Written by: Rik
Date posted: February 14, 2026

Those who consider games an escape from real world events might be increasingly alarmed by the rapid convergence of global news with the dystopian futures of science fiction settings, particularly if you happen to be nursing a large backlog of titles first released a few years ago. In this particular instance, Shardlight – a collaboration between Ben Chandler and Francisco González (A Golden Wake) for Wadjet Eye Games – appears to have predicted the COVID-19 pandemic, and so perhaps these days should come with a warning for anyone who found that period particularly harrowing or difficult.

The full scale of world system collapse depicted here hasn’t quite happened (yet), and though a vaccine exists for the contagious disease known as Green Lung, its supplies are apparently limited to the extent that normal citizens are forced to complete dangerous tasks to enter a lottery for a chance of receiving a dose. That’s where we join our protagonist, Amy Wellard, on a so-called ‘lottery job’, venturing underground in an attempt to restart an energy reactor and earn a precious ticket.

No society as desperate as this would be complete without a privileged ruling class dishing out the jobs (and the tickets) from on high, and indeed successful completion of this task introduces the Aristocracy, a rather direct take on the concept, who dress in ostentatious period clothing – jackets, wigs, muskets and all. Their leader, Tiberius, who wears a mask and talks to himself in his private quarters, has also apparently started taking spiritual advice from a soothsayer, and so doesn’t seem like the most stable of chaps. But while Amy is understandably wary of getting too involved, he has the power, and something she wants, so inevitably their paths must cross again.

Despite her precarious existence and the general bleakness of her surroundings, Amy remains reasonably cheerful company, with an early section seeing her partake in friendly conversation with most of her fellow locals at the market, all of whom are similarly doing their best to make a living under the circumstances. Following a thread picked up during her lottery job brings her into more dangerous territory, however, and it soon becomes apparent that there is, naturally, a movement to resist and ultimately overthrow the Aristocracy.

It’s a good story, featuring plenty of twists and turns, and on a grander scale than you might expect from the opening exchanges. In fact, Shardlight gets off to a little bit of a slow start in general, and though the difficulty level is, in line with the other Wadjet Eye titles we’ve covered here, generally pitched towards the lower end, one puzzle in particular has the potential to confound and frustrate before the story even really gets going. Thankfully, this proves to be an outlier, and the game soon picks up momentum afterwards.

There’s no getting away from the fact that it’s a pretty bleak tale, with some genuinely shocking (and violent) moments, although there is some light as well as shade, and the tone is never relentlessly downbeat. Amy is good company for the most part, and her calm demeanour and focus on the task in hand make her a more palatable hero in this environment than, say, some cynical male freedom fighter with a grizzly voice (although there is another minor character who does rather fit the bill in this regard). Performances are consistently good, although some of the bad guys, particularly Tiberius, verge a little on the edge of pantomime.

Francisco González’s previous game, A Golden Wake – published under his own Grundislav Games label – was notable for attempting to tell an epic tale across a longer time period, with many changes in location and setting, although at times the player could feel rushed through events without really having the chance to immerse themselves in the world. Shardlight retains the same level of ambition in its storytelling, but a greater control of pacing is evident this time around.

That isn’t to say there aren’t a few missteps, and the odd plot moment when you don’t quite buy what the game is selling, but it certainly keeps you on your toes throughout. There’s even a big decision to be made as you come towards the finale, with your uncertainty about the events unfolding on screen mirroring those of your character in real time, injecting a certain amount of adrenaline into that moment when you need to click your mouse one way or another (and possibly forcing you into a choice that you didn’t expect to make).

Aside from the generally stellar voice work, it’s otherwise very well put together on the audio-visual front. The graphics are dominated by the oranges and browns of a destroyed, irradiated world, cut through with occasional flashes of green, the colour of the shards of the game’s title that provide artificial light in this new world. The music is good, too: a little idiosyncratic in places, perhaps, but strangely fitting all the same.

Overall, Shardlight is a solid addition to any adventure game fan’s library, and a definite improvement on A Golden Wake (for which I nevertheless retain a soft spot), if not quite ever scaling the heights of Wadjet Eye’s very best. It’s possible to imagine it being abandoned in the opening stages – particularly if that early puzzle proves to be a sticking point – but persist beyond that and, providing you’re in the mood and/or have the stomach for the setting and events depicted, you’ll be amply rewarded.