Coriolis: The Great Dark is the latest roleplaying game from Free League Publishing and a continuation of the Coriolis setting, which was initially explored in Coriolis: The Third Horizon (reviewed here).
Prior knowledge of the Coriolis storyline is not essential, as The Great Dark roleplaying game takes place in a completely different part of the universe. The game is also tonally quite different. Previously, The Third Horizon focused on players navigating the factional politics of an established civilisation, whereas The Great Dark is focused on exploration and survival in harsh environments.
The Great Dark is set in a previously unexplored galaxy within the Coriolis universe, after an exodus from the Third Horizon travelled there. The new and emerging society has settled itself on an asteroid and are slowly exploring ancient ruins searching for ancient technologies and trying to uncover what happened to the alien civilisation.
The core rulebook for The Great Dark uses exploratory great ships from the 19th century as an analogy, which is a fair comparison. The player characters are a landing team that explore some of the ancient ruins hidden in the galaxy. They form part of much larger great ship, which they operate from.
The society of The Great Dark has evolved quite differently from The Third Horizon. It feels less like One Thousand and One Nights in space and closer to At the Mountains of Madness. That said, existing fans of the setting will find hints and nods to The Third Horizon, such as the icon worship, which is no longer as widely followed as it was before. Instead, the society has moved closer to ancestor worship.
Much of the game will focus on factional politics at Ship City and expeditions into the great dark searching for new artifacts and navigating the slipstreams; the so-called ‘River of Stars’ that allows the great ships a way to travel far faster than traditional space voyages.
Coriolis: The Third Horizon has the ‘dark between the stars’ (a corrupting force from the nothingness of space), The Great Dark has the blight – an alien scourge that spreads from ruins and corrupts all life. Working to counter the blight are the Birds; alien creatures found in the ruins that can detect and sometimes even counter some effects of the blight.
The system is a version of the Year Zero, which players of other Free League games, such as the Alien: The Roleplaying Game and The Third Horizon, will instantly find recognisable. It is a system that works best by only making rules when players absolutely have to, as it can be punishing for the players if there are a series of unlucky rolls. However, this encourages roleplay and collaboration, rather than reaching for dice at every situation.
The core rulebook for Coriolis: The Great Dark is in-depth and expansive, with a lot of information that is only for the storytellers. Any players reading these sections will find it detrimental, as part of the enjoyment of The Great Dark is uncovering the hidden mysteries within the setting.
The artwork is also fantastic, with atmospheric landscape paintings of the setting and detailed diagrams of the equipment. The design of the book as a whole is especially detailed, evoking the mood and feel of the games, and further enhance the players’ immersion.
Overall, Coriolis: The Great Dark is a fantastic addition to Free League’s collection and a must for any fan of science-fiction roleplaying, exploring the unknown and uncovering mysteries. It is a game that is able to stand on its own, whilst at the same time acknowledging the previous edition of The Third Horizon, to create an entirely new immersive roleplaying experience for players and storytellers alike to enjoy.
