I wasn’t fully aware that Steam Next Fest was on and I missed a majority of the demos that I wanted to play but I did catch exactly two games. This Wednesday I am going to talk briefly about the Sable demo.

Sable, a game being developed by Shedworks and published by Raw Fury, is an open-world game. It is planned to be released in September this year.

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You are Sable, a native of a mysterious dune settlement surrounded by airships from a distant past. You take the reigns before a rite of passage titled “the Gliding.” The demo ends with the construction of Sable’s very own bike. It is talked about only in small conversation with the locals of the Ibex Village but the bulk of the demo allows you to navigate a part of the open world.

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The open-world is littered with secret areas for you to explore. You are given only a few quests but they do take Sable to a majority of the larger areas. A little girl doesn’t want you to leave so she demands “hard to catch” beetles in exchange for a bike part. The other two parts are up to the player to find.

This is where the game changes.

Sable does one of the things I like most, letting the player pursue the objective whenever they want. I like to just wander around and enjoy the map, doing my own thing. There is no sense of urgency to finish objectives and that is okay with me. I just want to enjoy the world that Shedworks has created.

I was really attracted to the art style of Sable. The art, colors, and sound really capture the aesthetic of a desert adventure.

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The music by Japanese Breakfast is also really fucking good.

There are some issues with the climbing and I did get stuck at least once but overall it really is not a bad demo.

Oh, I love it and I can’t wait to play it come September.