Freedom, creativity, and ownership were the three guiding principles Andrzej Blumenfeld, CEO at Far From Home, carried with him when he left Techland to pursue independent game creation. The studio's first project, a skyfaring survival game called Forever Skies, is now in early access. Blumenfeld talked to GLHF following the launch of its co-op update, which the team hopes will bring more players.
"Games are powerful media," he said. "So you can talk with a big audience, and you can start talking about big, important stuff. That is part of our DNA."
Forever Skies is set on a devastated Earth, where a choking cloud of pollution makes the ground level uninhabitable. To explore, you must stick to the skyscraper rooftops and fly between them with your fully customizable airship, recycling matter and making items from scrap to build out your floating sanctuary.
"Air pollution is very visible here in Poland, especially during winter," Blumenfeld said. "We have messages from our government that say it's better to stay at home and not open windows."
The smog used to be so bad in Krakow that scientists discovered that you'd have to get 140 meters above sea level just to breathe clean air.
It's a perfect example of how art isn't made in a bubble -- you can't remove yourself from your creations because our history, personality, surroundings, and culture seep into our work. Forever Skies couldn't have been made by any other team. It's a manifestation of Far From Home's hopes and fears.
"We won't go on a street and tell people how to live, but we just want to blend it a little bit with the pleasure of gaming, so we can start talking to people, and maybe some of them will see what's happening," Blumenfeld explained.
During a trailer posted to the PlayStation channel, the team added a QR code to raise awareness for the Russian invasion of Ukraine. The comments were mixed, with some saying game developers shouldn't discuss real-world politics, while others congratulated the team on its bravery for using their platform for good. Far From Home doesn't plan on stopping there, despite either reaction.
"We started with Forever Skies but we're not gonna just focus on one topic," Blumenfeld said. "We just started with that because it was very close to the team. But with the next projects, it's an open question where we're gonna go. It's very important from our perspective that it's not only about entertainment. 90% should be entertainment, but 10% should be something more -- we would like to leave something behind us."
The parallels between Forever Skies and Krakow's air pollution weren't even obvious to the team originally. It was only when someone else noticed the similarities during pitch meetings that it surfaced and transformed from a subconscious decision to something more fleshed out, and a good reminder of how we imprint on our creations, sometimes unintentionally. The team always wanted to hold a mirror up to humanity, but they didn't expect to see their own faces reflected back.
Of course, none of this would matter if the team didn't follow its own advice. As well as raising awareness for important topics, Far From Home raises money for ecological charities. Forever Skies players can buy an in-game snow globe, with 100% of revenue going to Whale and Dolphin Conservation.
Despite already selling 200,000 copies of Forever Skies, the team has also put its principles before profit in other ways, such as blocking the sale of the game in Russia and Belarus in a sanction against the Ukraine invasion. Survival games like this are extremely popular in Russia -- wishlists from Russia were one-third of the total on Steam prior to launch -- so it's a significant financial sacrifice for the indie team.