A Fresh Survival Adventure Above A Ruined Earth
Decayed and crumbling buildings, massive storms that disrupt the environment and pose a threat to anyone within them, and clouds of toxic dust as far as the eye can see. This is the world of Forever Skies.
Players find themselves on an ecologically ruined Earth where the ground has become virtually uninhabitable and the only way to explore it is by repairing and upgrading an airship. Players can be accompanied by up to three friends as they work to explore the few structures that remain standing above the clouds, all while searching for a cure to save humanity.
Building And Expanding Your Airship
Much of the game takes place in an airship; one that begins as bare bones as you can imagine. There is a single room in the ship with a control console to pilot it. Before taking off, Forever Skies walks players through the basics of gathering resources, building items, and adding minor structures into the airship. Once the first tasks begin, the game prompts you to begin your search for a man named Noah, the final member of a previous expedition to earth.
Flashing lights on the horizon serve as beacons in the storm, as a never-ending dust storm covers the surface of the planet. These lights are structures that can be explored and looted for resources. The winds from the storm also blow materials through the sky which can be harvested with your extractor tool. While these have limited uses at first, as more of the structures are explored, computers containing blueprints and scannable items will unlock new items for the airship.
The first step is to begin adding new rooms to the airship. After all, a single room is pretty cramped and doesn’t make for a very self-sufficient airship. Rooms can be connected and rearranged as needed, and there are also catwalks that can be positioned outside the ship. These make it easier to harvest resources flying by. They are also needed for placing certain items like rainwater collectors and lures.
Survival Mechanics Keep You Constantly Busy
These become important quickly because players also need to manage their thirst, hunger, and exhaustion. It’s an ever-present battle that frankly feels overbearing at times. These meters constantly decrease, even when sitting passive on the ship flying around the world. Staying stocked on food and drink are essential and unfortunately it’s not a simple matter of just collecting rainwater or fishing for bugs out of the sky.
Ecological ruin doesn’t pair well with clean drinking water and sanitized food, so all water and food needs to be purified and cooked before consuming. Well, it is possible to skip that step but doing so will cause health damage. In some cases, that damage from toxic food is enough in itself to kill. Thankfully the respawn is right on the airship, but ultimately it’s easier in some cases just to die and respawn with the meters partially refilled.
There is a resource loss penalty for dying, but especially early on when there isn’t a large variety of resources to stockpile, it can be more manageable than tending to food and drink collection.
Because of this, and several other reasons, Forever Skies is made significantly more enjoyable with a friend.
One player can operate the airship controls while the other tends to managing stations around the base. While piloting the airship, it is also possible to set a cruise control so that the ship maintains speed in whichever direction it is pointing. This means even alone, it’s possible to keep the ship moving while crafting and performing other tasks. But many hands make light work…
Exploration And Co-op Are Where Forever Skies Shines
This is true not just when on the airship but when exploring any of the structures of the world. Robot guards will patrol certain areas and attack indiscriminately. These take plenty of hits to take out, and players are limited to a crossbow and knife early on. These knives are the easiest to build, but they also break fairly quickly. And once you run out of ammo for the crossbow or break a knife, then there is no way to defend yourself, left to flee.
There aren’t a ton of different enemies to manage, which does make planning ahead easier. But it also leads to combat encounters feeling tedious after a while. They aren’t something I necessarily looked forward to, not because they were hard but because they slowed things down.
The real bread and butter of Forever Skies is building and upgrading the airship. Following the first mission prompts is the best way to unlock crucial blueprints and items. After a while the airship will be dotted with additional generators, engines, and turbines to improve mobility and capacity.
As more rooms are added to the ship, garden plots, decorations, and better harvesting equipment come to the fore. Eventually metal can be passively collected as the airship floats through the sky, while food and water collection also becomes increasingly easier. There are even decorative items that can be found and placed to make the ship feel more homey.
Exploring the ruined structures and expanding the airships capabilities were definitely the highlights of the game.
There is also a story constantly playing in the background, guiding players forward and directing them to the next objective. Eventually this brings players down to the ground where they have to explore the toxic landscape, uncovering clues and learning more about a potential cure for humanity.
At Its Best When Shared With Friends
Overall, Forever Skies is an enjoyable game and there is plenty to love. That said, there is also a certain amount of tedium and repetition that players will need to deal with during the game. Early on the airship is slow and going to the wrong towers first can result in a decent amount of backtracking that takes plenty of time. But it’s also completely possible to become fully engrossed in the exploration and crafting to the point that hours fly by without you even realizing it.
Forever Skies is a game that’s made much better with friends, as the shenanigans you can get up to together make that time in the airship all the more enjoyable. But whether you are looking for a chill time in the skies alone, or if you have a mate you want to drag through a post-apocalyptic earth, Forever Skies has something for you. It’s not a perfect game, but if you can get past some flaws, then hours of fun await.
Important Links
Forever Skies Finally Lands On Xbox – And The World Below Has Never Looked So Dangerous – https://www.thexboxhub.com/forever-skies-finally-lands-on-xbox/
Forever Skies Finally Heads To Xbox – Bringing Its Biggest Update With It | Release Date Confirmed! – https://www.thexboxhub.com/forever-skies-finally-heads-to-xbox-bringing-its-biggest-update-with-it/
Buy from the Xbox Store – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/forever-skies/9NXP794QSZ9F/0010
There’s a Deluxe Edition too – https://www.xbox.com/en-GB/games/store/forever-skies-deluxe-edition/9PDD3S6ZP7WT/0010
