Sector Unknown emerges as an interesting isometric RPG from Creative Storm Entertainment (Age of Gladiators, Raiders! Forsaken Earth), marrying the strategic depth and narrative richness of iconic titles like Fallout 2, Knights of the Old Republic, and Mass Effect, with the innovative spirit of contemporary games such as Wasteland 3 and Pathfinder: Kingmaker. This game invites players into an expansive universe where every decision and character trait echoes through the cosmos, blending combat with creative diplomacy and exploration.
Embarking on an Epic Saga
Your journey unfurls as a daring escapee from a prisoner transport ship, crash-landing on the desolate planet Maku. This forsaken world serves as your base, a springboard into an odyssey spanning six unique worlds, each a canvas for your actions against the tyrannical Star Frontier corporation. Your mission? To unify the sector’s planets, dismantle Star Frontier’s reign, and carve a path of freedom through the stars.
Crafting Your Identity
Before taking the helm of your destiny, you sculpt your character from the ground up. Choose an origin and personality that not only define your narrative interactions but also influence your physical prowess and non-combat skills. From Engineering to Persuasion, your abilities pave diverse routes through challenges, embedding you deeper into the game’s multi-dimensional narrative.
Exploring Diverse Worlds
The game’s universe is a mosaic of planets, each with its own factions and lore. From the icy expanses of Eremtera to the volcanic fury of Helfyr, your journey weaves through varied landscapes, uncovering secrets, and engaging in pivotal story arcs that enrich the overarching tale of rebellion and discovery.
Beyond Exploration
Your base acts as a nexus for activities such as bounty hunting, with a bounty terminal to track down targets across the galaxy. The research system, keyed to your non-combat skills, offers unique progression trees, unlocking new possibilities and strategic advantages. Meanwhile, the War Score mechanic adds a strategic layer, measuring your influence and readiness against Star Frontier’s forces.
Crafting for the Cause
The crafting system enables you to forge a vast array of items from over fifty materials, ensuring your gear is as unique as your journey. This, combined with the rich narrative and strategic gameplay, ensures a personalized saga where every choice shapes your path and the fate of the galaxy.
In Sector Unknown, your story is not just about survival but about shaping the destiny of a sector, making tough decisions, and leading a rebellion across the stars. Every planet explored, alliance forged, and battle waged is a step toward a singular goal: freedom.
Sector Unknown is in development and expected sometime during Q3 2024 on PC. Below an overview of the game via Steam and trailer.
ABOUT THIS GAME
Sector Unknown is an immersive isometric RPG that draws inspiration from classics like Fallout 2, Knights of the Old Republic, Mass Effect, Fallout: New Vegas, as well as more modern titles such as Wasteland 3, Encased, Colony Ship, Trudograd, and Pathfinder: Kingmaker.
Every decision, every nuance in character development has tangible consequences. While combat is a viable approach, the game equally emphasizes alternative strategies for progression, inviting players to leverage their character’s unique abilities to navigate through the narrative creatively and diplomatically.
Story
In Sector Unknown, your saga begins as a prisoner aboard a transport ship. Employing your unique skills, you daringly escape in a commandeered escape pod, crash-landing on Maku, a forsaken world veiled within a remote and uncharted region of space. This desolate planet becomes the foundation of your odyssey as you convert an abandoned mining facility into your headquarters. From this stronghold, you will set forth into the cosmos, exploring six distinct worlds and dozens of other locations, each teeming with its own factions and unique stories.
In your quest, you will confront the shadowy dealings of Star Frontier, the powerful trade and mining corporation that once imprisoned you. Operating unchecked in the hidden ‘null sector’—now absent from all official star charts—Star Frontier has established a tyrannical reign. Your mission becomes to unite the sector’s planets, through either force or diplomacy, and overthrow their oppressive rule once and for all.
Sector Unknown weaves themes of exploration, discovery, and the pursuit of freedom, crafting an epic tale of adventure and rebellion in the boundless expanse of space.
Character Building
Before you begin your journey in Sector Unknown, you will first need to build your character, including their origin and personality. The origin selection offers both combat and non-combat advantages that deeply influence gameplay dynamics, including unlocking dialogue options and allowing for world interactions. The personality trait also augments one combat and non-combat ability.
Your character’s physical attributes will determine their combat efficacy and survivability. There are six main physical attributes: Strength, Coordination, Vision, Speed, Aggression, and Intelligence.
You can also hone a range of non-combat skills as well such as Engineering, Science, Computers, Biology, Finances, and Piloting. Non-technical skills include Intimidation, Persuasion, Perception, Luck, and Larceny. Each skill offers players an avenue to navigate story challenges, ensuring a multi-dimensional gameplay experience.
Planets
Throughout the main narrative of Sector Unknown, you will traverse a spectrum of unique planets, each with distinct factions and individual story arcs:
- Maku: A stark, barren world devoid of life, marking the starting point of the player’s adventure.
- Eremtera: An ice-encased world with a frozen landscape, home to a derelict arc ship from a bygone era.
- Nabi: A desert planet, its vast sands contested by two long-forgotten human tribes.
- Helfyr: A fiery planet, rife with lava rivers and volcanic activity, and the site of extensive mining and military operations.
- Sjo: An oceanic world, its deep waters harboring a chemical compound of unknown potential, harvested by Star Frontier.
- Xenobiota: The enigmatic final planet, shrouded in secrets waiting to be discovered by the players.
Each location promises a distinct environment and set of challenges that contribute to the rich tapestry of the game’s universe.
Bounty Hunting
Your base will of course serve as a nexus for other activities as well, one of which will be the building of a bounty terminal, allowing you to pick up death mark contracts. With these contracts, you will track down elusive criminals or hunt rogue alien mega-fauna causing unrest across the various planets, with more perilous and rewarding bounty contracts unlocked through the research system.
Research
The research system in Sector Unknown is built upon the non-combat technical skills of your character. Take Biology for example: its research tree unfolds uniquely, unlocking components based on your character’s skill level in that area. Similarly, Computers, Science, Engineering, Finances, and Piloting each come with their own distinct trees. These branches not only offer enhancements, bonuses, and unlocks but also underline the importance of your character’s skill increases and leveling choices.
War Score
The uprising itself will be undertaken on a galactic scale, adding a strategic layer to the game. As you progress through the story, you will bring new planets and factions into their alliance, expanding both your influence and reach. However, with each new planet added to your coalition, the stakes rise, thrusting them deeper into conflict with Star Frontier. Meeting this growing challenge requires reinforcing newly acquired planets, recruiting specialized support staff, building formidable fleets, and tackling pivotal side missions. The culmination of these efforts is reflected in your War Score. This score not only contributes to your character’s destiny but also that of the planets under your control as well.
Crafting
After claiming the abandoned mining facility on Maku as your base, you will be able to do many things from there, including crafting, enabling the forging of weapons, armor, shield generators, narcotics, injectors, and even starships. The crafting system boasts a rich matrix of over fifty organic and inorganic materials, encompassing everything from metals and inert gases to chemicals, fungi, and various flora. Successful component combinations yield superior items, tipping both combat and non-combat scenarios distinctly in your favor.
Your Story
In Sector Unknown, every choice you make shapes your journey. As you traverse through null sector, your interactions with characters and factions on each planet will uniquely influence the narrative. Your decisions determine not only the outcome of each planetary story arc but also the fate of the entire sector. From forging alliances to making tough moral choices, your path is yours to define. Whether through diplomacy, strategy, or combat, your story will unfold in a way that reflects your personal play-style and decisions, culminating in a truly bespoke gaming experience where you are the architect of your destiny.
