I’ve been waiting to finally play Old Skies for over six years. Wadjet Eye Games’ next title certainly took its time to come out, but it’s for good reason, as it rival’s the dev’s previous hit, 2018’s brilliant Unavowed, as one of the best modern adventure games. Dave Gilbert’s small outfit is one of the most talented in the business, with Old Skies to prove that not only can they continuously deliver good games, but ones that are meaningful to those who play them, going beyond being mere entertainment pieces.
Old Skies takes place in the future. Not that being alive decades from now really matters, as time has become a literal commodity, with companies now dedicated to the business of time tourism delivering their clients the experiences that they crave for exorbitant amounts of money. Playing as Fia Quinn, an agent of ChronoGen, one such company, it’s your job to make sure that their wishes are granted, but whether they come back in one piece, well, that’s a whole other matter. All the while, she has to deal with her ever-shifting reality.
To talk about Old Skies without marveling at the sheer quality of its writing can prove to be hard, really hard. Much like Wadjet Eye Games’ previous titles like the aforementioned Unavowed, the Blackwell saga, and others, there’s a lot to chew on in this one. Old Skies is without a doubt one of Gilbert’s most personable works as it touches upon themes that are not only dear to him as a writer, but to others, especially Americans, who end up playing this.
While it might at first seem like a science fiction romp in the form of an adventure game, it quickly bares its depth in storytelling, as early as its initial case. Without going into any big spoilers, it has to do with an aging entrepreneur/scientist wishing to relive his early glory days, but it evolves into something much more grounded and human, to a certain extent, tragic.
Tragedy in fact plays a big part in the game overall. Obviously in the way it has you eventually serve a client who wants to warp back to September 10th, 2001 and its obvious implications, but also through the lenses of the psyche of virtually being able to be there to witness whatever world event they wish, for as small or big as they can be.
Story-wise, there are specific limits to that, of course. The lore states that there’s a metric to which Fia and her colleagues have to adhere, one that measures the timeline impact of whatever characters their clientele might run into during their escapades. Only low ones can basically be interacted with, but even at that, some big life changes can occur at certain points in the game, and that ends up being a point to contend with in Old Skies: what to some can be considered minor can be another’s life-altering event. And that’s out to use story-wise throughout the game, incredibly and sensibly so, in a manner that only excellent storytellers can come up with.
Outside of the brain-meltingly good story beats, Old Skies has some really entertaining gameplay quirks to enjoy. As you can expect from a time-travelling adventure, there are some fun plays on retrying scenarios, where the game expectedly pokes at you to try and break out of your comfort zone in order to get through its puzzles. Some, understandably so, can evolve into the roadblocks that adventure game players are familiar with, the stumps that rote memorization is key, while others just have to be experienced in order to know what’ll come next.
Then there are those that award you with incredibly amusing moments where accidents turn out to be just the solution that you needed, organically taking place as you engage with those around you, in a way that only a game that is so smartly put together can offer. This is a vague way of describing certain sections of Old Skies without stumbling into spoilers, safe to say that you are given enough to make do on your own without even noticing it, but even if you do, the game doesn’t overtly beat you over the head for that.
Old Skies feels like the next logical step for adventure games without actually going out of its way to state it, and that’s what makes it so special. It unassumingly provides the scenarios and trusts that you might just pull off out of them on your own, naturally so. Even when that doesn’t happen, you’re led to the right path with a thin and nonetheless sturdy thread that isn’t overt, one that wants you to see the game through in a way that won’t leave you feeling stupid for missing cues and relying on its help.
Wadjet Eye has a way of making their releases feel visually varied and still remain very “indie” and handcrafted, and Old Skies is no different. The characters and world of the game have a very old-school penciled animation style to them that helps give this a charming and at the same time smooth look that’s very unique when compared to their previous games. Before, the studio relied on more traditionally pixelated characters, much akin to old LucasArts, but now it’s much closer to being an actual cartoon, which to a fan of a more traditional approach to that medium is just the cherry on top of a very delicious cake.
The same can be said about the voice performances for its characters. Holy cow, they are really good. I’ve been following Old Skies’ development for years, getting Gilbert’s updates on how the casting was going, when recordings were happening, and how the game as a whole was moving along, so seeing the final result first hand is just plain awesome. Not one character can be singled out for being badly handed by its actor, and the same can be said when it comes to just how fantastic each and every one is.
Fia, Noz and the rest of the base cast has some real chemistry between them, and that carries over to the secondary roles and their evolution as their story unfolds, surprisingly and pleasantly so as Old Skies moves from case to case. It’s baffling how well it all comes together voice-wise, and it now makes sense why the game took as long as it did to come out – that’s obviously a LOT of work, even more so considering how small of a group Wadjet Eye Games is.
Old Skies is an achievement for them and is surely among their very best. Granted, it’s hard to pick out my very favorites from a list of some of the absolute greatest releases that the genre has seen over the last 10 to 15 years, but I can say with confidence that even those who have never tried any of their works so far will get as much of a kick as I did with this one. And hopefully that will propel them to check out the rest of their catalog, as they deserve to be seen by as many adventure game admirers, both new and old, as possible.
