Also On: PS4, PC
Publisher: Uppercut Games
Developer: Uppercut Games
Medium: Digital
Players: 1
Online: No
ESRB: E10+
Thereโs a very easy way to determine whether youโll enjoy Submerged: is climbing your favourite part of Uncharted? Do you like the parkour elements of Assassinโs Creed more than anything else in that series? If yes, then Submerged will be right up your alley. If not, youโll probably hate it.
I know thatโs a pretty simplistic way of looking at things, but Submerged is a pretty simplistic game. Thereโs no combat. No enemies. No clock or timer looming over your head. No dialogue. No way to die. Itโs just you and your boat, exploring a cityโs waterlogged ruins.
Admittedly, thereโs a bit of a story pushing everything forward: youโre looking for supplies to help save your brotherโs life. And that, in turn, informs your in-game actions, at least to an extent โ your exploration will end up being driven largely by telltale glimpses of shiny objects (which indicate emergency rations are close by) and red flowers (which mean youโll be able to climb into the ruined building to look around).
But it only pushes you forward to the extent you let it. Without a clock, you can simply drift around the city for days on end, taking in the sights and occasional sounds of a drowned, mostly deserted city. In fact, for players for whom the exploration is the main draw, finding rations may actually be a disincentive, since once you uncover those the game automatically cuts your exploration short, and you instantly get taken back to your home base and your brother.
This is actually a really odd design choice, since Submerged is clearly meant to be all about exploration. The developers put a lot of effort into creating a world thatโs meant to be discovered, with little hints of what life was like pre-disaster scattered everywhere. There are the big, obvious signs that youโre looking around what used to be a thriving metropolis: the skeletal remains of a stadiumโs lights, a giant statue towering over everything, some gorgeous hotels. But there are also the smaller details that make the world feel lived in: a pig-shaped butcher sign here, billboards and ads ads painted on the sides of buildings there. Itโs things like this that transform the game from being just a pretty-looking tech demo to being something worth playing โ and why I donโt understand the gameโs reasoning behind reducing the amount of time you spend looking around, particularly when itโs a fairly short game as it is.
Should you devote the time to it, though? Again, it goes back to that initial question: how much do you like climbing and exploring? On the whole, I think itโs worth it, since Subdmergedโs world is absolutely gorgeous, and itโs relaxing to just drift along on the current as dolphins and sting rays and whales swim by. If you want a deeper, meatier experience, though, youโd probably be better served looking elsewhere, because this game just doesnโt have that.