Beneath a Steel Sky

A dark, rainy megacity of the future, where technology controls human fate and you are a stranger thrown into the gears of a dystopia. Beneath a Steel Sky is a cult point-and-click adventure from the British studio Revolution Software and ranks among the best the genre offered in the nineties.

You take on the role of Robert Foster, a man raised in the wasteland who is forcibly dragged to the city of Union City. After a crash he finds himself on the run with his robotic companion Joey and gradually uncovers the truth about the city and about himself. The game builds on classic adventure mechanics: you explore the environment, collect items, combine them and solve logic puzzles interwoven with the storytelling.

The comic-book creator Dave Gibbons, known from the legendary comic Watchmen, contributed to the script and visuals, and his signature gave the game a distinctive artistic style as well as a quality intro in comic form. This combination of a strong story, cyberpunk atmosphere and British humour made Beneath a Steel Sky one of the most acclaimed adventures of its era.

The Amiga CD32 and CD-ROM version, thanks to the medium's capacity, brought room for voice acting and an expanded soundtrack, which at the time was far from a given. The game thus became one of the demonstrations of why the CD made sense as a medium for adventures.

The title's renown is confirmed by the fact that it was later released for free as freeware and made accessible through the ScummVM engine, which means anyone can still legally play it today. Revolution Software also released the sequel Beyond a Steel Sky years later, proving how strong a mark the original game left.

Why play it: For a mature cyberpunk story, the iconic artistic signature of Dave Gibbons and one of the best classic adventures, which you can also play legally for free.