A new column from PC Gamer makes the case for Fallen London, a sprawling text adventure from Failbetter Games. The game is where the writers of Baldur’s Gate 3, Dishonored and Stellaris come to let their hair down, and the premise holds up. Its monthly paid content, known as Exceptional Stories, opens the door to freelancers who offer short, standalone tales. Each episode carries the stamp of the person who wrote it, forming a rotating anthology of weird fiction.
The column is called Weird Weekend, and it celebrates PC gaming oddities. This week’s installment focuses on the writers who sneak into Fallen London to create stories that are too bold and surprising to stay secret. The list includes Baudelaire Welch, the architect of Baldur’s Gate 3’s Dark Urge path; Giada Zavarise, a Paradox designer; Nessa Cannon, a Borderlands 4 writer; and Hazel Monforton, who worked on Dishonored and Destiny. Each brings their own voice to the game’s sunken Victorian setting.
The City Beneath the Earth
The browser-based RPG Fallen London is set in a sunken Victorian capital, with players exploring the unterzee, a vast underground network of cities, rivers and ruins. The main questline, assembled by Failbetter in episodic installments, spans months or years to finish. It requires traveling across the unterzee until the player reaches the cavern roof where the false-stars shift and glitter.
Every month, between the major story arcs, a smaller set of quests arrives for subscribers alone. These are known as the Exceptional Stories, and they act like a ratwork watch, arriving regularly but standing apart from the main narrative. What makes them distinct is how they are made: they do not come from Failbetter’s core staff at all. Instead, the company hands them over to freelance contributors, which is the reason they can surprise players with unexpected twists and turns.
Baudelaire Welch’s Cult
Baudelaire Welch is the writer behind Baldur’s Gate 3’s Dark Urge path, where a protagonist commits a string of murders they do not remember. In Fallen London, he contributed The Goblin Poet, a story about a cult of BDSM bohemians who travel through a mirror to the Reddest Keep. There, they toil to capture the beauty of the Red-Handed Queen, using their own lifeblood as paint.
The Keep is said to be physically disgusting. Its floors are formed from stuffed animals bound together into a carpet of dead rodents. Yet the real source of dread comes from the artists themselves. They adore the queen, yet their devotion is fragile. As soon as she shows even a trace of imperfection, they abandon it and attack her with rage directed at women.
The queen argues back. “The vision I presented to you—that is who I am,” she says. “Who is not a different person when they turn to bed for the night? When they are in their own company? It is no different than wearing a fine suit! All of you will age and wither: why must I be confined to one skin alone?” The artists reject this argument, and their impossible ideals of womanhood unravel the queen, freeing them from a trap of their own making.
Giada Zavarise’s Steamer
Giada Zavarise, a Paradox designer, wrote Tired of London, another missing person case among this year’s Exceptional Stories. It channels the opening hours of Failbetter’s roguelike Sunless Sea, taking the player north on a steamer to the Tomb-Colonies. There, an ingénue seeks to escape the stifling obligations of nobility among the crumbling near-dead.
A grand spectacle marks the climax of a text-driven game, and it comes at no great cost to the budget. The ship lists and lurches into the black zee as the band plays on. “The captain removes the ship’s wheel,” Zavarise writes, “and throws it overboard.”
Nessa Cannon’s Love Story
Nessa Cannon, a Borderlands 4 writer, contributes Old, New, Drowned & Blue, a lethal love story rooted in the deep-zee court of the Fathomking. The Fathomking appreciates a good yarn as much as any Fallen London subscriber. The tale begins with a half-drowning, your own.
Hazel Monforton, who wrote for both Dishonored and Destiny, has created a romanceable rodent with three heads for The Prince of All Rats. It is a kind of character you would never expect to see kicking about The Tower alongside Ikora Rey and company.
