Beyond A Steel Sky

Return to Union City in Revolution’s next adventure

- Andy Kelly

Before we dive in, some history. Back in 1994, Revolution Software, the UK studio behind the Broken Sword series, released a point-and-click adventure called Beneath a Steel Sky. Set in a future Australia, it followed the adventures of Robert Foster, an outback wanderer who found himself stranded in the dystopian Union City. The game was notable for the involvement of Dave Gibbons, the artist behind Alan Moore’s Watchmen comics, and it was a commercial and critical success.

Beneath a Steel Sky could have easily been forgotten, one of those adventure game curios that we occasionally dig out of the archives to fondly remember. But for years it’s been one of the games people receive for free when they sign up for GOG.com, which has kept its heart beating. Not to mention a recent mobile port, which lets you play the thing on a modern smartphone.

Between this and the Broken Sword series’ appearance on phones, Revolution has always been great at keeping its beloved old games alive.

Fast forward 25 years and Beneath a Steel Sky has developed something of a cult following. It’s a deeply strange game, being a curious mix of bleak urban dystopia and Python-esque British humor. Despite the Australian setting, the people you meet are mostly English northerners – and the hero, Foster, has an American accent for some reason. But despite this dizzying tonal inconsistency, it’s a very good adventure game. I especially liked the ability to implant your AI pal Joey’s brain into various different robot bodies.

Union City flips familiar dystopian city tropes, with the wealthy and privileged living in the lower levels and the poor being confined to the upper levels, where an endless sea of factories belches black smoke into the sky.