Like in their previous games, including "Riven," which is currently receiving the remake treatment from the Cyan team, unlocking bits of the strange story is part of the experience. The game has been rated as appropriate for players 10 and up by the Electronic Software Ratings Board, which cited "violent references" as the reason for its rating. "This hues very much to sort of the Cyan-ethos, it's family-friendly but you can still tell a dark story without making it (violent)," Anderson said. Upon arrival in a Pacific Northwest-looking "realm," one of the game's vast destinations filled with fiendish puzzles, your nameless, ethereal companion notes that several like you have been "put to sleep" well before their time. That doesn't mean there aren't dark undertones. But there are no enemies to kill in "Firmament," and what is a violent action in another game becomes in Cyan's creation a method of exploring a world. That mechanic matches what will feel comfortable for gamers fond of first-person shooters, where the mouse click equates to the pull of a trigger. "We thought to ourselves, what if instead of filling the world with buttons and levers and switches, what if we let the player be their own button and lever and switch?"
"We're known as the company that has games where your primary interaction with the world is things like buttons and switches and levers, things like that," Anderson said. The game is also available to be played with a virtual reality headset, enabling even more player control of the adjunct device. You point and click with a mouse to fire the device into machines scattered throughout the world, that then allow you to manipulate things like gears, bridges and engines to get from one point to another.
The adjunct mechanic is part of what brings Cyan's classic puzzle-solving gameplay into the 21st century of gaming, Anderson said.
The mysterious object is used to manipulate certain items in the game world, essential in solving some of the game-maker's signature, brain-bending puzzles as you unfold the mystery of why you're awake, who brought you here and what their intentions are for you. That becomes evident as you, the unnamed player, pick up a tool known as the "adjunct" that fits around your right fist. "If anything, this is us harkening back to Cyan's roots," Anderson said, before showing off the first couple of hours of gameplay for the game that launches Thursday and is Cyan's first new intellectual property since 2016's "Obduction." "We don't look at it, really, as we're trying to be like 'Bioshock.' We're trying to be like Cyan."
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