Old Skies

Despite not being given many opportunities to talk about them like other genres I’ve discussed, I do really like click and point adventure games. It’s a genre I have quite a bit of nostalgia for even though I didn’t grow up in the era when they were hot. When I was younger my aunt watched my sister and I while my parents were at work. My cousin would pop on old click & point games from her childhood and we’d watch her play them. Can’t remember any of the specifics, but my mind was dazzled with the interactive pictures on screen. Come to think about it, I'd probably consider this my first exposure to video games. Growing up I was exposed to different styles of games. Genres as we all know them as, but I would remain fond of what was my initial exposure. It wasn’t until 2023 that I gave click and point adventures a go with Return To Monkey Island. A game that came out the previous and I managed to pick it up during a sale at the time. If you’d like you can read my review for it. Return To Monkey Island was a very enlightening experience. A reminder of old game design and philosophies can still work today despite many dated aspects. After that I went on a click and point adventure binge eventually stopping with Norco. 

One of the games I checked out was Unavowed by Wadjet Eye Games. Not to be confused with Avowed, the first person RPG set in the Pillars of Eternity universe by Obsidian Entertainment. I stole that joke from Yahtzee Crosshaw, and keep that name in mind cuz it is gonna be important in a little bit. Wadjet Eye Games is an indie studio that has been making click and point games for quite a long time. Their first release was The Shivah back in 2006 and since then they have put out eighteen different games. Not all of which were click and point games, but a good chunk were. Click and point games despite being a genre I love are a product of their time. There is a good reason why there haven’t been any major releases since the 1990s. Adventure games have moved on. Video games in general have moved on whether that be advancement in technology, or how an artist could express themselves through the means of a video game. It was either go big or go home, and most developers chose the latter. LucasArts, a click and point genre leader, did manage to keep these games in line for a bit till they gave up & pumped out Star War games. Nothing beats seeing a 1970s franchise flood the market as far the eye can see and prevent any smaller projects getting the line life they deserve. Nostalgia, it’s great and terrible.

\Yet again, you can apply that logic to click and point games too. We’re getting off topic. There weren’t many click and point games going forward, but that doesn’t mean developers stopped trying altogether. Wadjet have been cranking out games for years and their most notable works was The Blackwell series and their 2018 indie hit Unavowed. A game that didn’t blow up seeing how it released literally one day after Dead Cells, but was well praised enough and managed to garnish a following with time. It was so niche that the major critic that did any coverage on the game was Yahtzee Crosshaw. It’s thanks to him that I even know what Unavowed is, and I have to thank him for it.  When I tried Unavowed back in 2023 it exceeded my expectations. I thought it would be an alright game considering the title and alright looking front cover, but it was more than that. Unavowed was an incredibly well written click and point game with great supporting characters you’d want to learn more about. A world that blended our society and myth to create fantastic world building. A main story full of smaller stories and dilemmas that tested your belief on what is right, and an innovative party system that allowed players to approach problems that usually have one singular solution in other click and point games in different ways. I’m surprised I didn’t give the game a 10/10 despite calling it a masterpiece.

Probably because despite it being well made and written I wouldn’t call it one of my all timers. That isn’t to talk down the devs or the game itself. Again, it’s incredibly well made and if I were to rank it amongst all the indie games I’ve ever played it would probably sit within the top fifty range. However, most of my favorite games are usually the ones that emotionally impacted me the most. Which leads us to Old Skies, the latest game by Wadjet. A game I also wouldn’t have heard about if it weren’t for Yahtzee Crosshaw. I don’t wanna make it look like I keep stealing recommendations from Second Wind, but those guys are dear readers. Old Skies is a futuristic click and point game involving time travel, butterfly effects, paradoxes, making changes to a few lives, and one woman’s standing in it all. If you know me you know I’m a sucker for clever sci-fi storytelling and using it to explore humanity. What it ended up being was much more than that. Unless I play Clair Obscur before the year ends, Old Skies is tied with Citizen Sleeper 2 as the most emotionally compelling game I’ve played in 2025. There were numerous moments in this story that managed to break me. The first chapter’s ending alone left me feeling empty the night I played it. This is a beautiful experience and it’s a shame more people aren’t talking about it, even less so than Unavowed. It really is a game best experienced going in blind and with no knowing of what occurs. Old Skies is incredible and today we’re gonna talk about why so.

