The madness of the holidays is behind us, but the distribution of free games doesn't stop, and this time the ocean welcomes us with open arms. After all, what better place to combine action, adventure, fantasy, exploration, and resource management? Sail Forth seems like a basic game at first, but it has remarkable depth, supported by minigames, upgrades for our fleet, side missions, collectible items, customization, and good graphics.
Let the galactic empires rest for a while and the spaceships remain in maintenance. Sometimes, the best adventures are closer than we think... and many of them take us straight to the sea. Personally, I have excellent memories of Pirates! (the Gold edition, to be more precise), and Sea of Thieves has been very well received by the public, so why not get your feet wet with the new free game of the weekend? It's called Sail Forth, and it's better than it appears...
Sail Forth: Exploring the seas, one cannon blast at a time
Everything starts in the best-worst way: with a miserable boat, floating in the middle of nowhere. The first steps are about learning and exploration, how to move, how to control the sails to take advantage of the wind. The waters invite you to get lost, but the game is not an open-world per se, and soon some secondary characters will appear. The scientist, who helps us develop technology and obtain more advanced equipment. The merchant, who turns that equipment into reality, and also sells us new ships. The lighthouse people, who want to study ancient objects. The three old men (as I call them), obsessed with fish, pigments, and photography. And of course, the Skull Clan, our pirates of the moment.
Add to that a boat race, a target shooting competition, a fishing minigame (gotta catch 'em all!), and missions that make us tour the whole map. The first defeats are inevitable, because you have to learn to recognize pirate ships, and when they outgun us. However, the balance of power changes once we add additional ships to our fleet, armed to the teeth and with their own crew. Precise harpoon control is essential to capture enemy ships... but they look much better when they sink. And above all this, a story, a plot. Strange powers that summon relentless monsters. The desire to solve their mystery... and the need to stay in one piece during the process.
Some comments suggest that Sail Forth tries to do too much. That it should have abandoned some layers of complexity to focus on a more casual experience. The Free Sail mode points in that direction, and it works as a practice sandbox, but the meat of the game is in the Adventure mode. The good news is that there's no clock here, and we don't have to fly over the water to meet objectives. Sometimes, it's enough to watch the sunset near an island, and stay floating there...
(Available for free on the Epic Games Store until Thursday the 18th)
