It’s been seven mostly quiet years (outside the publishing of Strangeland and Hob’s Barrow), but Wadjet Eye Games is finally back with a new, in-house developed release, and just taking a look at one scene in motion will make it clear why it took so long. Dave Gilbert’s newest game since Unavowed, Old Skies seems like a major shift in his style of subject matter and presentation, but it becomes very clear pretty quickly that this time travel thriller is built on a very familiar foundation, just with a unique new look. The lower resolution sprite work used by previous games from the studio has been given an HD shift with full background illustrations and a very interesting animation style that results in something visually far richer. It helps to serve some familiar themes of Gilbert’s work all the better in one of the most polished titles the studio has ever released.
Old Skies follows Fia Quinn, an employee of time travel company ChronoZen in 2063. After time travel was discovered, ChronoZen was created to act as a regulating body, while also making money in the process by charging rich clients to use time travel to change things in the past (within their strict guidelines) or just experiencing another era. Fia’s job is to help clients with whatever they need on the ground in the past, with help of her mission command Nozzo keeping track of things on monitor at base. The game’s plot kicks in due to the complication of the job that has agents unaffected by timeline changes, while the world around them shifts with each trip booked, called in-universe as a “chronoshift.” What matters in a world where anything can be shifted away in the blink of an eye, where relationships can’t be managed because your loved ones could disappear at any time? More importantly, what do people do when confronted with that?
Fia’s story touches on some very familiar ground for longtime fans of the Blackwell series. The semi-regular use of terms like fate and legacy are absolutely no accident. The shift here is we’re now in a sci-fi story, creating new angles to explore old themes and ideas, and Gilbert’s script shows a strong understanding of what makes time travel stories so enthralling. The supernatural part of this shared universe (alongside The Shivah, the Blackwell games and Unavowed) is subtle and always fitting when characters discuss religion or greater powers or influence, blurring the lines between coincidence and fate, the natural chaos of reality and the unexplainable sense the universe is communicating with us. Trying to make sense of the fallout of new technology through superstitious thinking ends up creating a philosophically rich tale about what it means to find meaning in life, with a powerful cap to it all.
It also helps that Fia and Nozzo, plus a revolving door of clients and people in the past, have Gilbert’s usual eye for comedy and snark. Everyone feels fleshed out and filled with unexpected facets, explored in a unique way here through seeing how Fia’s meddling in the past brings out unexpected sides of others. At the same time, they all know how to crack a joke or line, never defusing the tension of a darker scene, but infusing them with humanity and levity that balances the tone expertly. Even when things take shockingly dark turns, especially in chapter two and chapter five’s trip to the time before and after 9/11, the banter between the characters helps keep things anchored, especially Fia and Nozzo’s familiar back and forth. The two have an obvious contrast between them as field agent and tech support, but the real fun is how similar the two prove to be and how that comes out naturally whenever one of them slips out of their professional persona. They make a powerful core for the narrative, possibly an even stronger duo than Rosa and Joey from the Blackwell days.
Gameplay wise, this is a Wadjet Eye game. The party system from Unavowed got dropped at some point in development, so we’re more in a return to old form here, solving puzzles and a focus on investigations without any significant twists. The time travel concept does throw out a new idea with death based time loops, where Fia will be trapped in a loop when killed in the past. As a result, she has to figure out a way to make the loop play out in her favor to escape it and continue the story.
The concept is naturally for the subject matter, but the end result is mostly slightly annoying trial and error puzzles. The comedic writing around Fia’s growing frustration with the absurd situations keeps it light, but not enough if you’re having issues figuring out the proper steps. Few of the chapters really make great use of the time travel concept either, the most you usually get is creating a portal to a relatively recent past or future for the current time period. Chapter four sticks out as a major, spoiler heavy exception, bringing a really clever and much needed shake up to the formula, while the last two chapters step up in terms of how the concept affects the story being told. Otherwise, it’s what you remember, including the odd password guessing puzzle – a Wadjet Eye staple! Fitting the most complicated one (complete with randomized elements each run) takes place in some familiar places to long time fans of the studio.
The real polish on display is all presentation. A problem that a lot of Wadjet Eye releases have had for a long while now is that their sprite art rarely transfers well to larger resolutions, a problem that has only become larger as time as marched on and monitors have become increasingly detailed in what they can show. Playing fullscreen would often ruin a lot of the details. Old Skies solves the issue by using detailed, high quality illustrations and character art, animated in a very fluid way.
The studio has mentioned using tracing over 3D models to make backgrounds during Technobabylon‘s development in their commentary tracks for the game, so one has to wonder if a similar technique was used here to capture the little details in limb movements via rotoscoping animation. Even the simple faces manage to show a ton of emotional range, an incredibly impressive feat, especially since the once commonly used character portraits are nowhere to be seen. These models pick up the slack and then some.
The end result is easily one of the best looking 2D adventure games to date, both from an art design and graphical standpoint. It makes Ben Chandler’s scene art that pops at spots stick out a bit, though. A lot of it looks great, especially one piece used in a tense sequence in chapter five, but the expression work looks off at points. It might be due to how much Chandler focuses on cheek gaunts, it’s a bit distracting with this coloring.
The music is also solid enough, nothing quite sticking in your head, but selling the mood of each area and scene very well. The voice acting also remains fantastic, as to be expected from the studio by now. Sally Beaumont does an especially great job with Fia, really making her feel unique among Gilbert’s many characters, both with her accent and how her tone of voice shifts so much based on the situation and who she’s talking to. Seeing her on the job mask fall completely off never stops being funny. It’s also nice seeing Dr. Eggman hanging around after Strangeland, Mike Pollock getting a more involved role this time as the first client you have to deal with.
While Old Skies seemed like it was going to be a major shift for the studio initially, the end result is closer to a refining of all the ideas Gilbert has been playing with since his first game. It’s a fantastic exploration of all the previous themes and ideas he’s dealt with in the story, and a well oiled machine for puzzle solving and investigation gameplay. It’s not necessarily more of the same, as that description may describe, but possibly the overall best version of everything that’s come before, minus a party system. Be sure to pick this one up and spread the word that Wadjet Eye is back, and they’ve only been sharpening their skills while they’ve been away.
