80 Days devs announce the sci-fi Heaven's Vault

After travelling around the world in the fantastic 80 Days and to Fantasyland in Sorcery!, Inkle have announced their next game will go into space. Heaven's Vault [official site] will see an archaeologist and her robot buddy travelling the mysterious rivers which connect moons, trying to uncover their secrets. Meet people! Chat! Solve puzzles! Translate languages! Travel an open world! Experience consequences! It sounds pret-ty great. I've a nagging suspicion that working with existing stories and worlds has kept Inkle from reaching the huge and fawning audience they deserve, so maybe this here all-new tale will do it.

Here's how Inkle introduce Heaven's Vault:

"The Nebula. A network of rivers, flowing from one moon to the next, carrying air and water between scattered clusters of civilisation. No one knows how the Nebula was formed. No one knows how it will end.

Aliya "El" Elasra and her unwilling robot assistant Six are going to find out. Somewhere in the ruins of the Nebula's oldest worlds lies a truth that will change everything.

"Sail rivers of starlight, translate lost languages, and investigate ancient ruins in an all-original graphic adventure from the creators of 80 Days."

Inkle first teased this new game in 2015 but have only now officially announced it. They reel off a list of influences which includes Indiana Jones, Stargate, the novels of Raymond Chandler, Islamic art and caligraphy, "the work of Dr Monica Hanna in protecting Egypt's antiquities", "the graphic novels of Möebius and Hergé", "the animation and real-time storytelling of The Last Express", "the puzzle-solving of The Witness", and "the translation puzzle of Infocom's classic game Infidel".

Inkle say "the game won't be ready for some time" but they're done prototyping so it's time to crack on - and to start saying more about it.