The Pale Beyond is a survival management game by Bellular Studios. It was released on Steam on February 24, 2023.
You play as Robin Shaw, First Mate on the Temperance, a ship sailing into the arctic regions of the north. Only three things stand between you and a frozen death; 1910s technology, whatever you can hunt from the ice, and the Temperance's crew, a motley of frightened people hired by your "benefactors", whose identity is a secret. Your quest is to find the Viscount, a similar ship lost to the north five years ago...
...or it was, until your Captain deserted the expedition and ran off. Now you are in charge of the ship, a ship punctured and trapped by ice. You must balance the factors of everyone's survival: fuel, rations, morale, and injuries. Can you earn the respect of your crew? Can you live long enough to uncover the truth?
This game includes the following tropes:
- Anyone Can Die: It's certainly possible to get most if not your entire crew killed through poor decisions.
- Brutal Honesty: The expedition ad makes it very clear that successful applicants will probably die. But Shaw takes the job anyway, either because he likes adventure or because he couldn't find other work.
- Driving Question: Who is backing the expedition, and why are they pouring so much money into finding one almost-certainly-deserted research ship?
- Foreshadowing: The fact that Templeton, a botanist, is assigned to an expedition headed for the arctic where there is little to no plant life.
- Golden Ending: It's perfectly possible to have the entire crew survive and be fully loyal to you by the end of the game.
- Go Mad from the Revelation: It's heavily implied that the crew of the Viscount consumed the fruit from the Tree and subsequently went insane from the countless time loops they experienced.
- "Groundhog Day" Loop: If you find Hunt at the Tree, he reveals to you that consuming the Tree's fruit allows you to travel back a certain period time. Though your memories of the loops are erased, you'll feel compelled to try something different each time. Hunt has gone through at least dozens of loops trying to avert the stranding of the Temperance by the time you find him, and it's implied that you yourself have looped before, as well.
- Halfway Plot Switch: Most of the game involves a desperate bid to survive on a ship stranded in ice with meager supplies. However, the game can suddenly shift near the end if the player decides to investigate the mysterious cave, where they find a tree where its fruit allows whoever consumes them to perform a type of Mental Time Travel back a certain period of time. Then the game suddenly becomes an ethical dilemma of whether humanity is ready for such a discovery or not.
- I'm a Humanitarian: Cannibalism is a possible option if food supplies are low, but this of course will greatly hurt the crew's morale. Hunt admits to having to resort to this to survive.
- Mega-Corp: The Appertton Tinning Company, which provides the tinned food for the expedition. However, Apertton is actually involved in far more lucrative fields than just food tinning, which they consider a low priority, and secretly funded the expedition to search for a tree that can enable time travel.
- No Communities Were Harmed: The expedition clearly sets out from England and goes to a place with North Pole wildlife, but specific names are never mentioned, likely to avoid political baggage.
- No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: If the player decides to prioritize getting their crew to the rescue ship rather than search for the Viscount, Appertton threatens to have you thrown in prison for breaking your contract. Thankfully, if you've won the loyalty of the crew, they'll stand up for you, forcing Appertton to back down.
- Number Two: When shit starts going down, Templeton concludes that respecting the chain of command (which, in this case, leads to the player) is the most sensible course of action, and thereon does everything he can to support it and keep onboard politics stable.
- Plotline Death: You cannot save the three crew who abandon ship with Hunt. If you manage to catch up to Hunt, his companions are long dead.
- Screw This, I'm Outta Here:
- The plot kicks off with Hunt and three of his crew stealing a lifeboat and supplies and abandoning the Temperance shortly after it gets stranded in the ice. Most of the crew conclude that Hunt essentially left them to die to save himself.
- After certain events, some crew may attempt to desert the expedition for one reason or another.
- Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The game's premise is very similar to the doomed Franklin Expedition
, where two Royal Navy ships exploring the Arctic for the fabled Northwest Passage were trapped in ice for at least two years, with the crews of both ships eventually perishing after their supplies ran out. In addition, one of the most popular theorized causes of death of the crew was lead poisoning from poor quality food cans, similar to how the crew of the Temperance discover their food tins are tainted with lead. - Video Game Caring Potential:
- You can pet the sled dogs whenever you want.
- When mourning the dead during the memorial service, if you had lost any dogs, you have the option of reciting their names as well, which earns you additional loyalty from Cordell.
- Uncertain Doom: In the ending where the player decides to burn down the Viscount and the Tree, the crew's only hope for survival now is for someone to take the last remaining lifeboat out to sea to try and signal the rescue ship that's supposed to be arriving. This route ends with the player taking the lifeboat out to sea, leaving whether they found rescue or not uncertain.
- You Can't Fight Fate: It seems that even though the Tree can allow time travel, some events simply cannot be changed. No matter how many times Hunt has looped, he cannot prevent the Temperance from getting stranded in the ice.
