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Sunless Sea Sunless Sea

Take the helm of your steamship and set sail for the unknown! Sunless Sea is a game of discovery, loneliness and frequent death, set in the Fallen London universe.

Key facts

Release dateFebruary 6th 2015
DeveloperFailbetter Games
GenreAdventure, Indie, RPG
PlatformsWindows, macOS, SteamOS, Linux, iPadOS, XBox One, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4
Enquiriespress@failbettergames.com
Violence, Blood, Sexual Content,

Overview

Lose your mind. Eat your crew.

Captain a Victorian steamship on a vast underground sea! If the giant crabs, sentient icebergs and swarms of bats don’t get you, madness and cannibalism certainly will. But that old black ocean beckons, and there’s loot for the brave souls who dare to sail her.

Hire unique officers like the Haunted Doctor and the Irrepressible Cannoneer. Each has a story to tell, if you can draw it out of them. But spend too long on the wide, dark sea and your crew will grow fearful and eventually lose their sanity.

Carve a life for your captain in a deep, compelling world packed with stories and secrets. Find your father’s bones. Determine London’s destiny. Defy the gods of the deep sea.

Your captain will die.

Pass on resources from one generation to the next. Acquire a family home and a hoard of heirlooms. Build a legacy of zailors who braved the sea and lost - or, occasionally, won.

Features

  • Beautiful, hand drawn art - castles of sparkling ice, prisons perched on lily pads, fog-shrouded lighthouses and the DAWN MACHINE.
  • Real-time combat against ships and Zee-beasts, spider-crewed dreadnoughts and sentient icebergs.
  • Complete your life's ambition: be it wealth, fame, or the quest for your father's bones, do not rest until you are satisfied.
  • Upgrade your steamship with powerful engines, cannons and pneumatic torpedo guns. (Or buy a bigger, better ship.)
  • Choose a ship’s mascot: the Comatose Ferret, the Wretched Mog, the Elegiac Cockatoo, and more!
  • Trade or smuggle silk and souls, mushroom wine and hallucinogenic honey.

Zubmariner

Zubmariner is the expansion to Sunless Sea. Deeper, darker, and more marvellous than anything you’ve seen before, it is available as DLC for PC, and as part of Sunless Sea: Zubmariner Edition for console.

All the powers of the Neath agree: there is Nothing of Consequence beneath the Zee. They are lying. You've heard there are fortunes to be made by those brave enough - or hungry enough - to dare the deeps.

Disturb the aberrant societies that flourish in the dark. Defy wreckers. Seduce a Drownie. Embrace or condemn the distinctly un-British customs of these cold, fathomless places.

You will definitely die. Will your next captain dive?

Features

  • Convert your ship into a zubmarine and dive anywhere in open water to discover new cities, zee-beasts and environments to terrify your crew and slake your hungers.
  • 11 new underzee ports, each with their own tales and opportunities for the enterprising Trespasser. Visit Dahut, the city of drowned delights. Brave Wrack, where a Fair King rules the unforgivable. Explore Anthe, and sharpen your tongue, your liver, and your spleen.
  • New enemies to face, from the cunning Wreckship to the inexorable Constant Companion.
  • Discover the treasures the zee has claimed. Explore ancient wrecks, avoid hostile witherweed, discover the unexploded Unclear Bomb.
  • Seek immortality in a new ambition! Track down the Seven Against Nidah, who once came within reach of eternal life. Can you succeed where they failed?

Sanity is scarcer. Death is closer. We warned you, Trespasser. You should not have come.

Sunless Sea was Kickstarted in 2013 and came to Steam in 2015 after a period in Early Access. It received an Essential rating from Eurogamer, and has sold more than half a million copies on Steam alone. It was named among the best games of 2015 by the New Yorker, the Onion AV Club, Vice, Kotaku, PCGamesN, The Mirror, Forbes, Develop Online and Killscreen.

Screenshots

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Videos

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Praise

Sunless Sea’s method of storytelling isn’t unique, but it has never been realised with such impact and elegance.

Eurogamer10/10

Absolutely the best writing in any video game since, well, as long as I can remember.

PCGamesN10/10

A very compelling and satisfying adventure… The realm of possibilities seems endless, and every time I set sail I find something new.

Destructoid9/10

“Without pages to turn, Failbetter have managed to reinvent the pageturner.”

Rock, Paper, Shotgun

Support

Before you report a bug, please take a moment to check out our official Troubleshooting Guide. The vast majority of technical issues that players experience are listed here, along with steps to fix the problem.

If you cannot resolve your issue using the guide then please read the guide’s sections on bug report core information and graphical/text issues so you know what to include in your report before sending it to sunlesssea@failbettergames.com. The more information we have the quicker we’ll be able to resolve the issue.

Press releases & assets

Download a zip archive of key press assets:

Download Press Kit

File size: 1.70 MB. .