Heaven's Vault

Heaven's Vault is rough around the edges, but its sense of discovery and self-fulfillment are unparalleled thanks to its commitment to player agency and its unique language-translation mechanic.

Heaven's Vault is a puzzle game you haven't experienced before. From its engaging story to its engrossing fictional language and puzzles, this is a game that feels rewarding in a way that no other game has done before.

Heaven's Vault communicates the beauty of assigning meaning to symbols, and thus the people who wrote them.

You won’t find a better game about archaeology, and you’ll be hard-pressed to unearth two protagonists with more chemistry. The story is excellent, save maybe the very end. The rivers are waiting for you, as is the ancient language!

The detailed landscapes, engaging plot and intriguing premise of a completely fictional ancient language to decipher make Heaven’s Vault a game for which it’s worth getting lost in translation.

Despite its shortcomings, Heaven's Vault is a delightful experience that's meant to discover your inner archaeologist. Even though it brings forward a repetitive puzzle system that encourages you to translate as many inscriptions as you can get your hands on, the loop remains fresh until the end of the game, and quite addictive I might add.

It lacks the infectiousness of 80 Days, but as a story and a reckoning with history, it leaves most videogame fantasies in the shade. [Issue#332, p.120]

Heaven’s Vault is both ambitious and beautiful.

There is always something new to see in Heaven’s Vault, and I was constantly taken aback by Inkle’s sheer and heartfelt attention to detail. Every turn of the plot, new character and puzzle was enough to see me through to the mystery’s end, and somehow even the minimal gameplay adds meaning to the story in a way few other puzzlers manage.

An intriguing game for graphic novel fans with a lovable old style art design.

It's refreshing to see a game that doesn't inspire itself in any previous title but try to establish its own ways of doing things. Some aspects, like the moments travelling the space, are however a bit bland and can become boring. But overall, it's a recommendable experience.

It is safe to say that there is no other title in the history of video games that offers a similar experience and atmosphere to Heaven's Vault, but the fact that there is no voice acting in a game that relies so heavily on dialogues and conversations, is a huge mistake that costs Heaven's Vault greatly.

At the end of the game something is revealed about Aliya, and she must make a choice. Unfortunately, neither option held any impact for me. The core mystery of Heaven’s Vault and the puzzles that must be solved to illuminate it are compelling. Yet, like its world and its core character, Heaven’s Vault gets caught up in physical things and forgets the human, rendering its final revelations as cold as the dead moons where Aliya digs up her artifacts. Then again, perhaps it’s fitting for an archaeologist that the story she uncovers is more compelling than her own.

Quibbles notwithstanding, I enjoyed Heaven's Vault after I put in some effort and got over my early fidgets. If I ever decide to study ancient Greek, I’m sure I’ll think of it.

The game is ambitious for its translation mechanics and its big-picture look at the evolution of culture through the ages.

Heaven’s Vault’s narrative is so good, though, that you don’t think much about the parts that don’t really work. The devs understood that the nature of the game and its identity is rooted less in its gameplay and more in its story. They decided to put more of its eggs in the story basket, which, in the end, pays off.

Heaven's Vault may have one of the most well-realized video game worlds ever, with your curiosity and personality molding your story through the Nebula. Whether you're fascinated by history or just by a personal sense of duty, there's a lot to love about Heaven's Vault, even if the clunky movement and frustrating sailing sour the overall experience.

At first it seems that Heaven’s Vault is an absolute treasure and you can just marvel at the creative ideas that Inkle Studio came up with. But in between all those moments when I loved the game, some of the gameplay mechanics made my eyes glaze over and the experience would lose its luster.

Heaven's Vault excels in creating a well-constructed, branching narrative, but expect long sections of it to feel like a slog.