Beyond a Steel Sky initially launched for the Apple Arcade, but has been recently ported onto the PC. Beyond a Steel Sky sees players venture back into the cyberpunk utopia known as Union City. The decrepit locals, goofy characters, and fully three-dimensional world sees this niche franchise both evolve and iterate on itself. While a lot of Beyond a Steel Sky's predecessor's quirks remain, the jump into three-dimensional gameplay and exploration was surprisingly smooth. Traversing the world is simple, and the puzzles that litter the atmosphere are placed in such a manner as to naturally lead the player to the next set of obstacles.
Some may be familiar of the origins of the Steel Sky series. Its humble roots began in a 1994 point-and-click adventure title Beneath a Steel Sky, which offers a comic-book adventure that allows players to explore cyberpunk locals. The sequel transitions the genre but not the setting, retaining the comic book aesthetic but evolving the narrative. Cyberpunk is very popular at the moment, and Beyond a Steel Sky is situated to capitalize on that popularity with a release on PC.
Players still get to explore Union City once more while toying with slightly altered gameplay - particularly in the way the player moves. The original game was fully two dimensional, and the sequel, developed on Unreal Engine 4, gives players fully three dimensional, cell-shaded environments to explore. They may not look particularly impressive on the PC, as textures are somewhat muddy and facial expressions tilt towards the more barren, unflinching side of things, but the game undeniably looks good as a mobile entry, which was its original purpose. The PC port, available on Steam, is serviceable. Controls were fully ported, giving players the ability to use proper, keyboard movements and mouse clicks to solve the various puzzles in the environment.
The meat of the game is its story, though, as with its predecessor. The narrative isn't particularly exceptional, especially compared to other PC titles with a similar focus on world-building (think Disco Elysium). The player takes control of Beneath a Steel Sky's protagonist, Robert Foster, who seemingly by fate returns to Union City, which has been taken over by AI-driven happiness. The thematic elements of the original have been tweaked, as players familiar with that story must now deal with the actions they took ten years prior. The gameplay is a vehicle for the story, and no one would be at fault for believing the game is more akin to a visual novel than an RPG, as there aren't in-depth stats to build upon or expansive character choices to make.
Instead, the approach in Beyond a Steel Sky is somewhat linear, with segments of the city becoming unlocked as players progress through the narrative, which takes Robert on a relatively short journey. Light puzzles make up the core of the player's time in Union City. There aren't that many locations themselves, but each location gives the player a sense of the scale and stratification of the city. There's a gravitas to much of the game's dialogue later in the story, but the enormous narrative discoveries are hindered by mediocre voice acting and stunted facial expressions.
Robert uses his hacking skills to progress through the cities most explorable areas, and there are a host of secondary mini-games as well that dot just about every location. While some are old-school in the most frustrating way (featuring illogical and bizarre item combinations), others service the story by forcing the player to think surprisingly critically. One even required a basic understanding of computational systems to solve. The game may give consumers a lot to take in, but the character moments are few and far between and are interspersed too haphazardly between AI cliches and hasty narrative throughlines.
It's also notable that perhaps the most memorable part of the game is the buggy experience - there were crashes and stutters that frequently eroded any sense of pacing the title had. Perhaps if long-time fans don't want to engage with mobile gaming then this could be a good alternative, but due to the niche nature of the title as well as its original release on Apple Arcade, it seems like most players would be interested in the premier experience of Beyond a Steel Sky. The best option is probably still the handheld version, then, as there isn't enough going on with the game's PC port to make it noticeably better than its mobile variant.
Beyond a Steel Sky is available for Apple Arcade and Steam. Screen Rant was provided with a Steam code for the purpose of this review.