Story

The year is 2062 and mankind has finally obtained the means to efficiently time travel. People can't warp back to the past within an instance, but considering how dangerous the tech is and the many effects that can be created through alterations it’s only given access to organizations. Large companies who charge people to travel into the past, and carefully go through the participants who wish to go. Filtering their orders, seeing how drastic changes they’d want to make are, and fulfilling their wishes through one of their time travel agents. Specially trained individuals who aren’t affected by the constant time shifts due to alterations since they have no background or a past. Usually unwanted orphans they manage to pick off the street. One of which is Fia Quinn, a young woman who was trained to be one of ChronoZen’s elite time travelers. Taught by Duffy and working with Frank Nazerelli, aka “Nazzo”, Fia takes on jobs to help clients with troubled pasts or settle scores they were unable to years ago. For example, the first order she gets is by an acclaimed doctor named Joe Anderson. A man who wishes to visit the restaurant he dined at frequently in college before it got shut down due to health violations. This man would create a brain treatment so special it would extend the lifespan of human beings by decades and allow them to look young even at 60 years olds. A treatment ChronoZen uses for its time travelers so they keep working for them no matter what.

However, whenever Fia takes on a job something usually goes wrong. Without spoiling too much of the first chapter or what occurs in later chapters, a problem arises with either the client doing something they aren’t supposed to do or the person they were sent to interfere with not being what they were given based on descriptions. This is why Fia has to explore her surroundings, get a better understanding of what’s going on, and try to fix everything around her so clients are happy and everyone gets to move on. It’s a tiring job, and all Fia can do is…. Well her job. This is her life no matter if she likes it or not. She’s gonna be stuck doing it forever, because she has nowhere else to go. Literally nowhere, because remember she has no past or background like everyone else who works for ChronoZen. She is going to be stuck in the same place no matter what she does. Watching the people she helps and affects move on past her. I want to save up what the story means to me later. The subject matters are deep and involve a lot of existentialism, and I’m not sure I want to dump them all onto right now. For now let’s focus on the gameplay.

Gameplay

If you haven’t played a click and point adventure game before then allow me to explain briefly. You usually get dropped into an area with some goal or objective to work towards. As to how you obtain this goal is the interesting part. The game can point you in the right direction, but it’s not gonna hold you by the hand. You need to learn what to do through interacting with characters or analyzing key bits of the environment. Sometimes they drop a person or place that is of value, so journey to that place or meet said person so you expunge more important info. Sometimes the info you need won’t always be told, and that’s why you have a database you can pull up at any time. Using key words you’ve obtained you can search up important documents. A person’s bio briefly explaining their life, career, and how they died. That or important events that this person may have been involved with. Doing this may give you info you wouldn’t have obtained with normal means. Sometimes the way forward isn’t through interaction or looking things up. At times you will have to get creative. For example, there’s moments in this game where you will have to jump between two different time periods. They both have different characters and the world may change, so you have to consider what events are happening at the time and how you to take advantage of them. Time travel is mind bending, but not impossible to get.

You’ll loot items during your jobs and these items can be used to solve puzzles or open the way forward. There are a few items you will have on you at all times. The Multi-Tool for instance is an electronic device that allows Fia to interact with gadgets or machinery easily. Whether that be to lockpick a door or unscrew bolts in the wall. There’s a money printer to print cash fitting the time period you’re in. Perfect for if you need to bribe someone or pay entry into a place. Then there’s the gun. The gun must only be used during emergencies that are acts of self defense. You can either stun or vaporize your targets, you choose. There are times where you’ll have to think fast. Scripted moments in the game where you’re stuck in a loop and you must find the loophole out or else you’ll constantly die. Time travel is mind bending… damn it I already said this. Keep doing what you do and think wisely. If you’re struggling to figure the way forward or you forgot there’s a call line for Nozzo. Ask him about the current situation and he’ll point you towards the right direction. Aside from that there’s nothing else I can really say about the gameplay. It’s what you expect from a click and point game and it doesn’t have the neat mechanics Unavowed had. In fact, most puzzles are straight forward if you follow basic logic, but this can be a good thing. Now that we got the basics of the story and gameplay out of the way we can truly dive into why I love Old Skies so much. Give me time to explain. That was supposed to be a pun. I think.

