Saltsea Chronicles

In the Saltsea archipelago, life keeps happening

The sea is a fickle mistress, and an important aspect of games made by Copenhagen-based indie developer Die  Gute Fabrik. In 2019’s Mutazione, teenager Kai visits an island of mutants who live, trade, and move around on boats following a calamity. The studio’s new game, Saltsea Chronicles, imagines a similarly watery world – after the sea has reclaimed large swathes of land post-climate change, new communities spring up.

It’s the story of a group of friends on a journey to find a missing comrade and help neighbouring communities. After an evening of storytelling, Maja, one of the group, suddenly disappears. The rest of them, including young Iris, diver Stew, new mother Molpe (who’s also Maja’s partner), and well-spoken historian Murl, decide to look for her. Could a new, secretive society of seafarers be responsible for her disappearance? There’s only one way to find out.'

As you make your way across the archipelago, you play not just one protagonist but the entire group, using a system that creative lead and studio director Hannah Nicklin describes with a Star Trek analogy as she eases us into our play session: “Imagine that you decide who gets to beam down onto the planet for a mission – we have one character who leads the expedition and one who accompanies them.” Fine, as long as none of them wear red shirts…

STRENGTH IN NUMBERS