Beneath a Steel Sky is a 1994 point-and-click adventure game developed by British developer Revolution Software and published by Virgin Interactive Entertainment for MS-DOS and Amiga home computers. It was made available as freewareand with the source code releasedfor PC platforms in 2003. Set in a dystopian cyberpunk future, the player assumes the role of Robert Foster, who was stranded in a wasteland known as "the Gap" as a child and adopted by a group of local Aboriginals, gradually adjusting to his life in the wilderness. After many years, armed security officers arrive, killing the locals and taking Robert back to Union City. He escapes and soon uncovers the corruption which lies at the heart of society.
Originally titled Underworld, the game was a collaboration between game director Charles Cecil and comic book artist Dave Gibbons, and cost £40,000 to make. Cecil was a fan of Gibbons's work and approached with the idea of a video game. The game has a serious tone but features humour-filled dialogue, which came as a result of Cecil's and writer Dave Cummins's goal to find a middle ground between the earnestness of Sierra's and the slapstick comedy of LucasArts's adventure games. It was built using Revolution's Virtual Theatre engine, first used in Revolution's previous and debut release, 1992's Lure of the Temptress.
It received positive reviews at the time of its release and is retrospectively viewed as a cult classic and Revolution's greatest game besides Broken Sword: The Shadow of the Templars. A remastered edition was released for iOS in 2009 as Beneath a Steel Sky Remastered, which also received a positive reception from the gaming press. A sequel was greenlit during the Broken Sword: The Serpent's Curse 2012 Kickstarter campaign, and was announced in March 2019. Entitled Beyond a Steel Sky, it was released on Apple Arcade in June 2020, on Steam in July 2020, and on GOG.com in March 2021.
Gameplay
thumb|left|Graphic style and interface
Beneath a Steel Sky is a 2D adventure game played from a third-person perspective. The player uses a point-and-click interface to interact with the environment and to guide protagonist Robert Foster through the game's world. To solve puzzles and progress in the game, the player collects items that may be combined with one another, used on the environment, or given to non-player characters (NPCs). He approached Gibbons, but shortly thereafter, the old Activision broke down. Seeing his son play video games, Gibbons became interested and realized that his skills in drawing, writing and conceptualizing could be useful in a gaming environment. Originally the game was named Underworld, a title proposed by Gibbons, but it was renamed due to the release of Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss.
The production values became much higher for Beneath a Steel Sky than for Lure of the Temptress, resulting in a game six times larger, and by the end of 1993, the team working on the game had grown to eleven. The game was created in sections, which allowed the team to ensure that each part was "perfected" before moving on. Its 2-year development cost £40,000, a large amount of money for the company at the time. Gibbons drew the backgrounds in pencil, The backgrounds were designed so that the sprites would appear clear on the screen and would not mix with the backgrounds. Gibbons also designed the characters, According to Gibbons, about 75% of the backgrounds and characters he designed were used in the game. Only two days were spent recording over five thousands lines of dialogue. Cummins was also responsible for the score of the game, writing a specific tune for each of the main locations. According to Cecil, the original version of the engine seemed less applicable in Beneath a Steel Sky, as the ability to issue commands conflicted with the gameplay they intended to create. Lure of the Temptress had one story that was moved forward by a key event, whereas Beneath a Steel Sky had multiple threads. So if there was a door on-screen, the door-routine was called up to handle it. According to French magazine Génération 4, the game was supposed to be released by the end of October 1993. and Amiga demos were added as cover disks to several Amiga magazines.
Beneath a Steel Sky was published in March 1994 by Virgin Interactive on floppy disks and CD-ROM. It came on 15 floppy disks, as opposed to Lure of The Temptress, which came on four. Because of the Amiga restrictions, a few animations had to be left out, as not all Amiga owners had a hard drive. A comic book created by Gibbons, which was translated into the introduction sequence of the game, came as part of the game package. although the license under which the source code is released does not qualify as a free software license. The source code availability made it possible for the ScummVM project to support the game, which allows the game to be played on Windows, OS X, Linux, Windows CE and other compatible operating systems and platforms.
In November 2011, James Woodcock released an enhanced soundtrack of the game for ScummVM. The game is also available as a zero-cost download on digital distribution services, including Desura and GOG.com.
In July 2009, Revolution announced that a remastered edition of Beneath a Steel Sky would be released on iOS later that year. The remastered edition features new animated movies by Gibbons, a context-sensitive help system and improved audio quality. The game was released on the App Store on October 7, 2009.