Heather Flowers’ Dice Rolls
The more esoteric indies also show up among Fallen London’s Exceptional Stories, including contributions from Heather Flowers, a designer who enjoys meddling with probabilities. She has slipped stories into the game, and she takes particular pleasure in tampering with its dice rolls as well as with her own projects, such as the heads-or-tails system found in her work.
Why Freelance Writing Works
These stories carry the stamp of individual creators rather than a single guiding hand, which gives them the feel of a scattered anthology series. Every piece stands alone, closing off its own set of characters without carrying their fates forward into what comes next. The writers leave traces of their personal tastes and manner in each work, so no two pieces read alike.
When AAA writers are given free rein in a setting flexible enough for their most extravagant notions, and trusted to craft a story from beginning to end, it becomes clear how distinct their individual voices are—rather than being drowned out by the sheer scale of a much larger production.
What Makes It Work
A decade and a half on, Fallen London remains a striking work of interactive fiction, regularly refreshed with fresh narratives. Its central questline consumes resources as a gadabout turned magnate, yet the Exceptional Stories provide a more gentle path through the city’s streets.
This game offers an endless feast of comic and cosmic horror, built from a living world packed with fascinating mysteries. Players who poke at it during idle moments on their phone find it rewarding. The experience grows into a slow-burn, deeply satisfying parallel existence over time.
These oddities deserve celebration, just as the column’s writers offer theirs. Fallen London is a place where the writers of our favorite games gather to produce their boldest, cleverest, most wicked and affecting work.
The Paywall Problem
A game that wants to grow its audience has a problem with The Exceptional Stories, since those stories are reserved for subscribers only and thus not available to everyone. The subscriber-only format creates the obstacle.
Each story is brief, which makes them simple to try. A person can enter, read a tale, and leave without agreeing to a long campaign.
A Place For Writers To Roam
The column’s final line invites readers to stay current on the biggest stories and the finest deals, selected by the PC Gamer team. The boilerplate is familiar, but the material that fills it is what matters.
Players who spend time in Fallen London find that reading closely pays off, since the game demands they follow a thread of logic and care about characters living in a world that is not their own. The game rewards attention by asking players to sit with its text. The Exceptional Stories bring together both AAA writers and indie voices under one roof.
That the game endures speaks to its construction. Fifteen years of updates, and it remains untried. Because it runs through a web page, it may be played at any hour, during brief intervals, without requiring a long stretch of time.
A Note On The Column
PC Gamer’s writers have turned sharing what they’ve become obsessed with into a weekly tradition, and this column celebrates PC gaming oddities. Thief’s Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager. This week’s entry fits that pattern, marking one example of the canon height of the series that has caught their attention.
The column’s writers have become obsessed with Fallen London’s Exceptional Stories brings together the narrative wranglers behind our favorite games for their bravest, smartest, most depraved and moving work. That is what it does, and it is a fair assessment.
Key Facts Box
- Game: Fallen London, a text-based RPG from Failbetter Games
- Setting: A sunken Victorian capital city beneath the earth
- Main Quest: Episodic installments from Failbetter, spanning months or years
- Exceptional Stories: Monthly subscriber-only quests, written by freelancers
- Contributors: Baudelaire Welch, Giada Zavarise, Nessa Cannon, Hazel Monforton, Heather Flowers
- Platform: Browser-based, playable on PC
A Note On The Column
PC Gamer’s column is a tribute to the peculiar side of PC gaming, and it stands alone as something worth reading. The writers have made a weekly custom of sharing what has captured their attention, no matter how strange or offbeat, and the column’s entry about Thief’s Garrett or that time someone in the Vatican pirated Football Manager fits that very pattern.
The column’s writers have become obsessed with Fallen London’s Exceptional Stories. The game is a place where the narrative wranglers behind our favorite games come together to do their bravest, smartest, most depraved and moving work. That is the takeaway, and it is a fair one.
Source material: “Fallen London is where the writers of Baldur's Gate 3, Dishonored and Stellaris come to let their hair down,” PC Gamer.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.