Six Ages 2: Lights Going Out

What is a myth? What makes a myth different from a story? A myth is fundamental. Myths tell tales that build up culture and society; myths do not need to be "factual" to be true. When mythology reaches across time and space and touches you, it is True and Real, regardless of whether it's about a giant man or a princess or a wolf or a horse. Six Ages is my favorite game. There is no other game like it. ========== It's worth discussing the first game and the second game and the relations between the two, story-wise and mechanically. The first game is also good. I've played Six Ages : Ride Like The Wind before. Great game. Lovely game. This sequel is a lot like that game, but much more experimental and weird, and the already very good writing is even better. I won't bother giving too much detail on mechanics, though I think that they are marginally improved. The user interface flows a tiny bit better and the Ventures are more interesting than before. Suffice to say, the mechanics are Good. They are interesting because they reflect the world. Everything you do feels very diegetic; you'll rarely take actions that break immersion. Activities and buttons you push always feel immersive. It's "end season," not "end turn." It is not Sid Meier's Civilization, it is to instead experience a civilization. They are also fun; raiding and exploring are still fun. If you ever have trouble with the mechanics, browse the manual or listen to your advisors. I strongly recommend playing the first game in order to transfer a save. Although not required, it is more fun and adds more personal connection. You see a lot transfer over; history, characters, events, even clans to a degree! It really builds the intimacy, more than games that are famous for it like Mass Effect, The Witcher, Hitman, or the Telltale games. ========== Lights Going Out is about the lights going out. Not swiftly. Not all at once. This game wants to do you slowly. Unlike Six Ages, where you quickly reach an endgame condition that will result in a loss, I found it overall more difficult to LOSE this game. Instead, you watch your people suffering. You watch your neighbors turning to Chaos. And I loved it. It turns out, being in desperate situations don't have to be unpleasant to play. It is possible to play POORLY and have a bad time, but this game understands that desperation does NOT mean bad gameplay. It instead means you GET TO (you do not 'have to,' you GET TO) make difficult choices. I mentioned The Witcher briefly. People love the difficult choices in The Witcher. (The Witcher is not at all the gold standard, but it came to mind.) Making difficult ethical dilemmas is FUN. There are entire video games about it! People spend hours discussing the ethics of one decision or another from video games or books or old episodes of Star Trek, the list goes on and on and on. The fact is, you are in a desperate situation and you GET TO make tough choices. This is not a punishment. This is a reward. This is a treat. Deciding between embracing Dark Things and eating is Fun, because the game very rarely asks you to do outright unpleasant things. There's no point where you're forced to turn on a beloved NPC and brutalize them. Again, that would almost be too easy. Instead, you have to make rugged choices about food, and how you treat outsiders (which is again, very rarely simply "kill and murder them") and how you even consider your own Clan's morals. Because this game wants to do you slowly. ========== The experience for art, UI, and interface is Quite Good. Some artists returned, but I believe some artists are new. The music is by a different composer, but whoever they are they did a nice job. It fits the soundscape of the original Six Ages and the older game, King of Dragon Pass while also being firmly its own thing. It definitely gets the Bronze Age vibe right. The UI is slightly worse only in that it's not really updated at all aside from the text on the menu being a tiny, tiny bit darker. I would have liked some more accessibility options [bigger text? higher contrast mode? Controller support?] , but assuming you are not visually impaired and can read text, this game doesn't have any real issues with accessibility. The art remains outstanding. There's a lot of it. It's all very pretty. There's not much else to say on it. ========== It runs fine on Steam Deck. I suggest using Touchscreen mode. ========== There is a moment that this game provides that no other game can provide, and I doubt any other game ever will. It is not a scripted event. Even if you have the right character, AND the right event, you are not guaranteed to get it. It was only possible because the writers and programmers allowed you to import your save, and had such bizarre and creative events in the first game (Ride like the Wind) that could end up having party members sent tumbling through time and space into this second game (Lights Going Out), skipping centuries and ending up far in the future. In this event, that time-displaced character went on a quest to the realm of the gods. There, to my utter surprise, they ran across a part of the Gods Realm that included our own clan's history. There, they saw the events of their own life as an outsider. Their own life was now enshrined in Myth. They saw, as an outsider, the nature of mythology. The narrative of their life was now a Fundamental part of our clan's society. I saw an old friend; a character from the first game, their life long over but their form now remade as a god. In that moment, I as a player was desperate for cows and food. In that moment, I was so completely and perfectly synchronized with the questing character in ways no other game has ever done. Here I am! In the gods realm! Seeing a familiar face in a time of great need! O what fortune. And to my genuine disappointment, this familiar face did not recognize my character. Despite the character LITERALLY being a part of his story, there was no recognition. The figures from the past were gone. They were gods now; existing outside of space and time as living myths. The game has a few extra lines in this scene if you use such a character, but it was not necessary. In that moment, I understood it all as emotions rushed over me. This game, and the series as a whole - RuneQuest, Glorantha, all of it - is about Mythology in every sense. HeroQuesting, the staple of the series and the universe, is a way that we can experience mythos of the past and have them mean something to us. HeroQuesters go on such quests to re-enact myths in order to touch them and gain greater understanding. They put themselves into the mindset of these myths; they IMMERSE themselves, they EMBODY them. This series, and this game especially does exactly that. YOU the player are immersing yourself. YOU are HeroQuesting. Six Ages : Ride Like The Wind is a game about embodying other people and other worlds - veracity be damned - to feel greater Truth. If we are touched by something, no matter if it's an event or a story or real or fictional, then it holds great meaning and deeper Truths. This entire series is an engine designed to create such stories in order to bring you in contact with such greater meaning. For me, it was appreciating things that are gone and cannot come back. What that meaning is for you though, that's up to you. ========== Horses and rams and dying gods. Sadness for what's lost but joy in what's here. The sense of the strange-familiar. As I played Six Ages : Lights Going out, I wondered at how this game of all games, and this world of all worlds, managed to incise itself into my own spacetime braid.

