I’ve been away from the MMOs of my past – taking a bit of a rest from sinking thousands of hours into Guild Wars 2 or The Elder Scrolls online—and to fill their place I’ve been playing, well, another MMO. But a cosy one.
Sky: Children of the Light is a beautiful and casual MMO from the developer of Journey, which somehow managed to take the same flying and sand surfing that made their two-hour PlayStation game a hit and turn it into a multiplatform live service phenomenon. I turned to Sky occasionally on my Nintendo Switch for a few years but after it finally launched on PC this spring I’ve been back into it pretty aggressively.
Sky’s primary activities are exploration and platforming challenges, collecting currency (candles) out in the world where it regenerates each day, and finding new ‘spirit’ characters in the world to purchase emotes and cosmetics from. At an abstract level, most of my time in Sky is spent just like in other MMOs: I do small daily quests during season events with new content, go on weekly trips through the endgame to earn ascended candles, and grind for regular currency to keep expanding my wardrobe. Because fashion is the real endgame in most MMOs, let’s be honest.