THE PALE BEYOND

Can you survive a treacherous voyage to the frozen south?

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Developer Bellular Studios

Publisher Fellow Traveller

Format PC

Origin UK

Release TBA 2022

Recently in these pages - E367, if you're keeping count we featured Inua: A Story of Ice And Time, which used Sir John Franklin's lost expedition to find the Northwest Passage as a jumping-off point to explore the cosmology of the Inuit people who were there long before him. The Pale Beyond uses the same tale as loose inspiration, but stays with the crew. The premise is summed up in a line of an opening poem: "What will ye do, when steel hearts break and courage does abscond?"

The appeal of adapting Franklin's story is twofold. First, it's a tale that, by dint of the many unknowns surrounding the expedition, provides fertile ground to imagine the potential outcomes. Second, it's a tale of hubris: the idea that such a dangerous place could be charted is built upon an arrogant belief that this world is ours to be conquered; that the extremes of nature can be overcome. Which makes it the perfect scenario for a narrative-led videogame, where our choices determine our path through these lands. Our involvement here is, in itself, an act of hubris: to play is to dare to believe we could have succeeded where Franklin failed.