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The SKIES

The SKIES was a post-apocalyptic MMO where players traverse a tarnished landscape, harness resources, and fight other players to survive. Take part in a non-linear story and build your own government with other players.

Publisher: EFORB
Type: F2P Survival MMO
Release Date: April 16, 2016
Shut Down: August 26, 2022
Pros: +Clan wars. +PvP focused. +Unique player economy. +Based on a novel. +Ambitious sandbox elements.
Cons: -Rehashed gameplay elements. -Confusing UI.

The Skies Shut Down on August 26, 2022

Overview

The SKIES Overview

The SKIES is a post-apocalyptic MMO set in the near future, where surviving people roam the landscape in search of resources while wary of lurking bandits. Based on a novel by one of the developers, The SKIES touts a non-linear narrative, allowing players to progress as they please. Join one of several factions run by player hierarchies, and go to war with other clans for towns or build your own base. Enter the arena, where up to 20 players dook it out to be the strongest survivor in the desert. Engage with NPC's whose dialogue reflects a player character's gender, IQ, skills, and story.

The SKIES Key Features:

  • Large Game World - explore 8 km² of post-apocalypse, filled with mysteries and treachery.
  • Dynamic Dialogue - engage with NPC's who react based on your character's various traits.
  • Book-Based - based on a contest-winning novel written by one of the developers.
  • Non-Narrative Gameplay - explore the world and undertake tasks as you please, without the limitations of linear elements to direct the experience.
  • Rich Player-Driven Economy - work in a factory or start your own, being responsible for managing player employees.

The SKIES Screenshots

The SKIES Featured Video

The Skies Gameplay First Look - MMOs.com

Full Review

The SKIES Review

By, Marc Marasigan

The SKIES is a 3D sandbox survival MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world called Wasteland. Players explore a non-linear player-driven world where they can take on any role they want in order to survive without the limitations of classes, similar to Fallout. The game runs on the Unity game engine and the graphics aren’t top-notch but they still look great. Considering how expansive the game maps are, usually several miles across, lower quality is graphics a good choice as it allows lower end rigs to play the game with a decent frame rate. The character and mob animations could be more fluid though. The SKIES' audio is good but the voice acting needs a bit of work. They’re not that bad but there’s plenty of room for improvement. Professional voice actors should do the trick quite nicely. The game is also littered with broken translations which sometimes make it hard to figure out what exactly you’re supposed to do to complete a quest.

Welcome to the Farm

The SKIES features a comprehensive character creation system where players choose from a number of pre-made faces which they can then tweak by clicking and dragging on certain areas, similar to Black Desert Online character creation. Character physique can also be customized using the same method. Unfortunately, only male characters can be created at the moment. Once players have created their characters they are then transported to a remote farm in nothing but their tighty-whities.

Here players are given their first quests and taught the basics of the game such as movement, gathering items, and using weapons. The tutorial does a fairly good job of getting players up to speed with the basics but could benefit from more detail, especially when it comes to the controls. After completing a couple of quests players then move on to Kimary, a run-down town that used to be the Wasteland’s capital, headless bronze statue included.

Bam-Bam Heads

Like typical post-apocalyptic survival games The SKIES has players roaming the desolate remnants of civilization scavenging for supplies, money, parts, and food to survive, all while trying to contend with bandits, other players, and whatever creatures were spawned by the apocalypse, in this case ugly mutants. Like DayZ, The SKIES features an expansive sandbox world several miles across that the player can explore to their hearts content, as well as an open-class system similar to that of the Fallout games.

At the start of the game players are given points which they can distribute across 6 basic attributes: Strength, Dexterity, Endurance, Intelligence, Technology, or Luck. They are also given additional points to spend on specific skills related to these attributes such as Fistfight and Heavy Weapon for Strength, and Trade and Oratory for Intelligence. These stats affect how a person interacts with NPC’s. Higher Intelligence, for example, makes characters more eloquent while higher Strength makes characters better at bam-bamming heads. Players are rewarded additional points every time they level up which allows them to build up their character however they want.

Get A Job!

Nobody survives the apocalypse by being a freeloader. It’s the end of civilization as we know it and everyone has to pull their own weight. Whether you want to live the life of a bandit, preying on unsuspecting victims who stray away from the safe zones, or work as a miner, searching the desolate landscape for precious ores, how you decide to make a life for yourself in the Wasteland is entirely up to you. This player-driven world is one of The SKIES’ best selling-points. Unfortunately, the job system wasn’t explained in the tutorial, which probably caused a lot of players, or at the very least me, a whole lot of grief trying to figure it out. The broken English dialogs didn’t help much either.

Squash Those Bugs

Every game has its fair share of bugs and glitches, especially one in Early Access Alpha. While most are harmless glitches like a flying “Box of Alchohol” heading for the bar or dust motes suspended in mid-air like a scene from Interstellar, others can be utterly frustrating such as running all over town to complete a quest that was broken to begin with. The game is also rife with hackers and exploiters which, in a persistent PvP world, is just unacceptable. Fortunately, the developers are quick to address any issues and squash bugs that come up with regular updates. Hopefully, players get to experience a completely bug, glitch, and hack free game sometime in the near future.

Survival of the Fittest

The SKIES features a persistent PvP world where PK’ers and campers could be lurking around every corner ready to murder you in cold blood and loot you for all you’ve got. A fact of life in many survival games that players have come to love (or at least reluctantly tolerate) and hate. Aside from PK-ing, players can also take part in more controlled forms of PvP such as clan wars for control of towns or a free-for-all deathmatch where 20 players go head to head to be crowned King of the Ri… err Desert.

Final Verdict – Good

Yet another game decides to jump into the post-apocalyptic bandwagon. The SKIES follows in the footsteps of popular survival horror games like DayZ, H1Z1, and Fallout and is probably the closest players can get to an online Fallout game. The SKIES' has everything post-apocalyptic survival junkies look for in a game, a decent storyline, an open-class system, an in-depth crafting system, PvE, dungeons, virtually unlimited replayability, and let’s not forget about the massive persistent PvP world. Bugs and glitches aside, the game at its very core is quite good and has a lot of potential. If you like survival games then this might just be the game for you.

Screenshots

The SKIES Screenshots

Videos

The SKIES Videos

THE SKIES alpha official trailer

Links

The SKIES Online Links

The SKIES Official Site
The SKIES Steam Page
The SKIES Steam Greenlight
The SKIES IndieDB

System Requirements

The SKIES System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

Operating System: Windows XP, Windows Vista, or Windows 7
CPU: Pentium 4 1.8GHz or Athlon XP 1700+
Video Card: GeForce 210 or Radeon X600 Series
RAM: 4 GB
Hard Disk Space: 10 GB

Official system requirements have not yet been released for The SKIES. The requirements above are what the developers are aiming for, but may not represent the final numbers.

Music

The SKIES Music & Soundtrack

Coming Soon...

Additional Info

The SKIES Additional Information

Developer: EFORB
Publisher: EFORB

Engine: Unity

Steam Greenlight: November 20, 2014

Early Access Alpha: April 16, 2016

Release Date: Never Released

Shut Down: August 26, 2022

Development History / Background:

The SKIES is developed by Ukranian indie game studio EFORB. Development began in 2014, and the game is based on a contest-winning novel by one of the developers. The SKIES was posted to Steam Greenlight on November 20, 2014 and entered Early Access Alpha on April 16, 2016. The game was abandoned by 2021 and the removed by August 27, 2022.