Even though Sector Unknown is still official in EA, the game can be played to completion and most of what is left to finish is some polish, some minor bug fixes, and possible some additional side quests. The game took me just over 40 hours to complete, so that was plenty of playtime for its relatively low cost.

After 3 years in development, the game was recently released in EA and the developer has been especially quick to fix any issues and to take on board any suggestions for improvement. Basically, this game has been a one person labour of love and that attention to detail clearly shows. It's probably a niche game, rather than one with mass appeal, though you can tell that games like Fallout were at least partly an inspiration, but thankfully there are still people out there making them for those of us who enjoy a fun gaming experience.

Setting

The game is set in outer space in a sector which had been under the control of a ruthless corporation which has deserted the colonies and plans to wipe out all life on those worlds and then start over again. Your task, should you choose to accept it, is to prevent that from happening. You begin as an inmate on a prison transport ship which crashes on a lightly manned planet in the sector and it’s over to you from there.

This initial planet becomes your main base of operations and from there, after obtaining a ship you will need to visit several other planets, each one quite different from the others, in order to complete your mission of saving the sector. To do this, you will need to recruit others, both humans and robots to work with you. You eventually control a party of four including yourself, but over the course of the game you will recruit many a great many varied individuals who can join your party. This will become important and most of these also have side quests attached to them for extra XP.

Skills

This is as good a time as any to stress a key consideration for success in the game. It is most definitely a min/max game where a "jack of all trades" will eventually fail miserably. There are multiple skill checks throughout the game which will determine any number of possible outcomes for each and every quest, or sub-quest. These skill checks ramp up considerably with each new planet you visit. So, while on Maku, your base of operations, initial skill checks might only need 10 skill levels, on the next planet, that will double to 20 and so on. By the end of the game, some checks were 90, or even 100.

These skill checks often even apply to simple things like opening a container, or making certain dialogue choices. While in some situations passing a skill check will allow for a peaceful resolution to a problem, in others, failure to pass the skill check will lead to instant conflict and battle will commence. More on combat shortly.

There are multiple skills available and all have merit. For example, larceny is needed to open any chests containing loot. However, only one person in the party needs to have the larceny skill since the game automatically chooses the person with the highest needed skill and if the skill is not high enough, then the choice is greyed out. The good news is that swapping party members in and out is quick and simple and can be done anywhere.

Therefore, what I recommend is that aside from your selected combat skill (more in a moment) you focus on no-more than two (2) skills for each member of your team so that you can maximise them as quickly as possible. While attribute skills are only able to be increased every 5 levels, all other skills and perks get Additional points each level, so it’s not too difficult to build up two different skills for each companion by the time you need them. More good news; when you recruit a new companion (and there are at least 2 available on each new planet) they are a blank slate with skill points available that are equivalent to their level, so you can assign them as you prefer.

While on Maku (the starting planet) you will very quickly gain access to 3 companions to fill out your party. Other than larceny (which I assigned to the robot) what you choose will be determined by your preferred play style, but you will eventually be able to cover all bases; some are definitely more useful than others.

Combat

Combat is an essential part of most RPG’s and there is obviously the potential for plenty in this game as well, though some can be avoided. Robots only get one choice of weapon, but humans have several choices, though again, I would strongly suggest limiting it to only one so that the skill can be maximised. There are 3 melee choices; unarmed, knife and sword. You also have 3 ranged choices including pistols and rifles. All of these can be upgraded though you will find so many of each as you progress that eventually you have to give them away (for War Points) since the merchants you encounter don’t have enough money to buy them all.

Your main consideration with weapon choice is the number of AP’s each requires for an attack. Some are as low as 2, while others such as rifles will need 5 AP’s per attack. While you can take perks which will enhance these attacks, they also come with added AP’s. Increasing certain attributes will eventually increase your number of AP’s, but all of this takes time. So plan carefully the route you wish to take.

Combat itself is technically Turn Based, but unless you choose to control each member of your party, the AI will take charge of the combat except for your turn. This means that a fight can flow fairly quickly, only pausing when it’s your turn to move, or attack. However, you do have the choice to make every decision for each party member if that is your preference.

Quests

The quests are many and varied with some being your standard fetch quests while others are much more convoluted and can stretch over more than one planet. Some are optional, but the rewards are usually worth the effort. Each planet you visit is quite different from the others; one is mainly water for example while another is ice bound and each have their own challenges and associated quests which need to be completed to move the overall story forward.

Conclusion

If you’re interested, crafting is available, especially in your home base which you can update as you gain science points which allows you to do extra research for extra crafting. There are just so many built in variations you can try that the game definitely will have good replayability once it is totally feature complete. Sector Unknown has a lot to offer and was definitely fun to play. There is not a great deal of exploration available as that is not really a focus of the game, but there are lots of dialogues and interesting people to meet and choices to be made which do have very definite consequences. While it’s not perfect and not yet totally complete though the game can be finished, I do highly recommend it for anyone who even thinks they might enjoy it as I did.