In Heaven’s Vault you play an archaeologist translating an ancient alien language whose decrypting weaves through an unfolding drama. While doing real linguistic work you interact with companions and locals. Your choices can open or close vast swathes of investigative opportunities. In turn, this directs the branching narrative in different ways. Intelligent guesswork is required to translate a large number of inscriptions, while deciphering the motivations of those around you. An ingenious timeline documents every move, and a brief synopsis each time you start playing keeps things accessible even to infrequent players.

Like real archeology, you need multiple runs through the game to fully decipher the language and the artifices you discover. Revisiting in this way, after completing the game, sheds new light on the importance and meaning of you discover while exploring.

It’s a unique and meticulous mystery-solving experience, worth playing not only for a branching story and interactive puzzles, but in how much it trusts and empowers the player to follow (unless they get side-tracked) the complex and mature narrative.

There is also a two-part novel series penned by the game's narrative designer, Jon Ingold. This novelization retells the game's narrative, delving more broadly into the mysteries of the Nebula and more deeply into the backstories of protagonist Aliya Elasra and her robot companion, Six. Each book is about 300 pages and available in hard or soft cover.