Beneath a Steel Sky

Beneath a Steel Sky is a single-player point-and-click adventure game. In a near-future Australia divided between vast corporate cities and the barren Gap, Robert Foster is abducted from his desert settlement and taken to Union City. The transfer goes wrong, leaving Foster stranded inside the city with only the personality core of his robotic companion, Joey. To escape, Foster must move between districts, blend in among workers and executives, and uncover why Union City’s central network, known as LINC, exerts such control over daily life.

Play is presented from a third-person, side-view perspective. Using a context-sensitive cursor, the player examines objects, speaks with characters, collects items, and combines or uses them to solve environmental puzzles. Inventory objects can be scrutinized for clues and applied to hotspots in the scene or to other items. Conversation is handled through dialogue options that open new topics and often unlock alternate puzzle solutions. Failure states exist in some scenes, so planning and observation are encouraged.

The game uses a system in which non-player characters follow their own routines, creating a sense of a living city. Guards rotate patrols, workers change stations, and bystanders relocate between rooms. This movement can expose new information or opportunities, such as slipping past security, eavesdropping on key exchanges, or timing actions around an NPC’s schedule.

Joey’s upgradeable personality core is central to progression. Foster can install Joey into different robotic shells found around Union City, changing Joey’s capabilities and enabling new interactions, from opening secured doors to operating machinery. Access control is a recurring theme: many challenges involve acquiring and using passes, codes, or credentials, as well as interfacing with computer terminals to retrieve data, alter permissions, or divert power. Locations range from factory floors and maintenance tunnels to executive offices and restricted systems hubs, each with unique hazards and logic puzzles.

Beneath a Steel Sky: Remastered adapts the game for touch controls with a tap-to-move interface, a streamlined inventory, and hotspot highlighting. It also adds an integrated hint system with context-sensitive nudges, remastered audio, and newly produced animated sequences with artwork by Dave Gibbons.