Heaven's Vault on Steam - User reviews, Price & Information
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An archaeologist uncovers a lost history in an ancient space Nebula. Award-winning narrative adventure game with hieroglyphic language puzzles, from the creators of 80 DAYS.
Heaven's Vault is a adventure, narrative and mystery game
developed and published by inkle Ltd.
Released on April 16th 2019 is available in English only on Windows.
It has received 2,209 reviews of which 1,889 were positive and 320 were negative resulting in a rating of 8.2 out of 10. 😎
The game is currently priced at 10.99€ on Steam with a 50% discount, but you can find it for less on Gamivo.
The Steam community has classified Heaven's Vault into these genres:
Media & Screenshots
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System requirements
These are the minimum specifications needed to play the game. For the best experience, we recommend that you verify them.
Windows
- OS *: Windows 7 or later
- Processor: SSE2 instruction set support
- Memory: 4 GB RAM
- Graphics: Nvidia Geforce GTX 660 / AMD Radeon HD 7850, 2+ Gb of vram
- DirectX: Version 10
- Storage: 5 GB available space
- Additional Notes: Not recommended for Intel HD GPUs
User reviews & Ratings
Explore reviews from Steam users sharing their experiences and what they love about the game.
This game is amazing, but it will force you to take your time and think through things. The way the game has a built in language tool is brilliant, and the way what you learn shapes your interactions with everything around you is indescribably cool. I absolutely recommend this game to anyone who likes figuring things out and working through language puzzles. That said, this game definitely has some pros and cons based on the decisions the development team made. Pros: 1) There are NO wrong decisions. You can always progress through to the end of the game, no matter what happens. 2) You can use the New Game + feature after completing to go through again and try different things, and you will WANT to. Each run through reveals more information, more lore, and reveals new possibilities for interpretation. You also retain your nebula map and knowledge of the ancient language (including guessed words) on each subsequent run, and the inscriptions get longer and more complex with each pass. 3) The art and writing are beautiful, and the characters feel realistically written, with their own feelings and motivations. The maps and scenery are very well done, and provide an immersive experience. The music adds to the atmosphere beautifully. 4) Navigating through the nebula is a unique and extremely enjoyable experience. I loved exploring and finding new paths, and since you keep expanding your map, there are a lot of new paths to explore. 5) The items and inscriptions are randomized between runs. Since your understanding of the language and what you have read impacts your interactions with other characters, this can have a significant impact on each playthrough and provides a lot of additional replay value. Cons: 1) This game EATS time. There are a lot of parts of the game that just take an inordinate amount of time and you end up waiting for things to happen. Using hoppers, scene transitions, interactions with characters all take a lot of time, and for many of them you don't have a way to speed them up. The worst is giving objects to Huang to archive, as you can do two each time you visit him, and you have to wait for him to get back before you can do the second, which takes a LONG time. Considering that showing objects to Huang is one of the main ways of getting new inscriptions and confirming translations, you do this a LOT, and it gets agonizing after a while. The main character's movement is also agonizingly slow, especially in dangerous areas that impact her health. 2) There are a LOT of places where moving to a specific spot forces you to move to a new section of an area and you can't get back. There are also choices and interactions that act as one-way gates. 3) There is no manual save or load, just an extremely aggressive autosave that happens after EVERY single interaction with a thing or character. Considering 1) and 2), this is almost unacceptable. The only mitigating factor is that you will want to go through the story multiple times with New Game + anyway, but you will run into points that make you want to throw your keyboard because you messed up a sequence or accidentally stepped away from something you were trying to do. 4) The on-foot navigation can be a little janky. It is very easy to accidentally get too close to a doorway or action point that forces your hand without your meaning for it to. There are only a few places where this is problematic, and they only have minor impact on the gameplay, but it is still irritating. 5) This game desperately needs an inventory management interface, especially when interacting with other characters. The descriptions you see when you get an item, when you look at the inscriptions in the inscriptions interface, and the descriptions with other characters can be COMPLETELY different. If you have multiple telescopes, oil burners, or knives, you have almost no way to know which one it is actually referring to, and since there is no way to be certain and no way to go back, it is EXTREMELY easy to pick the wrong item, and mess up. 6) When the inscriptions start getting really long, the interface for translation desperately needs to be adjusted to allow better navigation and selection of words. Your only option is to move the mouse or controller to the edge and wait for it to scroll, which can take a long time. Since the words you are picking to translate from are not in any particular order (they tend to be in the order in which you learned them, which is semi-random most of the time), there can be a LOT of scrolling back and forth to find the words you need when figuring out a new inscription. 7) Almost all of the hotspot interaction points in the game, both in the nebula navigation and in the physical locations are only interactive within a specific range and from a particular perspective. This means you end up spending a LOT of time moving around the maps, looking from different angles to try and find all of the hotspots you care about if you are thorough. Since there are some areas that are hostile and drain health, this limits your time to interact, and trying to find the hotspots you care about in that limited time can be extremely frustrating. This is especially true if leaving that area proves to be one of those one-way checkpoints and you can't go back to try again. Bottom line, the game is absolutely fantastic, and well worth playing, but there will be a significant amount of frustration if you like to be thorough in your gameplay.
