The Pale Beyond is a survival role-playing video game developed by Bellular Studios and published by Fellow Traveller. It was released for Microsoft Windows and macOS on 24 February 2023. The game follows an Antarctic expedition that gets trapped in the ice as the player must manage the crew successfully to survive. Bellular Studios, a small development company based in Belfast, created the game and was inspired by historical Antarctic expeditions.
Gameplay
As the acting Captain of the Temperance after the Captain's disappearance at the beginning of an Antarctic expedition, the player must manage the crew and keep them alive to survive the ice. The game has time that passes each week, during which the player is responsible for managing a number of resources, including food, fuel, and decorum. "Decorum" represents the ship's overall morale and how the crew is holding together. Each week, the player is responsible for deciding requests which can involve settling fights between crew-members or taking sides on arguments. Often, decisions that could seem reasonable on the face of themselves can lead the player towards ruin, and for a successful playthrough, the player must consider their resources accordingly. It is important to also keep up the loyalty of crew-members in order to ensure survival (and that your decisions are followed or supported). Rations that are on board the ship eventually expire, requiring the crew to hunt for food, and fuel that is available through coal in the ship's stores rapidly depletes as well, requiring the player to carefully stockpile supplies to survive.
The game uses a "locked tree" system, which allows players to attempt to change the fate of their crew either after deleting newer save files or choosing load points after completing a game.
Plot
Although The Pale Beyond progresses generally in a linear fashion, it features a "locked tree" system where the outcomes of the game can change radically depending on the player's choices.
The player controls Robin Shaw, who is interviewed at the beginning of the game by Captain Hunt, an old Antarctic expeditionary veteran. Shaw is hired by Hunt to be the First Mate on the Temperance, a ship that is leaving for an Antarctic expedition to find The Viscount, a lost expedition and the Temperance's sister ship. At the onset of the expedition, Hunt is obfuscating about certain parts of the expedition and although the Captain is respected by the crew, he is inattentive and at one point is found drunk by Shaw in the Captain's quarters.
Hunt goes missing a month after the journey begins once the Temperance gets stranded in Antarctic ice, and as First Mate, the player is put into the role of Captain and must help the vessel survive the polar winter. The leader of the ship's science team, Templeton, informs Shaw that they must hold a vote to become Captain, using the loyalty of the crew (or lack thereof) to determine the result. Templeton also assures Shaw that a rescue party is being sent by their benefactor, but that they must hold out for the set number of weeks needed to make it. After several weeks stranded on the Temperance, the ship sinks from the pressure and the crew makes camp on the ice. As the ground begins to crack, the crew is forced further inland. Eventually, the crew is forced to abandon the ice altogether, salvaging the Temperance's three remaining lifeboats to sail for a nearby island which was presumably the Viscount's final destination.
The crew manage to reach the island and find signs left behind by the Viscount crew, informing them of a supply cache on the coast on the opposite side of the island that can sustain the crew until rescue arrives. The signs also carry a warning not to travel further inland. It is at this point where Shaw must decide whether to prioritize the safety of the crew and head for the coast, or focus on their original mission and head inland to discover the fate of the Viscount.