As all the games they have made since King of Dragon Pass, this is an amazing story trapped inside a tribe sim, which makes it all the better, as the stories are directly intertwined and depend on your decisions and actions - an important character died? story will continue without him - Did half of your population get eaten by a maggot-looking demon? your economy is pretty much destroyed, but the story will continue. The difference with the previous title is that instead of fighting for a better future for you and your tribe, here neither of those have any future so to speak, as in the generation of the game you will have to choose when will the world END so you already know you are here to try to make it as little of an actual apocalypse as possible. If you are new to the games, I would recommend to start with King of the Dragon Pass, as many things from there will be reused as inspiration for the RLTW games, and then start these two, as unfortunately as niche as they are a lot of time will have to pass before we actually are able to get a continuation (If we ever do, I have seen no confirmation of it at least :c) anyways, amazing game, and thank you A Sharp for it - Any new game of yours is in my preorder without queue :D I think this was kinda of an idea soup instead of an actual review but i wanted to say all of it

I spent most of time looking for food and not engaging with the wider world. I get the story they are trying to tell but the game play is so narrow I couldn't have fun with the game. A lot of the negative reviews say the same so I know I am not just bad. This game I guess sold a lot less the previous games. It doesn't have many guides or walkthroughs for it. It also has weaker production values. Events repeat and characters children get the same events just with a name tweak. What is worse is that it lacks the freedom of the first two games so I have reason to go back and replay it. I feel that If I spun up another game I would spend hours looking at starvation messages instead of engaging in war, diplomacy and exploration. What is worse is that you can't meaningfully change the map. I can't conquer other tribes, the godswar stuff is more chaotic and confusing plus the exploration starts to fall apart near the end as the world does. I see the narrative they are trying to complete however simply striping out gameplay instead of adding on gameplay is not the way to do it. It's a lesser game than six ages which is a lesser game than King of Dragon Pass.

I absolutely loved Six Ages: Ride Like the Wind, but Six Ages 2: Lights Go Out takes everything to the next level. Set during the world's apocalypse, this game masterfully evokes a feeling of desperation, resilience, and mythic struggle as your clan fights to keep the last light of hope alive against an ever-consuming darkness. With gameplay nearly twice as long as King of Dragon Pass, Six Ages 2 is full of existential, mythological conflict. Every victory feels hard-earned, and every setback reminds you that the world is crumbling—but you still push forward. The addition of council members acting as distinct personalities within the clan adds another layer of depth, with their own side stories and interactions that enrich the experience. Replayability is excellent, and I love that you can port your save from Ride Like the Wind, creating a continual story for your clan across both games. Whether you're a veteran of Glorantha or new to this mythic world, Six Ages 2 is a must-play. Highly recommended!

I played king of the dragon pass before. This game's story feels much more integrated, and I like how each character in the ring has more character.

'ate goats, luv the sun

Once you figure out how the game's systems work, this is an excellent hidden gem of a story-driven sandbox. Definitely recommend.

I will leave this cats here, so that everybody who passes by can pet them and give a thumbs up and awards 　　 　　／＞　　フ 　　 　　| 　_　 _ l 　　 　／` ミ＿xノ 　　 　 /　　　 　 | 　　　 /　 ヽ　　 ﾉ 　 　 │　　|　|　| (˚ˎ 。7 　／￣|　　 |　|　| | |、˜〵 　| (￣ヽ＿_ヽ_)__) じしˍ,)ノ 　＼二つ

Difficult and sometimes punishing, but the game has a very interesting story set in a fascinating world.

Great game. Humorous, well thought-out, amazing gameplay, very original story. Challenging, but doable - which is the perfect combo to experience flow.