Thoughts

2025 has been a really good year when it comes to video game storytelling. I know a majority of people play games for fun alone and narrative doesn’t matter all that much to them. A fair point, but I enjoy when a game is able to tell an engrossing effective narrative through the video game medium. This year we had Clair Obscur, Citizen Sleeper 2, The Alters, and for me Old Skies. It saddens me that Old Skies isn’t getting more attention for what it manages to accomplish. As of the time of writing this the game currently sits with five hundred fifty reviews on Steam. About one fourth of the reviews Unavowed has as of right now too. To be fair Old Skies is set at a very positive rating right now, which is a 9/10 in a majority of places. Glad the game is doing well, but to me Old Skies is more than that. This is not only one of the best click and point games I’ve ever played, but one of the most brilliantly written science fiction stories of the 2020s. It’s not on the same scale of 13 Sentinels or Nier: Automata where it tries to explore what makes us human or tackle broad themes that apply to everyone. Old Skies is a very personal journey and it’s why it emotionally resonated with me the way it did. Before we dive more into the narrative and its themes I want to talk about the game design and how it compares to genre entries.

The game is kinda simplistic when it comes to puzzles and how you solve them. It’s not until the latter half that puzzles start to become more complex. Old Skies does enough to freshen up the puzzles every now and then. Half of the six chapters available will follow you swapping between two periods to solve puzzles or obtain info not available in one period. The game handles this well with the Gilded Age chapter where you have to stop a man from committing suicide. This follows you going back a few months to his life changing event, and altering it so he either does not commit suicide or go down a path of violence. It’s a great introduction to what would be a complex mechanic in other games. Showing how simple actions the player can take alters what will occur in the future. The player will be altering a multitude of events throughout the game. Sometimes it’s easy and others you’ll really have to pay attention just to know where to go next. However, the solutions are quite straightforward and only require realistic logic to solve most of the time. Yet, just like Unavowed this is why I really like the puzzle design of these games. The solutions make sense, all it takes is proper thinking, and when you do acquire the solution you feel clever. It’s you being rewarded for applying real world thinking and knowledge. It’s the type of thinking process that allows any well received puzzle game to work properly.

The art direction of Old Skies will also be another selling point for folks interested in the game. The backgrounds are digitally painted and there were moments I just stood there and soaked in what laid before my eyes. It wasn’t immersive, but I can’t help admiring art when I see it. All the strokes, colors, and details to create settings you can imagine standing in yourself. Not to forget that this is a time travel game. The way they recapture certain time periods or landmarks is quite believable, and even though I won’t remember it years from now I like the jazzy soundtrack. The smooth quiet tracks you hum to as you waltz around and try to solve puzzles. The feel of being a 1970s detective even though you’re a cop from 2064. The animation of the characters did look a bit off though. They’re hand drawn, but part of me senses they either used 3D models or methods like rotoscoping to animate certain moments. If you don’t know rotoscoping is when you record a real person moving about and draw over them. Creating a figure that moves or speaks when the person moves or speaks. Just look up Joel Haver, you’ll understand. There’s a cutscene that plays whenever Fia enters a mission, and it looks so odd compared to everything else. Still I thought the characters looked nice and reminded me of the look of Hanabarbara cartoons.

