Beneath a Steel Sky review: A strong dystopia with an uneven tone

Beneath a Steel Sky is an adventure game by Revolution Software made in collaboration with comics artist Dave Gibbons. Garry Whitta’s review appeared in PC Gamer UK’s first issue, dated December 1993.

The game follows Robert Foster, who is abducted from his home by police. After a helicopter crash, he is left alone in the upper levels of a vast city and must discover why he was taken.

A dystopian city and a large adventure

The game’s world has lost its government, leaving corrupt corporations in control. Pollution drives wealthy residents underground, while poorer people live and work in cramped towers; beyond the city lies a desert region known as The Gap.

Whitta praised the game’s scale, citing around 100 locations, numerous puzzles and a large cast of characters. Progress takes Foster from the city’s upper levels to the surface and eventually underground, while he avoids security forces and confronts a central computer.

Joey and the unfolding mystery

The review singled out Joey, a robot that begins as a circuit board but can be installed in different cybernetic bodies. Whitta said the robot’s love-hate relationship with Foster gives both characters more life.

Beneath a Steel Sky deliberately withholds the reasons for Foster’s abduction, his objective and even his location at the beginning. The mystery unfolds through clues, subplots and red herrings, although the core gameplay follows a conventional formula of using the right item in the right place.

Strong artwork, uneven tone

Gibbons supplied the cityscapes, character designs and part of the story after a planned Watchmen game collapsed. Whitta praised the background artwork and accompanying mini-comic, but argued that they could not fully overcome the game’s weaknesses.

He wrote that the game tries to be atmospheric, comic, menacing and tongue-in-cheek at the same time. The review also criticized its lack of humor, unsuitable music and the difficulty of taking its on-screen characters and villains seriously.

Despite those flaws, Whitta judged Beneath a Steel Sky a well-constructed and engaging adventure in the LucasArts tradition. He rejected its promotional description as “the world’s first computer-based animated comicbook adventure,” but recommended approaching it as a classic graphic adventure.