Where and when does the game take place?

[Geeks On Hugs]

My feeling is New England in the early to mid 1900s. Is it officially known where and when the game takes place?

[Jug]

On the note in bottles you pick up a lot of them dated as being written in the 1920s, so probably not too long after then if you piece it together with the story. As for where, some fictional archipelago, nothing rooted in reality.

[Geeks On Hugs]

Originally posted by Mirror:

On the note in bottles you pick up a lot of them dated as being written in the 1920s, so probably not too long after then if you piece it together with the story. As for where, some fictional archipelago, nothing rooted in reality.

Yah, I thought about the bottles but I believe notes on glass bottles can last a pretty long time, no?

Yah the specific places seem to be fictional but I think it's supposed to vaguely be in a general real world area? I mean it's obviously not South East Asia or the Suez Canal. More like, I'd say, North America (Northern coastal US or Southern coastal Canada) or I suppose it could possibly be the UK. Maybe they didn't have a particular place in mind beyond that.

But it seems to have a lot of New England fisherman tropes.

[Glemt]

Originally posted by Geeks On Hugs:

Originally posted by Mirror:

On the note in bottles you pick up a lot of them dated as being written in the 1920s, so probably not too long after then if you piece it together with the story. As for where, some fictional archipelago, nothing rooted in reality.

Yah, I thought about the bottles but I believe notes on glass bottles can last a pretty long time, no?

Yah the specific places seem to be fictional but I think it's supposed to vaguely be in a general real world area? I mean it's obviously not South East Asia or the Suez Canal. More like, I'd say, North America (Northern coastal US or Southern coastal Canada) or I suppose it could possibly be the UK. Maybe they didn't have a particular place in mind beyond that.

But it seems to have a lot of New England fisherman tropes.

Aren't the messages in the bottles related to our protagonist? For example, some (or all?) are written by our protagonist's wife. Seeing as this game is heavily inspired by Lovecraft's works, 1920's seems a very safe bet.

[RCMidas]

Implication is 1940s, actually, as the message dates are in the 20s and the events surrounding those happened twenty years later.

[Glemt]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Implication is 1940s, actually, as the message dates are in the 20s and the events surrounding those happened twenty years later.

Well-observed!

[Cocofang]

I like to imagine that the game takes place in a desolate world where most of it was already consumed by corruption. And we are interacting with the, for the most part, blissfully ignorant remnants of humanity as our actions end up deciding whether they too are doomed or the world gets a second chance.

[Moodyman90]

The dates on the bottled messages put it in the mid/late 1920's and the plot said everything wrong in the area happened 20 years ago, thus we're looking at mid to late 1940s if not early 1950s.

As for where? That's harder to pin down due to the impossible nature of the islands next to each other. Center of the map screams New England, which is also helped with the Lovecraft/ general eldritch theme the game has. Gale Cliffs could also fit there since whaling was big in that part of the U.S. but the practice obviously isn't limited to there. And then we have the Stellar Basin and Twisted Strands that are more tropical in tone. And finally there's the Devil's Spine, which has ancient ruins caused by a volcano erupting, and the ruins themselves are western in architecture.

You'd also have to figure on the fish.

In short, there's no real world equivalent to the archipelago the game takes place, but the only area that makes the most sense would be somewhere in the Pacific close to North America. It would account for the very American New England feel of the middle island, the volcanic activity of the Devil's Spine, the tropical nature of the Stellar Basin, and the downed planes in the Twisted Strand. Odd man out is the Gale Cliffs.

[RCMidas]

Pacific whaling was big too, just typically isolated to Asia due to the difficulty in getting up the necessary infrastructure and population on the western coast - by the time it was there, most of the whales were on their way to extinction.

[Joe Coffee]

Totally unrelated, but I get flashbacks from watching The Curious Case of Benjamin Button where the title character becomes crew on the tugboat. Just warm, campy vibes.

[Andrius227]

I think its set in modern times. I mean we have fancy lights and engines, and electricity is available pretty much everywhere. Even though most wrecks that we find look old and wooden, our ship looks modern.

[RCMidas]

Originally posted by Andrius227:

I think its set in modern times. I mean we have fancy lights and engines, and electricity is available pretty much everywhere. Even though most wrecks that we find look old and wooden, our ship looks modern.

Fancy engines and lights were also aboard the Titanic a century ago, our ship looks the same age as every other vessel - bearing in mind the big wrecks are meant to be non-ornate ocean-going craft - and I hate to point out that electricity was in widespread use long before the First World War...

But details.

[Keysmash666]

I’m pretty sure it’s set in New Zealand, judging by where the credits say the bird noises come from

[RCMidas]

In that case, I rescind my comments. The game is clearly set in just a less-known region of modern day Real Life Oceania. It all makes sense now.

[Andrius227]

Originally posted by RCMidas:

Originally posted by Andrius227:

I think its set in modern times. I mean we have fancy lights and engines, and electricity is available pretty much everywhere. Even though most wrecks that we find look old and wooden, our ship looks modern.

Fancy engines and lights were also aboard the Titanic a century ago, our ship looks the same age as every other vessel - bearing in mind the big wrecks are meant to be non-ornate ocean-going craft - and I hate to point out that electricity was in widespread use long before the First World War...

But details.

Im pretty sure i saw i satellite dish too, and im no scientist, but im pretty sure that means satellites in space, which also means computers…

[RCMidas]

All jokes aside, radio dishes look identical and have been in play since the late 30s.