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This game's strengths overcome its weaknesses to create a memorable experience. Heaven's Vault is beautiful, and the feeling of discovering and learning more about its world is a magical experience. Sailing on your ship to reach locations isn't perfect - the setting is visually beautiful, the sailing mechanic does truly evoke a feeling of exploration and trying to discover a ruin when you are searching an area, and you do get to autopilot rivers you've already sailed, but it can still get a little too slow and tedious at times - if the sailing speed itself was just faster I might prefer it. However, walking gets painful - it feels clumsy and slow, with unclear environmental boundaries. I understand the pace and style of this game does not lend itself to you running and jumping around, but the walking gets clunky and tedious enough that I don't feel a strong desire to replay the game and deal with that again, having already experienced the story once.
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Very Mid imho. I dont *not* recommend it, but its not great either. Not a bad way to spend a weekend, I had a good time with the first half at least Pros: -The art style is very pretty -It has a fun language system that you can learn along the way -Its a visionary setting, Solarpunk/steampunk scifi. You sail on rivers of light in a wooden sailing vessel -The mystery laid out before you is interesting to consider Cons: -The ending wasnt satisfying in any way. It snuck up on me, it didnt rely much on the choices and ideas discovered earlier, and it boiled down to someone comping up to me and saying "do you want ending a or b?" and then you pick. You also dont see the "fallout" of any of the endings. Its just done and gone. -The language puzzles became a bit grating by the end, you have to scroll through extra long phrases and match words up. It just loses its charm, overstays its welcome by the end -Walking is soooooooooo slow, and way finding isnt good. Its not a big open world, but sometimes youre in a space and it wants you to find a specific person, so youre just meandering hoping you find what youre looking for and its just so slow.
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The gameplay is unpolished af. But everything that has to do with the language puzzles is absolutely incredible
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Heaven's Vault is a unique game, though not without its flaws. I picked it up as part of my Metroidbranias journey, which I embarked on after playing Outer Wilds. Heaven's Vault is undeniably a knowledge-driven game—you rely heavily on learning an ancient language to unravel the mysteries of the world: who the past civilizations were, what happened to them, and what fate awaits in the near future. The ancient language is, without a doubt, the most standout feature of the game. While it’s not as complex as real-world languages, it's intricate enough to keep you engaged for the entire game, constantly pushing you to discover more texts and expand your vocabulary. What makes this learning process so compelling is the internal logic of the language. Words aren’t random; they follow a recognizable structure that gradually becomes clear as you encounter more examples. There are roughly 40 symbols in the alphabet, each playing a different role. Some act as base symbols—such as water, person, or light—while others indicate parts of speech, like nouns and verbs. For example, combining a noun modifier with the base symbol for water gives you "water," while adding a verb modifier produces "to drink." Base symbols can also be combined to form new meanings—light + high results in "star." Additionally, there are special symbols for negation and possession. Whole words can be fused together, creating longer and more complex meanings. For instance, the word "grateful" stretches to a whopping fourteen characters! You encounter new words while exploring the game world—etched into ancient walls, hidden in old books, or inscribed on mysterious artifacts. When faced with an unknown word, the game presents you with a small list of possible translations. If you see the word again, the game tells you whether your guess was correct. If you were right, the word is added to your dictionary; if not, the game removes one incorrect option and asks you to try again. As your vocabulary expands and you grasp the structure, the game stops breaking phrases into separate words, it presents them as a single unbroken sequence, forcing you to identify