Heaven's Vault Reviews

Totally loved the experience. It's janky as hell and has a lot of heart. Definitely give it a shot if you love linguistics, archaeology, and sci-fi. Sci-fantasy? Idk. Aside from all the great puzzle games I've seen it compared to, the mysterious setting also reminded me of Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy. I remember as a kid yearning to know more about these "precursors"... well, in this game you can be the space-faring archaeologist to uncover it all. And no, the answer isn't space weasels!

A profoundly novel, inimitable and unique experience. Many games touch on the subjects of discovery and exploration, Heaven's Vault [i] breathes [/i] it, Your actions and dialogue have consequences and it's very easy to ruin relationships - actions can't be taken back due to a punishing save system and a design direction that doesn't let you go places just to 'check if you missed something'. You can miss entire story arcs ([spoiler] Such as the Empress [/spoiler]) and absolutely ignore entire locations (Elboreth) and relationships (almost everyone) and still have a coherent and satisfying experience! Aliya, the protagonist, is a bitter, unfriendly harpy, but this can be navigated. Her experiences shape her and take away options - my own notable moment was her developing a fear of doing anything remotely athletic, which the game demands every other location, turning to that as a very final resort. The new game plus mode is lore-friendly and provides even more of the main translation-based gameplay while upping the difficulty. The only notable demerit of the game is the fact that a less organic more 'gamey' mode wasn't provided where one could go back and forth between locations without cause and not suffer quite so much the consequences of their Aliya's decisions. Full Recommend.

[h1]I love it![/h1] The game is beautiful. The locations to explore are beautiful, and the universe is gorgeous. There aren't a whole lot of characters, but they are all memorable and unique. Deciphering the language is fun, takes a lot of time but it's thrilling to piece the puzzle together and there's always something different to try when you play the game again to collect more information. I like the hieroglyphs, and they are fun to write on actual paper. I think they look pretty. [h1]There's a but...[/h1] As much as I love it, the game is a bit tedious at times. Walking is slow, despite locations being relatively small. After the 1st playthrough I am just exhausted of walking around to try something new. I am exhausted of dialogue that I can't mash a button to speed up, and although there is a slider to really make the dialogue move fast, it makes it hard to read at those speeds. It should've been a button. I do not like the moments where the game takes control away from you, 7 out of 10 times it just walked me away without any reason and it's frustrating because that's not where I want to go. I did not like the endless monologue during translation process. Fading into the translation screen only to be pulled out by Aliya talking to herself and then fading back to the same translation screen does not make me happy. I just wanted to check what I've done on previous translations... but the game likes to interrupt you often with filler monologue. [b] Backup your saves if you want to experiment! [/b] It's really not worth it to play the whole game from start if you realize that you've messed up. Oftentimes there is no undoing what you've done, and that means hours of replaying, not to mention that if you want to keep your knowledge you have to reach the end of the game for another new game+ That doesn't mean you shouldn't try rolling with your mistakes, as unintended effects could reveal something new! And you should enjoy your 1st or 2nd run first before doing any save saving. But if you're aiming to try something specific, backup and backup often. If all you want is to get to an ending and be done with the game, you probably won't be too frustrated by this. It's only an annoyance if you want to explore further in new game +, but you probably will want to dig deeper. Until then, it's quite interesting and fun as everything is new. Except walking, walking is always too slow.

