The delightfully friendly MMO from Journey’s developers, Sky: Children of the Light, finally has a proper PC launch date. It’s been in open beta since 2019, first on mobile phones and then on consoles, but never on PC—the Steam page has promised a release date of “To be announced” for the past year. Like Thatgamecompany’s other emotional flying adventure, I’ve been eagerly awaiting the day when this one would finally turn up on my PC and I think the wait is going to have been worth it. Sky launches free-to-play on April 10 on Steam.
Sky is one of the upcoming cozy games I’ve been most anticipating this year because, and don’t tell the other PC gamers, I’ve already been playing it on my Nintendo Switch for years. It borrows a lot from the success of Thatgamecompany’s big hit Journey: exploration by flying, a stellar soundtrack, a restrained approach to multiplayer, and some excellent sand surfing. It’s full of puzzles, secrets, and platforming challenges to find and ghostly spirits to befriend. And a bit like how you can continue on new playthroughs of Journey with some meta progression, Sky has an ascendancy system that will keep you playing well past your first run.
I was originally skeptical that a live service take on Journey would fly. But it definitely does. TGC really narrowed in on the joy of flight and exploration without tacking on too much other MMO fluff. It has cosmetic unlockables and premium currency and season passes for purchase, but I’ve yet to have any of that impede my enjoyment or put me off. And though I thought a Journey-like MMO couldn’t possibly keep me busy, I’m still well behind on unlocking each spirit’s tree of rewards and every time I return I’m guaranteed to sink a solid week into Sky.
Sky actually offered a PC demo last October during the Steam Next Fest and hasn’t ever taken it down. So if you’re keen, you actually don’t even have to wait to play a little bit of it. The graphical features aren’t particularly extensive in the demo, and I’d still recommend playing with a gamepad, but aside from that I found the transition to PC easy.
All that’s to say, I’d recommend setting aside any live service apprehensions to take a crack at Sky if you’ve got any fond memories of Journey. It launches on Steam on April 10. TGC has outlined a few different cosmetic purchases and in game happenings coming alongside the Steam launch in its official announcement.
www.pcgamer.com
