Sable was a day-one release on Xbox Game Pass back in September 2021, but I was late to the game and only started a few months ago. When I saw it’d be leaving on 10/16, I decided to get back into it and finish it up. Luckily, Sable isn’t a very long game, so I was able to complete it in a few days once I got back into it; and I’m very glad I did.
The Gliding
Sable is about a young girls’ “Gliding”, where she leaves her clan to explore the world and choose a mask. (It’s basically her rumspringa.) Your journey ends when you choose a mask, and most of the game is spent exploring the world and earning badges to claim each of the various masks. There’s no “right” choice in the end – you’re free to choose whatever you like and there’s no consequence for the choice.
Sable is a game that’s about the journey rather than the destination. You can trigger the ending pretty quickly (within a few hours), but even the message in the game that starts the final quest tells you there’s no rush. If you’re a completionist (like me), it’ll take a little longer – earning all the achievements took me around 11 hours (mostly because I only found out about fast traveling very late in the game). It’s relatively easy to earn all the achievements as well – they’re mostly focused around earning the different masks in the game and collecting a variety of clothes and bike parts. The only things I needed to “grind” for were finding enough of the chum eggs to finish the “Building a Queendom” quest for the chum queen. The achievements are really the only “push” toward completing everything.
The Masks
Masks in Sable indicate a person’s profession or focus. You start with the child mask and earn the Ibexii mask as you leave your clan. The other masks are all earned by completing quests or performing actions specific to the profession; each requires you to earn three badges. If you want the merchant mask, you can simply buy three badges from merchants and trade them in for the mask. You’ll have to perform favors for guards, mechanists, innkeepers, or entertainers to earn their badges. The climbing and cartographer masks both require some climbing. You earn scrapper badges by exploring wrecks and selling salvage. The remaining few masks are earned from special quests. Whenever you’ve earned a set of badges, you can visit a “Mask Crafter” to earn the specific mask.
Getting Around
Most of Sable’s exploration involves climbing, and the climbing mechanic is very similar to Shadow of the Colossus – your stamina depletes as you climb, and you drop if you run out. You can earn additional stamina through a special side quest which makes the climbing a lot easier. Generally, however, you don’t need the extra stamina to find everything you need.
You also have “The Perpetual” a magic stone that puts you in a bubble to slow your descent. You can cross large areas with it without losing too much altitude, and it also saves you if you fall from heights.
Before you leave your tribe, you spend some time collecting parts to build your hoverbike, which is the only companion you’ll have for most of the game. You can even call for it and it’ll find its way to you, like a faithful steed. As you play, you can unlock new parts for your bike to enhance its capabilities, along with new paints to change its look. Once I bought the speeder bike parts, I was cruising around the map with ease.
The hoverbike was also one of the buggiest parts of the game for me. It eventually stopped coming to me when I called, and when riding, it’d occasionally spaz out, flip, and start spinning on its nose. It was only a minor distraction, though; I loved my bike the whole game.
The background
Sable’s art style stands out, and I personally think it looks amazing. Each area in the game has a slightly different atmosphere and features to distinguish it from others. There are a few times when the art style hides some geometry that makes traversal a little more annoying (the vertebrae on the giant skeletons in a few areas will blend together and look like a flat surface), but in general the art style is really attractive.
Sable also has a great backstory that you learn by solving special puzzles in shipwrecks. It doesn’t have much bearing on the gameplay itself, but I’d love to see more games in the same world that Sable builds.
The End
Each player’s journey through Sable will be slightly different, and the choice each player makes in the end is personal, and I love that aspect of the game. It’s a great game to play when you just need some time to relax and explore, and I’m glad I took the time to see it through to the end.