Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition is finally coming in May as a free update

Sunless Skies’ stellar locomotive is returning to the heavens above Fallen London with an overhauled Sovereign Edition, arriving as a free update on PC next month.

A “greatly enhanced edition” of Failbetter’s trains-in-space adventure, Sunless Skies: Sovereign Edition was first announced over a year ago. Now, the developer has announced that it’ll arrive on May 19th, bringing sweeping changes to many of the game’s systems.

Character progression has been upgraded with a completely redesigned interface featuring brand new facets (unlockable traits that improve your stats while defining your captain’s story), though the selection you can choose from on level-up has now been limited. Reaching level cap is no longer the end of progression either—while you’ll not be able to pick up more facets, you can continue improving stats indefinitely.

Starvation has also been completely reworked, and the game now features “new and probably inadvisable” meals of varying edibility. Sovereign Edition sports a more controller-friendly UI, too—and while this is largely for the game’s upcoming Switch port, it should also make it easier to play with a gamepad on PC.

Locomotive equipment and weapon requirements are now less demanding, new trading opportunities have been added, alongside dozens of smaller additions listed over on the update’s announcement page (with full patch notes to come later).