When Sable first appeared at E3 last year, it was enough to snap me out of my early-morning slump, sit up straight, and message my friends in excitement. The game’s stunning visual design, dreamy environments and haunting soundtrack were so abruptly different from anything else at the show. It was enough to instantly push Sable to the top of my most-anticipated games list: a feeling shared by others, as I would later find out.
In the months since E3, Sable has received a huge amount of attention – not only from journalists, but from fans admiring the game on social media. Unsurprisingly, most of the discussion has focused on the art style and the game’s influences, with names such as Moebius, Ghibli, Star Wars and Breath of the Wild frequently cropping up in discussions.
While it’s both unsurprising and entirely justified for so much focus to be given to the art style, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the ideas driving the story, and the main character herself – Sable. What is she searching for? What sort of world does she live in? Why is she wearing a goat skull on her head?
To find out, I went on my own little voyage: to a shed in North London, where Sable is being made.
“I think the project has become more public, more publicly known, bigger than we ever would have anticipated,” Gregorios Kythreotis, Sable’s art designer and one half of Shedworks, begins the conversation by saying.
We’re in a small but modern garden shed, with an electric radiator to keep away the January cold, and just enough room for three people – and a huge stack of art books. If you hadn’t twigged yet, this is where Shedworks – Sable’s indie developer – gets its name.