Now Playing: Sable

I claimed a free copy of Sable through the Epic store some time ago and added it to the ever growing pile of free Epic games that I rarely get around to actually playing. But, finally, I gave Sable a shot. I’m sure it caught my eye during an E3 event or something a few years ago thanks to its distinctive art style, but I didn’t really know much about the game.

In Sable you play as . . . Sable, a young girl embarking upon a rite of passage known as the Gliding in which she is bestowed with the power to . . . glide. I don’t really get why, but that’s how it works. As part of the Gliding, Sable must venture from her home and explore the world in order to collect badges relating to various trades. Once Sable has three of a particular badge she can create a mask related to that trade.

The Gliding is all about Sable figuring out who she is and who she wants to be. As you explore the world you’ll encounter a lot of people happy to assign Sable various tasks with the prospect of a badge as a reward.

Traversing the world of Sable is primarily done through the use of your hover bike. As you explore you’ll discover or purchase new parts you can use to customise your bike. It’s not the most robust system of customisation – only 3 changeable parts and colours – but the parts do impact the speed, acceleration and handling of the bike which does give the bike a different feel in terms of how it performs.

The bike is, overall, fun to ride but it’s certainly best suited to more flat terrain and there’s a few areas of the world in Sable where it can feel kind of annoying to ride because the terrain is so uneven and your bike feels like it’s constantly getting tossed about.

Aside from your bike, you’ll also spend a fair amount of time climbing. The game uses a Breath of the Wild style stamina system in the sense that nearly every surface can be climbed but you have a limited pool of stamina that determines how much you can climb before Sable will need to stop and rest. This stamina pool can be increased, however, by collecting chum eggs which are, more or less, like the korok seeds in BOTW.

The world of Sable is pretty desolate but if you see anything that looks even slightly interesting then the chances are you’ll find something there, even if it’s just a small chest or another chum. This really does encourage and reward exploration which is, really, the heart of the game. The only real ‘main’ quest is to find a mask but beyond that, you’re free to go where you wish and engage with the quests as much or as little as you want to.

And there’s lots of neat stuff in Sable that’s not marked and not tied to any quests. There’s just cool stuff to find if you take the time to explore. The quests, of course, do provide some direction and typically send you to the main landmarks of each region. They are, for the most part, all fetch quests which might sound kind of terrible but the game does a good job of mixing up the locations and what you need to do to acquire the items you need.

And it does make sense, I suppose, that Sable is given what many see as rather tedious tasks – she, like others on their Gliding before her, is doing these tasks not just to explore, but to help others on her journey and gain a greater understanding of the various trades she might wish to choose.

And something I really like about Sable is the characters and the dialogue. There’s no VA in the game – it’s all written text. And I love how succinct it all is. It’s tight. Conversations are short and punchy. I’ve played too many games where characters ramble on in ways that feel entirely unnatural and annoying. Not in Sable. They get that aspect perfect.

There’s no combat in Sable. The world isn’t dangerous and there’s no hostile creatures. It’s kind of refreshing. Sable is a more sedate game focused on exploration and that’s fine with me. Combat would have felt horribly out of place.

I can’t review Sable and not talk about those wonderful visuals. The art style and animations are all fantastic. There’s not a moment that the game doesn’t look good and your screenshot folder will fill up fast. The music and audio is also great. That said, the game does suffer from some technical issues and bugs – poor optimisation in some regions when using your hover bike, bad pathfinding for some npcs as they get stuck walking against scenery, and some badly placed world objects that float above the terrain. It’s pretty minor stuff, but it’s a shame the game isn’t as polished as it deserves.

The world of Sable is very cool and interesting, full of ancient ruins and crashed starships. I really never got tired of exploring it. It also helps that the world is split into different regions each with its own visual style. And there is a welcome fast travel option to any major landmark on the map for those times when you don’t fancy a long bike ride.

What else? You can find various pieces of clothing for Sable but these, sadly, are cosmetic only, so they don’t have any real use beyond playing dress up. There’s no levels or experience to gain. There’s no skill trees. No crafting. No ‘points of interest’ or collectibles littering your map. Sable is a game that strips back so much crap that clutters up modern games and focuses purely on what really matters – your journey, the characters and the world.

I’m not saying these things are all bad but too often they’re shoved in when they don’t need to be and don’t really add anything meaningful or interesting to the experience. They’re only there because they’re ‘expected’ to be. I think that’s why I found Sable so refreshing to play. It’s not a perfect game, but it looks gorgeous and has simple, but engaging gameplay. You’re exploring not because the game is telling you to but because you want to.

It’s very evocative of Breath of the Wild in that sense and that’s clearly a game the developers took inspiration from. I think if you liked BOTW you’ll also enjoy Sable. It may be a smaller, more simple game but it’s got a lot of heart and a cool sci-fi world that feels cohesive and perfectly realised. In fact, I liked it so much I might pick up the Steam version in the future to play it again.

8/10