Heaven's Vault is a unique game, though not without its flaws. I picked it up as part of my Metroidbranias journey, which I embarked on after playing Outer Wilds. Heaven's Vault is undeniably a knowledge-driven game—you rely heavily on learning an ancient language to unravel the mysteries of the world: who the past civilizations were, what happened to them, and what fate awaits in the near future. The ancient language is, without a doubt, the most standout feature of the game. While it’s not as complex as real-world languages, it's intricate enough to keep you engaged for the entire game, constantly pushing you to discover more texts and expand your vocabulary. What makes this learning process so compelling is the internal logic of the language. Words aren’t random; they follow a recognizable structure that gradually becomes clear as you encounter more examples. There are roughly 40 symbols in the alphabet, each playing a different role. Some act as base symbols—such as water, person, or light—while others indicate parts of speech, like nouns and verbs. For example, combining a noun modifier with the base symbol for water gives you "water," while adding a verb modifier produces "to drink." Base symbols can also be combined to form new meanings—light + high results in "star." Additionally, there are special symbols for negation and possession. Whole words can be fused together, creating longer and more complex meanings. For instance, the word "grateful" stretches to a whopping fourteen characters! You encounter new words while exploring the game world—etched into ancient walls, hidden in old books, or inscribed on mysterious artifacts. When faced with an unknown word, the game presents you with a small list of possible translations. If you see the word again, the game tells you whether your guess was correct. If you were right, the word is added to your dictionary; if not, the game removes one incorrect option and asks you to try again. As your vocabulary expands and you grasp the structure, the game stops breaking phrases into separate words, it presents them as a single unbroken sequence, forcing you to identify word boundaries yourself. While language learning is Heaven’s Vault's crowning achievement, traversing the game world is its Achilles' heel. In a sense, the game shares similarities with Outer Wilds—you travel to a destination first, then explore. However, in OW, both the spaceship and your suit serve as mechanics you must master. Even in the late game, a careless mistake can land you in a sticky situation. There are a few key distinctions in how traversal works in Heaven’s Vault: 1. You can’t freely roam the world. In OW, you can venture anywhere from the start—you may not understand what you find, but the freedom is there. In HV, destinations only become available once you've gathered enough clues about their location. You can sail around endlessly, but aside from the occasional inscribed trinket, there’s little to discover by sheer chance. 2. Travel and exploration are entirely separate mechanics. You sail the rivers, then land on a moon to explore on foot. But since nothing meaningful happens during sailing, this mechanic could be removed without much loss. The only casualty would be character dialogue, but since they chatter constantly while on foot, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice. 3. Sailing lacks challenge. All you do is choose a turn and then wait for the next prompt. There’s no real risk—if you take a wrong turn, the game simply offers to teleport you back to retry. This makes the sailing segments mind-numbingly dull, though fast travel (which unlocks once a route is known) helps mitigate the tedium. Speaking of locations, there are two major types: populated cities and ancient, uninhabited sites. Cities can be visited freely, as many times as you like. The other sites, however, are one-and-done—once you leave, you can’t return. This feels like a huge missed opportunity. I would have loved an exploration loop where you could revisit locations after gaining new knowledge, unlocking previously inaccessible areas, and uncovering deeper secrets. The same issue applies to the ending. It seems there’s no real difference between learning as much of the language as possible or barely scratching the surface. How much better would it be if the game allowed you to reach an ending early, but with less-than-ideal outcomes? Then, with additional knowledge, you could piece together a way to turn things around and unlock a truly satisfying conclusion.

A beautiful piece heavily focusing on the story. The rivers flow frustratingly slow at some places, but I liked the language discovery mechanic (most of the time) and the setting is quite mysterious and unusual. This was not a game I could go through in one sit, but rather it kept calling me to come back for many shorter sessions, likely because it's slower and doesn't keep constantly pumping that dopamine like many faster games do. Still, I completed the game once in about 18 hours of total gameplay, and plan to go for New Game+ to find the things I missed on first playthough. Big recommendation for anyone interested in mystery games!

One of the most unique games I have ever played. I was a little surprised by all of the negative reviews, but after reading through them, I agree that a lot of the common complaints are valid and I can see how this game just isn't for everyone. However, I will say that there is a sort of fast travel where you can pass control to your robot while sailing, but I'm not sure if that was added in a later update, or you have to have sailed in a certain area X number of times or something like that. Any negative criticisms were far outweighed by all of the things I loved about it: the art, the music, the world, the mystery, and most of all, I loved deciphering the ancient glyphs, which is really the core hook of the game. Also note that you probably won't be able to solve everything or go everywhere in your first playthrough, as I believe you are really meant to play through it multiple times. Each time, you are able to carry over any glyphs you have solved in previous runs, and the phrases get longer and more complex each time. I can see how that wouldn't appeal to some folks, though, especially if the first playthrough didn't really capture you. So I'd recommend reading through both positive and negative reviews and deciding for yourself if it feels like something you would enjoy. It might not be for you, but it also might be one of the most memorable experiences you have in a game.

Easy permanent misclicks and missed parts of the story, without save option. Also very slow walking and multiple playthroughs necessary. Very hard to 'complete' all translations.

A slow burn exploration and discovery quest with unique but jarring presentation of 2D sprites in 3D environments. Seemed interesting at first with language deciphering, but really dragged down by unlikable characters and boring story. Lots of text dialogue between the main protagonist and her robot companion. Game progression is very slow and the story about time loops, soul rivers, ancient robot conspiracies is not engaging nor meaningful to sustain continued game play.

Loved this game, felt unique for very many reasons (mechanics, aesthetic influence, etc). Very satisfying puzzling and a compelling setting and story.

Phenomenal game and story! A lot of it is too slow paced for my liking. But the world and history are so rich and detailed and the process of slowing learning things through translation was a joy.