word boundaries yourself. While language learning is Heaven’s Vault's crowning achievement, traversing the game world is its Achilles' heel. In a sense, the game shares similarities with Outer Wilds—you travel to a destination first, then explore. However, in OW, both the spaceship and your suit serve as mechanics you must master. Even in the late game, a careless mistake can land you in a sticky situation. There are a few key distinctions in how traversal works in Heaven’s Vault: 1. You can’t freely roam the world. In OW, you can venture anywhere from the start—you may not understand what you find, but the freedom is there. In HV, destinations only become available once you've gathered enough clues about their location. You can sail around endlessly, but aside from the occasional inscribed trinket, there’s little to discover by sheer chance. 2. Travel and exploration are entirely separate mechanics. You sail the rivers, then land on a moon to explore on foot. But since nothing meaningful happens during sailing, this mechanic could be removed without much loss. The only casualty would be character dialogue, but since they chatter constantly while on foot, it wouldn’t be much of a sacrifice. 3. Sailing lacks challenge. All you do is choose a turn and then wait for the next prompt. There’s no real risk—if you take a wrong turn, the game simply offers to teleport you back to retry. This makes the sailing segments mind-numbingly dull, though fast travel (which unlocks once a route is known) helps mitigate the tedium. Speaking of locations, there are two major types: populated cities and ancient, uninhabited sites. Cities can be visited freely, as many times as you like. The other sites, however, are one-and-done—once you leave, you can’t return. This feels like a huge missed opportunity. I would have loved an exploration loop where you could revisit locations after gaining new knowledge, unlocking previously inaccessible areas, and uncovering deeper secrets. The same issue applies to the ending. It seems there’s no real difference between learning as much of the language as possible or barely scratching the surface. How much better would it be if the game allowed you to reach an ending early, but with less-than-ideal outcomes? Then, with additional knowledge, you could piece together a way to turn things around and unlock a truly satisfying conclusion.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Heaven's Vault is currently priced at 10.99€ on Steam.
Heaven's Vault is currently available at a 50% discount. You can purchase it for 10.99€ on Steam.
Heaven's Vault received 1,889 positive votes out of a total of 2,209 achieving a rating of 8.20.
😎
Heaven's Vault was developed and published by inkle Ltd.
Heaven's Vault is playable and fully supported on Windows.
Heaven's Vault is not playable on MacOS.
Heaven's Vault is not playable on Linux.
Heaven's Vault is a single-player game.
There is a DLC available for Heaven's Vault. Explore additional content available for Heaven's Vault on Steam.
Heaven's Vault does not support mods via Steam Workshop.
Heaven's Vault supports Remote Play on TV. Discover more about Steam Remote Play.
Heaven's Vault is enabled for Steam Family Sharing. This means you can share the game with authorized users from your Steam Library, allowing them to play it on their own accounts. For more details on how the feature works, you can read the original Steam Family Sharing announcement or visit the Steam Family Sharing user guide and FAQ page.
You can find solutions or submit a support ticket by visiting the Steam Support page for Heaven's Vault.
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Last Updates| Steam data | 18 January 2026 11:18 |
|---|---|
| SteamSpy data | 24 January 2026 09:54 |
| Steam price | 29 January 2026 04:41 |
| Steam reviews | 27 January 2026 05:47 |
If you'd like to dive deeper into the details about Heaven's Vault, we invite you to check out a few dedicated websites that offer extensive information and insights. These platforms provide valuable data, analysis, and user-generated reports to enhance your understanding of the game and its performance.
- SteamDB - A comprehensive database of everything on Steam about Heaven's Vault
- SteamCharts - Analysis of Heaven's Vault concurrent players on Steam
- ProtonDB - Crowdsourced reports on Linux and Steam Deck Heaven's Vault compatibility
Game modes
Features
Online players
22
Developer
inkle Ltd
Publisher
inkle Ltd
Release
16 Apr 2019
Platforms
Remote Play
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