Heaven's Vault Review (PC)

very good
key review info
  • Game: Heaven's Vault
  • Platform: PC
  • Show system requirements
  • Gamepad support: No
  • Reviewed on:
Heaven's Vault art

Having already two smash hits under its belt – Sorcery! and 80 Days, developer inkle is no stranger to success. However, while the other two games have followed a beaten path when it comes to concept, Heaven's Vault offers a unique experience that has not been previously explored. Even though it remains an adventure game per se, Heaven's Vault is a genre of its own that mixes linguistics puzzles, atmospheric exploration and decision making.

First off, Heaven's Vault is not a game for everyone, and even if you love adventure games, you might find inkle's new title too slow or boring. I think the best way to describe Heaven's Vault is an archaeology game with strong focus on narrative. You'll be exploring various locations throughout the Nebula to find artefacts that will allow you uncover the secrets behind ancient civilizations.

Each time you successfully translate a phrase, you'll piece together more information about the history of the world. Artefacts that you'll find scattered throughout the Nebula will give you hints to other ancient sites where you'll find more objects. It's a loop that can become addictive if you get hooked in the story.

Take on the role of an interstellar Champollion

You play as Aliya Elasra, an archaeologist who's been sent to find a fellow scientist that never reported back after leaving the University of Iox. While exploring the Nebula, a rather strange region of space populated by so-called “rivers,” you'll discover amazing locations full of mystery, which you'll have to decipher in order to find the missing roboticist from the University of Iox.

Heaven's Vault
Heaven's Vault
Heaven's Vault
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Helping you in your endeavors, Six is a strange robot with a strong ethical core that can be a nuisance when Aliya employs Indiana Jones-like methods when she wants to access certain areas or retrieve hard to reach artefacts. As the game progresses, the conversations between Aliya and her robot sideckick become enlightening and extremely rewarding story-wise. They're very well written and arouse your curiosity and thirst to learn, although I felt that in many cases dialogues disappear too fast.

Besides desciphering inscription, one other important gameplay mechanic is the travel system that allows you explore the Nebula while flying from one location to another. The controversial flight system is probably meant to allow players to take in everything that you've managed to discover and learn about a location, and decide what to do next. Although the latest update added an automatic flight mode, it's not available in uncharted rivers, so you'll have to manually explore the Nebula if you plan to head to an undiscovered location.

To boldly go where no one has gone before

The main issue is that there's not much to find exploring the Nebula besides the locations that you've learned about by deciphering inscriptions and finding new artefacts, which makes it by far the weakest point of the game. I absolutely love the “exploring” part when I'm heading to a location that I've never been before, but traveling between locations that I've already visited is quite boring since the fast travel doesn't always work.

Heaven's Vault is not a race against time, even though there are moments in the game where you're feel like you're pushed to go places that you want to save for later. Despite of those moments, Heaven's Vault is first and foremost an atmospheric adventure game that allows players to solve puzzles and uncover the secrets of an ancient civilization at their own pace.

What's fascinating about Heaven's Vault is that each inhabited moon or planet is extremely different, even though they belong to the same empire. You'll find that slavery is legal and an important economic trait on one of the main planets you'll visit, but there are entirely different types of social systems on each inhabited location. It's hard not to admire the folks at inkle for how well they managed to do shape up many different social, cultural and religious systems in such a small in planetary ecosystem.


The Good

  • Captivating world and story
  • Addictive puzzle loop
  • Mesmerizing tunes and solid voice acting
  • Gorgeous landscapes
  • Soothing atmosphere, interesting lore
  • Multiple endings
  • Decent replay value (new game+)

The Bad

  • Obnoxious travel system
  • Starts too slow
  • No manual save system

Conclusion

Despite its shortcomings, Heaven's Vault is a delightful experience that's meant to discover your inner archaeologist. Even though it brings forward a repetitive puzzle system that encourages you to translate as many inscriptions as you can get your hands on, the loop remains fresh until the end of the game, and quite addictive I might add.

The game has its great moments, but its strongest point is the urge with which it pushes you to discover new artefacts, to explore ancients sites and solve translation puzzles. Basically, you'll be playing an interstellar Champollion who's anxious to get his hands on the next inscription that could potentially send him to an undiscovered site.

However, Heaven's Vault is not about deciphering inscriptions for the sake of it, as with each successful translation you'll be one step closer to discovering a long-forgotten history that's about to repeat itself. Not to mention that you'll meet a myriad of characters that will change their attitude depending on how you interact with them.

story 8
gameplay 8
concept 9
graphics 8
audio 8
multiplayer 0
final rating 8
Editor's review
very good
 
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Heaven's Vault screenshots (44 Images)

Heaven's Vault art
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