Good Heavens!: you are the Chosen One, and your divine predecessor left a monumental mess

Good Heavens!'s pitch made me laugh before the first screen: the Mighty Rar left behind a world of floating islands, fragile cities, dangerous ruins, disappointed citizens, and more unfinished business than any Chosen One should reasonably inherit.

There you go. You are the Chosen One. Good luck.

What you do

Three activities, linked together.

You explore procedural islands and fight bizarre threats.

You raise cities. Struggling settlements can become thriving cities. You accept quests, fix local troubles, deal with angry or disappointed citizens, and help communities recover from the mess Rar left. As a city flourishes, new services and opportunities open up.

And you build at home. You start small, gather resources, turn wilderness into a home. You expand your base, arrange your workshops, set up farms, decorate, improve your equipment.

The studio's phrasing on that last point amuses me greatly: becoming the saviour these people were probably hoping would arrive a few Chosen Ones ago.

The tone, which is an argument

It deserves mentioning, because it is what separates this game from the pile of co-op survival crafters released this year.

Good Heavens! is written as a comedy of disappointment. The citizens do not welcome you as a hero, they have seen Chosen Ones come and go. The local god left without finishing. The world is not there to be saved, it is there to be made slightly less broken than before. Probably.

In a genre that systematically takes its post-apocalyptic seriousness very seriously, that self-deprecation is refreshing.

With eight

Co-op runs to eight players online, with shared progression, shared exploration and shared chaos.

Eight is generous, and it fits the proposition: you can divide tasks, one on building, another on city quests, a third on exploration, or simply do everything together.

What to know

The game launches today into early access, with no price displayed and no reviews as I write. It is developed by Nowhere Studios and co-published by WarpSpeed Entertainment and 2P Games.

My main reservation concerns density. A game promising procedural exploration, combat, city rebuilding and base building has to avoid each of those layers being a lighter version of what exists elsewhere. That is the classic risk of the generous survival crafter, and early access exists precisely to measure it.

What works in its favour is the tone. Plenty of games in this genre resemble each other mechanically; few of them have a voice.

What does your island look like after twenty hours? Guided tours happen on the InsertCoins Discord.