Sunless Sea

Failbetter Games / February 5, 2015 / Rated Teen

Data last updated July 24, 2026

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Released

2015

Publisher

Failbetter Games

Time to beat

~3 hrs

Community

2,593

The help from Kickstarter backers

This is a role-playing game with roguelike elements from the independent British studio Failbetter Games. The money was collected on Kickstarter, just 4 271 backers supported the game, and donated a little over a hundred thousand pounds to its development. The game is available for solo completion on PC, Mac, and Linux.

Story and setting

The player tries on the role of the captain of the ship. Captain's backstory is fully customizable. The game is a spin-off for the browser game Fallen London from the same developers: the action takes place in the same universe and at the same time. The game mixes the Victorian era and the mystical atmosphere of Lovecraft's books. The player sails between different islands of the underground sea, facing different dangers. To win, you need to achieve a certain goal: for example, to find a treasure or to gain the title of the most famous seafarer by transporting goods and opening new lands.

Key Features

Death is permanent in the game - the player starts all over again after each defeat. Developers have added the ability to inherit some of the property or team of the predecessor. The game world is randomly generated, although the location of the main ports and islands remains unchanged.

Sunless Sea is a survival/exploration role-playing video game with roguelike elements developed by Failbetter Games. The game was released on 6 February 2015 for Windows and OS X following a successful Kickstarter campaign to crowdfund the project. The game takes place in the universe of Failbetter's browser adventure game Fallen London, in which Victorian-era London has been moved beneath the Earth's surface to the edge of the Unterzee, a vast underground ocean. On 11 October 2016, the game's first downloadable content Zubmariner was released, which allows players to explore beneath the surface of the "zee". A sequel, Sunless Skies, was announced in September 2016. It surpassed its funding goals on Kickstarter and was released on 31 January 2019.