Sunless Sea

Overview

Sunless Sea is an ambitious work that attempts to capture the sheer kinetic thrill of discovery in a bottle without the inevitable entropy of player completion depleting it, and falls well short. The promise of lengthened replayability only makes the methodical pace a joyless grind at times.

-- As reviewed by GameSpot

TechSpot Metascore

Based on 15 expert reviews

Excellent:

6
Good:

5
Average:

3
Bad:

1

8.1

User Score

Based on 6,662 reviews
as rated by users

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Last revision on September 8, 2018

Reviewers Liked

Hilarious, haunting writing
Gorgeous visuals
Thoughtful setting and worldview

Reviewers Didn't Like

Weak combat
Fiddly menus
Discovering islands for the second, third, and fourth time is progressively less great

Expert reviews and ratings

By PC Gamer on October 25, 2016 90

Verdict: The dangers of the abyss are well worth facing for Zubmariner's bounty of fantastic stories and strange...

By Trusted Reviews on August 13, 2015 90

Sunless Sea may take the form of a top-down nautical sim – albeit one that is gorgeously presented in atmospheric visuals and wrapped in an ominous soundtrack – but at its pitch black heart it's a very personal horror story, unique to anyone brave...

By MacLife on June 29, 2015 80

Well written and different enough to be worth the inevitable repetition.

By New Game Network on May 04, 2015 68

Sunless Sea truly does capture what it must feel like to be a ship's captain on a dark underground ocean - sometimes it feels exciting and wondrous, but usually it feels lethargic and dreary. I should've stayed in London and became a...

By Expert Reviews on March 17, 2015 60

Sunless Sea keeps its treasure under tight lock and key, but this slow-burning rogue-like text adventure is still strangely...

By HardcoreGamer on March 03, 2015 80

Sunless Sea is a little darker and less cheerful than its already morbid sister Fallen London, but it’s no less delightful. The Unterzee is awash with clever, well-written stories, and you’re sure to find something new every time you set sail – even if actually finding it can take a while.

By IGN on February 19, 2015 83

Sunless Sea gives you a wonderful world to explore and packs it with memorable written vignettes. Its permadeath flirts with repetitiveness, and combat is disappointing, but it’s far from running out of ways to inspire one more trip back across the Unterzee.

By gamecrate.com on February 18, 2015 85

Platforms: PCMy first captain in Sunless Sea was a natural philosopher known as Captain Shaq. He enjoyed a few brief moments of fame carrying news and resources back and forth between dismal ports of the Unterzee (the underground ocean which provides the...

By bjorn3d.com on February 14, 2015 93

Sunless Sea was funded using Kickstarter (just as FTL was) and thus was developed together with the community. It is an excellent little indie-game that simply is wonderful to play, as long as you know what to expect. The few issues we have with the...

By PCGamer on February 11, 2015 80

Wonderful writing resting on top of infirm foundations. Almost a classic, Sunless Sea falls a few leagues short of its final destination.

By CyberShark on February 10, 2015 90

"Lose your mind. Eat your crew. Die." Sunless Sea's tagline is certainly eye catching, but also a promise of the horrors that lie within the game's Lovecraft-inspired world. And while it wasn't Sunless Sea's underwater nightmares that kept me up past my...

By Bit-tech.net on February 06, 2015 70

Sunless Sea ReviewPrice: £14.99Developer: Failbetter GamesPublisher: Failbetter GamesPlatform: PCImagine a mind as an ocean, a bowl of bone filled with thoughts that ripple and roil, swell and shrink. This bobbing blue dreamscape stretches to the...

By eurogamer.net on February 06, 2015 100

If a game is a series of meaningful choices, as per the designer Sid Meier's oft-repeated, oft-abused maxim, then Sunless Sea is more game than most. The choices pile up quickly, then escalate. Sure, you're a merchant captain now , but who were you...

By videogamesuncovered.com on February 06, 2015 70

As I mentioned in the preview, Sunless Sea is absolutely rammed full of text. Failbetter Games are the masters of in-game text, with the stories you will read over the course of your tales across the Zee ranging from incredibly funny to utterly...

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