HEAVEN’S VAULT

Format PC, PS4, Switch

Developer/publisher Inkle

Origin UK

Release 2019

At the beginning, there was Stargate SG-1. In late 2014, less than half a year from the release of the critically acclaimed 80 Days, Inkle founders Jon Ingold and Joseph Humfrey landed on space archaeology as the theme for their next game, inspired by Stargate and driven by the realisation that this was still unexplored territory for videogames. After initially experimenting with a comic-book presentation that let you move the camera around static panels, the pair knew they wanted players to move through a 3D environment – something new to Inkle games – and talk to characters, but weren’t sure what they’d do in between. And, as it turned out, they weren’t entirely sure what archaeologists did. “Very early on, Joe asked, ‘Well, what are players actually going to do?’” Ingold recalls. “And I said, ‘I don’t know – push levers and buttons, avoid spike traps, that kind of thing. That’s what archaeologists do’. And Joe said: ‘Is it, though?’”

As the team swept aside their pop-cultural preconceptions, they gradually began to excavate a potential structure for the game. “We prototyped a puzzle mechanic around the exploration