With simplistic yet well designed puzzles and a gorgeous artstyle how does the main focus of the game hold up. How is the narrative? Perfect, wouldn’t change a thing about it. Old Skies isn’t the great mystery or offer the spectacle Unavowed had, but what it is instead is a very personal story. Old Skies is a game about self reflection, self worth, and the impact you have on both yourself and others. I don’t want to spoil too much because the joy of Old Skies is going in blind into each story and seeing how they play out. It would be a disservice if I were to explain any chapters beyond the first two. Instead I’ll explain what Old Skies means to me and one particular moment that stood out. The moment will be described in the next paragraph, so if you don’t want to know then skip to the end. Old Skies follows a woman that no matter what she does she can’t seem to get anywhere. She has no record of family, of her past, or where she came from. Stuck doing the same job day in and day out because she literally has nowhere else to go. She has no choice for the situation she’s in and even if she wanted out doing so is difficult. She gets to see the lives of other individuals change. She sees them grow and become better individuals, and gets nothing in return. The universe and time moves on, and she feels like she’s accomplished nothing. She reads logs of alternate timeline versions of her. Seeing how much happier or more successful they are. Wondering how fate could place them in such a place. If more could’ve been done to get her out of this position. Choices she could’ve made to live a better life. One not fueled by self loathing and regret.  Existential themes are f*cking terrifying to think about, and what we do is try to distract ourselves. Ignore the misery, but then there’s those moments that make living worth it. Those special moments....

Okay so this is where I describe the moment that stood out to me the most. It’ll discuss moments in chapter two, chapter three, and events that occur after these points. Skip to the end if you don’t want to hear one of the game’s big revelations. In chapter two you’re sent back into the past to ask a few questions to a retired boxer. After the boxer retired he resulted to living a life of crime, and commits suicide the day you stop a shooting he would commit. You go back in time to learn how he ended up the way he did and try to stop him. One of those actions you take is preventing his little sister from dying in the woods. Something you thought would change a lot, but doesn’t so you do a bunch of other things to change his course. This little girl comes back in the next chapter as a character you weren’t expecting. A painter you were sent to find the identity of. The little girl is now an old woman who lives alone in an apartment, but she recognizes you. Claims you’re the guardian angel who saved her that day. Asking you why you chose to do it. She lived past her brother’s death, her husband is dead, and the only son she had just skipped town with was a spoiled nepobaby. She feels like fate was supposed to let her die that day, but came along. You let her live, and despite being old and tired now she’s grateful. She’s happy she was given the opportunity to live, and you get to see her work inspire others. The client who sent you was changed by the art this girl you saved made, and you get the option to tell the woman you saved of what her work will go on to do. She asks if you're there to take her to heaven, and you get the choice to tell her whether it's her time to go yet or not. Nothing actually happens no matter what you say and she lives another handful of years, but you can provide her comfort during this time. The main underlying thing I'm trying to say is what you did was important even if it wasn't the biggest change in the world. You didn't change society and society doesn't praise you, but you least impacted someone's life.

And this is a repeating theme throughout Old Skies. Fia’s life or the world around her may not change drastically by what she does, but it doesn't mean her actions are completely worthless or un-noteworthy. The smallest acts a person can do can have great effects in the longrun. Whether that be helping someone during a difficult period in their life or providing them some level of comfort. You have the choice to help them, and in return you’ll receive a form of gratitude. Signs that they’re grateful to meet a person like you. Signs that they’re thankful for the company that you provided them. People are grateful for you just being there. Of just existing. You may not always get something in return and the world won’t praise you, but you at least had an impact on them. The moment I just listed above is one of my favorite bits in Old Skies. Enough to almost get me to shed a grown man tear. The ending is brilliant, sad, and hopeful all at once and not one game from this year aside from Citizen Sleeper 2 gave me this feeling. That everything is going to be alright. That life is worth living. That it’s worth being nice even if you don’t get everything you want from it. Life has not been great as of lately. Don’t wanna go into any of the specifics, but the world has been crazy and I as well as the mental health of others’ haven’t so high. It’s games like Old Skies that remind me of the hope in this world. That life can be beautiful. Please play this game even if you’re not a fan of click and point adventures. The story alone is worth it, and leave a positive review if you purchase the Steam version. The developers deserve more for what they’ve produced. In the end I am going to give Old Skies a 10/10 for being incredible.

10/10, Incredible