![]() ![]() ![]() Who’s succumbed to frostbite because you sent them out to hunt when they were already freezing cold? Who’s now malnourished because you wanted to cut down on rations to save food? Well, well, well, if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions. Each turn is an in-game week, and during this time you’ll be assigning crew members different jobs at the end of your turn you get to see the results of those decisions in a long scary list. At the start of your expedition, you’ll have plenty of both, but when your ship gets stuck you need to start hustling for supplies. In The Pale Beyond, this is represented in two categories: food for rations and fuel for the generator. Like with your standard survival sim, careful resource management is the only way you’re going to see land again. Right lads, we’ve got to survive for over half a year in this arctic death trap, so let's get into the gubbins of how we’re going to do that. It’s a gripping set-up, and is only made more chilling with the opening text when you boot up the game: “This game contains mature themes inspired by the real historical experiences of polar explorers.” It really gets you in the right mindset for a poignant story about human endurance - but also misery, so much misery.ĭecisions that might appear obvious now - a stow away means an extra mouth to feed - might turn out for the best later down the line. What quickly started as a research and rescue mission is now one of survival, and all because some mysterious benefactor had enough cash to pay some desperate sailors to chase a myth. The fate of this ship was sealed as soon as it left the dock. It’s a mission that feels doomed from the start. As The Temperance's new captain, you need to balance your resources, keep the crew’s morale up, and find a way to survive until you are rescued, which should take around 35 weeks. Not only that, but the captain is missing and you're hundreds of miles from civilisation. The first couple of weeks are smooth sailing, but one morning you wake up to find that the ship is stuck in a sheet of thick ice. You are a sailor named Robin Shaw who has been drafted as First Mate into the crew of The Temperance, a ship on a mission to sail into the depths of The Pale Passage in search of its missing sister ship, The Viscount. With an overarching story that deals with the drama and despair of survival, together with a cast of underdog characters whose personalities and flaws fuel your determination to keep them alive, The Pale Beyond is much more human than its steampunk counterpart. Sure, the engine of this survival sim might run the same as Frostpunk’s, but it’s buried deep in a handcrafted hull. But it’s also a comparison that falls short in plenty of other ways. ![]() It’s easy to describe Bellular Studio’s survival sim as just ‘ Frostpunk on a ship’, but in some ways that’s pretty accurate: you’re the leader of a group trying to survive in a harsh frozen wasteland. After all the struggles and dangers I’ve been through trying to keep my ship’s crew alive in the bone-biting cold of the arctic tundra, that’s definitely a success in my book. You know it’s a great turn in The Pale Beyond when only five of your crew are freezing, two have frostbite, and one has scurvy. The Pale Beyond has the same inner workings as its survival sim counterparts, but its gripping tale of underdog sailors clawing at survival in hopes of returning home will fuel you to its thrilling end. ![]()
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