flat, and the game just does not offer enough excitement, depth, or polish to keep me interested. Overall, I found it disappointing, tedious, and hard to recommend.

Three simple words, Tedious, Boring and unintuitive sadly. Good idea but not executed very well.