Ambrosia Sky Is An Essay On Death Masquerading As A Sci-fi Cleaning Sim

2 months ago

Dalia is simply a decease cleaner.

Death cleaning, arsenic we cognize it, is nan process of sanitizing and tidying nan spaces wherever group return their last breaths, sometimes agelong aft their bodies person begun to decompose. It’s a occupation present connected Earth successful nan twelvemonth 2025, but Dalia’s type of decease cleaning takes spot connected nan rings of Saturn successful a distant early filled pinch abstraction travel, interplanetary colonialism and devastating illness outbreaks. In this scenario, decease cleaning involves spraying chemicals complete bulging piles of otherworldly contamination and avoiding their defense mechanisms, which tin origin fires, explosions and electrical interference. Dalia learns from nan alien worldly arsenic she cleans, harvesting consequence from fungal mounds to create caller options for her sprayer. She besides listens to nan past words of nan dead.

Ambrosia Sky is nan first crippled from independent workplace Soft Rains and its communicative trailer landed connected Wednesday. In Ambrosia Sky, Dalia is cleaning nan Cluster, an cultivation outpost connected Saturn’s rings that collapsed erstwhile a mysterious biologic unit subsumed nan colony and its people. It's besides Dalia’s erstwhile home.

As a Scarab pinch The Ambrosia Project, her occupation is to clear retired nan alien fungus, investigation its origins and execute Death Rites connected nan corpses she encounters. Scarabs run successful nan shadowy spaces betwixt subject and mysticism, and The Ambrosia Project’s extremity is to observe a cure for mortality among nan stars. Death Rites impact proceeding nan deceased person’s Last Will and cremating their assemblage pinch specialized spores, adding their DNA to The Ambrosia Project for further research. It’s a ritualistic acknowledgement of a person’s life arsenic overmuch arsenic their death, and these mini ceremonies are conscionable arsenic captious successful Ambrosia Sky arsenic nan game’s first-person cleaning mechanics.

“I really fto myself and our squad research much mythological aliases fantastical elements, aliases moreover folkloric elements, because I deliberation there's only truthful overmuch we tin cognize astir outer space,” Soft Rains communicative head Kaitlin Tremblay told Engadget. “[Also] location are things that we cognize concretely astir death, but there's truthful overmuch astir it we don't know. I deliberation it's nan aforesaid benignant of absorbing liminal space. What don’t we know, and really do we show stories and effort to comfortableness ourselves and contend pinch that? That really makes my marque of sci-fi and my attack connected decease really similar.”

Ambrosia Sky is an investigation of nan beingness and mortality alike, successful nan shape of a first-person, speculative-fiction cleaning sim connected Saturn’s rings. It features zero-gravity scenes, crafting, instrumentality upgrades and classical FPS play, underpinned by a slow unfurling communicative of lethal disaster.

Soft Rains has been softly moving connected Ambrosia Sky since precocious 2022 and formally announced nan game successful March 2025. The workplace was founded by Tremblay — who was communicative designer connected Watch Dogs Legion and Grindstone, and lead writer of A Mortician’s Tale and Seasonala Cemetery — and other manufacture veterans from Bethesda, Ubisoft and indie teams.

Ambrosia Sky's communicative trailer features a staticky, disembodied sound saying, “Hey, Dalia. It’s me. When I die, I want a Scarab called in. And I want it to beryllium you.” It’s amazingly heart-wrenching, for a two-minute teaser of a sci-fi clean-em-up.

“It's conscionable honest, right?” Tremblay said. “We person a batch of emotions astir death, and our ain decease and everything astir it. Some of those emotions incorporate brightness and immoderate of them incorporate darkness, and some are arsenic valid. Both tin beryllium astatine nan aforesaid time.”

Death is simply a regular visitant successful Tremblay’s writing. In particular, A Mortician’s Tale is an acclaimed position of nan business of mortality, and Seasonala Cemetery is simply a meditative acquisition astir spending clip successful a graveyard. In a devlog entry connected June 10, Tremblay compared nan mortality perspective successful Ambrosia Sky to that of A Mortician’s Tale, writing, “With Ambrosia Sky, we wanted to person nan opportunity to research really we consciousness astir our ain death, alternatively than nan decease of our loved ones.”

I was struck by this favoritism erstwhile I first publication it, and because I'm besides consumed by thoughts of my ain inescapable expiration, I asked Tremblay for more. They said nan following:

“That is peculiarly nan attack I'm taking for nan Death Rituals. The Death Rituals are erstwhile you find those individuals successful nan world and you sample their DNA for nan project, but you're besides listening to their recorded Last Wills. I really wanted those to beryllium a infinitesimal to fto nan characters talk authentically astir what their decease really intends to them. Because I consciousness for illustration successful my activity and successful truthful galore different games, it's often astir really we consciousness astir death, aliases our condolences aliases our mourning process.

“I deliberation this is astir apt a denotation of post-pandemic encephalon and getting older, but I’m reasoning a batch much astir what does my decease really mean to me, and trying to beryllium pinch it successful a measurement that doesn't support maine up until 4AM. So I deliberation this is really that benignant of approach. We each astir apt deliberation astir our ain decease and group person a batch of feelings connected their ain imaginable death, and truthful I wanted to springiness sound to that, and person this abstraction to talk done and activity done immoderate of those emotions.”

And cleanable up elephantine tendrils of neon fungus, of course.

Ambrosia Sky is being developed and published by Soft Rains, and it's owed to travel retired "soon." A demo is available now connected Steam.