Heaven's Vault

Aliya is not what I would call a friendly archeologist. She's not bubbly or good-natured, but rather can best be described as cold and often distant. She's a loner who seems more interested in exploring far away lands than catching up over coffee. Aliya is merely one of the puzzles we get to decode in the new game Heaven's Vault, an astonishingly original adventure game that sees a young woman exploring time and space in an effort to better understand history, language, culture, religion and everything we hold dear. I'll do my best to unpack all of that.

Heaven's Vault is the story of a twenty-year-old archeologist named Aliya, who is initially tasked with tracking down a close friend of her adopted mother. He's lost in the Nebula, a strange grouping of moons and planets that are all connected together by a complicated river system in space. With the exception of a few populated stops, this is a largely forgotten and unexplored galaxy where robots are hundreds of years old and people put their faith in the Loop.

Aliya's mission is quickly derailed as she discovers a much larger and potentially troubling mystery that could lead to a real existential crisis. It's up to her to explore the Nebula, track down clues, decipher an ancient language and piece everything together before it's too late.

That's the exciting logline, but if I'm being completely honest, I'm not entirely sure how to describe Heaven's Vault. It's rooted in the point and click adventure game genre, but doesn't really play like one. A lot of the game comes down to choosing dialog options, sailing around the open world, finding rare loot and puzzling your way through an ancient language that may hold the key to what happened before the Fall. There's a lot going on here.

Let's take a look at the ancient language, just as an example. We initially have no idea what these inscriptions mean, but through guessing and cross-referencing, we slowly start to piece the language together word-by-word. This sounds frustrating, but it's surprisingly satisfying. These words and sentences are all over the place, and it won't take long before the language actually starts to make sense. I was shocked that by the end of the game I able to read entire lines of this made-up script.

And that's not the only thing this game wants to teach you. At the same time that Aliya is piecing together everything she can find about the history and meaning of the Nebula, we're figuring out who this woman is and where she came from. This is an exploration of everything, and it celebrates the idea of gaining as much knowledge as possible, even if you don't know what to do with it at the time.

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Although there are a lot of disparate elements at play, it's important to note that you're in control over the story. There's not one right way to play this game, because the narrative seems to shift and form around you, not unlike the rivers taking us from one moon to the next. There are a lot of small choices to make that seems almost inconsequential at the time, as well as major decisions that will have a long-lasting impact on what happens to Aliya. And what's exciting is that I never knew what was going to happen next. There's nothing about this mystery that is predictable, and I found the ending I got to be the kind of emotionally satisfying conclusion that will stick with me for years to come.

But for as compelling as the mystery is, the reason I love this game is because of the characters. Aliya may not be an instantly likable lead, but she's slowly broken down by her robot companion named Six. These two have surprisingly good chemistry, and I always looked forward to their conversations. They bring up a lot of important questions and you can tell that, just like us, they are trying to piece everything together the best they can. Aliya also has deep discussions with other friends and acquaintances, though they aren't always as personable as the robot.

Running at around twelve hours, this is not a short game. And yet, I never felt like it dragged or had any filler. In fact, there are a lot of threads I probably could have spent more time with in order to learn more about that element of the story. I didn't have a chance to fully work out the ancient language, so I was excited to see that a New Game Plus mode opened up after I watched the ending. I love being in this world and exploring the various moons. I found deciphering the ancient text to be incredibly satisfying and I was interested in learning everything there was to know about the Nebula. All this worked on me, and I have a hunch it's something I'm going to come back to many times in the future.

My sole complaint involves the way you get around the Nebula. We spend quite a bit of time sailing through the rivers in our trusty boat, Nightingale. Outside of steering left and right, we don't have a whole lot of control over this part of the game. We're basically just catching the currents and choosing which paths to take. This is a cool idea and it's occasionally breath-taking to look at, but it's also slow and cumbersome. It takes far too long to get from one moon to the other, and even with the in-game GPS, it can get a little confusing after a while. This is especially bad when you're trying to locate undiscovered moons, where you're basically just floating around and hoping to get lucky. You can often let Six take over and warp to a few key locations, but you'll want to sail around in order to find new routes and shipwrecks with useful items.

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Aside from these bits, I was completely won over by Heaven's Vault. I adore the visuals, especially as we near the end. It's a nice mix of modern graphics and hand-drawn characters. There's a storybook element to it, almost as if we're just seeing an artist's rendition of echoes from the past. The music is also great, as is the stellar voice work by actress Gem Carmilla as Aliya. For the presentation alone, this is an adventure everybody should go on.

Heaven's Vault may not be especially easy to describe, but it's one of the most rewarding games you'll play this year. A simple missing persons investigation quickly turns into an exploration of hundreds of years of history and its impact on society and religion. This is a celebration of knowledge and discovery, giving us a deeply emotional story, as well as characters you'll actually want to hang out with. From deciphering an ancient language to piecing together Aliya's past, there's a lot going on here, and I couldn't wait to see how it all played out. No matter if you call it a graphic adventure, puzzle game, interactive story or sailing simulator, Heaven's Vault is an incredible journey that is unlike anything I've every played before.