what they were going to try to create with The Pale Beyond to something that was within their abilities. The development team used historical arctic expedition stories, including the Imperial Trans-Antarctic Expedition, the Terra Nova Expedition, and Franklin's lost expedition as inspiration for some of the elements facing the player. Hislop also cited the book The Lost Men, which chronicles the Shackleton expedition's support team that was building depots for them, and Endurance: Shackleton's Incredible Voyage as having anecdotes that were inspiring for their gameplay. The game designers considered adding supernatural horror elements to the game, but consistently decided to stick with real-world survival concerns throughout development. Hislop said that "real history is weirder" in reference to their decision to not include those elements. Hislop noted that animals are commonly afterthoughts in historical accounts of surviving winter cold, and that they wanted to make sure that you felt the tough decisions of deciding to slaughter the sled dogs if you decide to by giving them a voice through the kennel master's character. The game also includes an in-depth focus on how people are interacting and staying together, with Hislop noting that the effect of a shared trauma can bring people together in a unique way. Hislop noted that they were particularly focused on the artistic design of the title during development. Audio director James Bruce was tasked with making sound effects for the game. The Endurance book had notes about the sound the Endurance made as ice slowly crushed the hull, and Bruce recorded sounds to mimic the noise as described by sailors. The team used BBC Sound Archive recordings of penguins and seals. The sound design was important because of the featureless landscape. Hislop said, "You can't do your normal filler of like, 'Oh, we'll have birds chirping and trees swaying.' It's, 'Uh, James, can you make wind sound interesting for 10 hours? And not repetitive?'" Reception Rock Paper Shotgun's Rachel Watts compared the game favorably with Frostpunk, describing it as "more human" and noted that the game's loyalty system made you make wrenching choices in specific ways. Watts said that "decisions are hard because you're losing characters you've made connections with" but criticized the game for its save system's lengthy time between saves. Polygon's Alexis Ong felt that the game maintained a "desolate sort of charm, rough edges and all" but lightly critiqued a fourth wall breaking moment