Metroid Prime meets PowerWash Simulator is the elevator pitch for Ambrosia Sky: Act One. Set aboard a derelict space colony within the rings of Saturn, you’ll explore the apartments, science labs, and interstellar farms of this once-thriving community, reading notes, examining corpses, and using a tether to navigate unstable gravity fields. Equipped with a versatile chemical sprayer, you’ll also cleanse the colony of the deadly fungi contaminating its every nook and cranny–a first-person cleaning process that’s both cathartic and urgent, as you cycle through nozzle types and chemical agents to fight back against a hostile ecosystem by clearing it away.
As a sci-fi cleaning game, Ambrosia Sky is relatively novel. Yet developer Soft Rains goes one step further by taking you on a melancholic and sentimental journey about death. Specifically, dying alone in the far reaches of our solar system.
Playing as a woman named Dalia, you assume dual roles as both a field scientist and a space-faring undertaker known as a Scarab. When you’re not hosing down fungus and piecing together what happened before everything went to hell, you’re collecting biological samples from the dead and laying them to rest. “Where catastrophe strikes, Scarabs go,” is the mystical group’s unofficial motto. Their mission is to sequence the DNA of the recently deceased and find a way to reverse cellular decay in humans, all in pursuit of achieving immortality. But this lofty ambition takes a back seat to Dalia’s personal conflict as she’s forced to confront her past.
The job of a Scarab is heavy enough as it is, but for Dalia, this particular investigation also hits close to home. Literally. This desecrated asteroid colony is her birthplace, making this a sombre homecoming after 15 years away. Most of those who have passed are people she once knew, and it’s clear early on that there’s still some unresolved baggage tied to her upbringing and eventual departure. With each reawakened memory and new piece of information, shades of survivor’s guilt begin to creep in, too, heralding unhealthy thoughts that maybe these people would still be alive if she’d never left.
By unravelling what happened and providing the dead with their last rites, there’s a sense that Dalia may find a semblance of personal closure by finishing the investigation. Unfortunately, neither you nor Dalia will find that closure here. As the name implies, Ambrosia Sky: Act One is just the first part of this story, and as such, the game ends without reaching a satisfying conclusion. Multiple threads are left open–with allusions to a religious cult and corporate negligence–and the ending comes at a time when momentum is just beginning to pick up. The fact that I’m eager to see more is proof that Dalia’s story and the colony’s mysteries have dug their hooks in deep, but this also makes the wait for Act Two (arriving sometime in 2026) all the more arduous.
Even though this slice of the game’s overarching narrative ends before you’re given answers, it doesn’t blunt the impact of Ambrosia Sky’s quieter moments and tender approach to death. Only certain bodies meet the criteria for the Scarab’s bioremediation, so the lead-up to discovering each one typically provides an insight into their lives. By reading notes, checking emails, and listening to Dalia’s recollections, you gain a sense of their character, their standing within the colony, what they were doing in their final days, and why they stayed behind when they could’ve evacuated with the rest.
This gives you an opportunity to connect with the departed before eventually hearing their final thoughts in one last message. Knowing that a Scarab would be sent to find them, and that it would probably be Dalia, gives each character the chance to leave a message of comfort. Even in their final moments, when a fungal infection is eating them alive from the inside, their empathy perseveres as they consider the feelings of the person finding their remains. By approaching their demise with compassion, these moments are not only evocative, but oddly hopeful. That Dalia is there to send them away, kneeling in front of them for a moment, preserving their memory with tenderness, respect, and reverence, feels right. Ambrosia Sky earns its poignancy and sentimentality.
There’s comfort in this approach to death and after-death care: a comfort often associated with cleaning games due to their meditative nature. Ambrosia Sky is no different in this regard. Armed with a pistol-like chemical sprayer, clearing the colony of fungi is as satisfying as you would hope, yet it’s also ingrained with a sense of purpose beyond the soothing act of cleaning. The fungus is a definite eyesore, contaminating the colony with twisting, electrified roots and horrid, purple clumps that resemble human intestines–the game’s painterly, almost-abstract art style is striking. However, it’s also a living, reactive barricade, blocking passageways and doors while disrupting the colony’s power.
Spraying the fungus with water is the simplest method of removing it, but by harvesting plant samples that occasionally grow out of its malignant tendrils, you can also upgrade your sprayer with various chemical agents. With the flammable spray, you’re able to burn through some fungal types at a much faster pace, while the electric spray allows you to open locked doors by creating a path to a nearby power source. You’re limited in how often you can use these additional sprays, so there’s some strategy involved in deciding when to utilize each one. You also might opt to pick up an explosive canister with your tether instead, launching it at a cluster of detritus to clear it away–though this is the only example of using the environment to your advantage. The game’s Steam store page describes it as an immersive sim, but each level is fairly linear, and there only ever seems to be one way to progress.
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Upgrade progression is disappointingly shallow, too. There are 18 upgrades in total, but most revolve around increasing your ammo capacity, and I unlocked each one after three missions or so. It feels like something Soft Rains will expand upon in Act Two and beyond, but right now, facets like this give the impression that Act One was cut out of a full game, rather than being a defined chapter on its own. The electric spray, for instance, goes unused unless you need it to open a locked door, and even then, most of these occurrences are optional. It’s an underbaked element that will ideally evolve into a more robust tool in the future.
If you’ve ever enjoyed the zen-like sensation of cleaning grime from skate parks, Mars rovers, and Shrek’s swamp, you’ll find plenty of satisfaction aboard Ambrosia Sky’s agricultural colony. There are some aspects–such as trifling progression and limited use cases–where it feels like it’s just getting its feet wet, but you’ll still discover that cleaning its fungus-filled hallways is a serene experience, offering fulfillment that’s both familiar and unique. Marrying this with human stories that inspire hope within the somber context of death is oddly comforting. I’m eager to see where Dalia’s journey takes her from here. It’s already a gripping tale, possessing a warmth and relatability that will resonate with most. Hopefully, future acts can build on these solid foundations.
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