The game feels rushed. The story is half-baked with some interesting bits that lead nowhere, probably due to time constraints. Although the main theme of the narrative is clear from the beginning, we are not given enough background on relevant characters to care enough.

Gameplay is frustrating in most missions, with UI prompts being bugged. The are objectives marked somewhere completely unrelated to the what we need to progress. Open-sea exploration feels polished considering the rest, but indoor missions are really not enjoyable.

Positives
+ Beautiful game with a fully explorable world that has collectibles
+ Range of sea-life to interact with and learn tidbits about!
+ Intriguing story

Negatives
- Not good if you have submechanophobia or just a general fear of the deep ocean. This map is PRETTY DEEP and you only realise how deep when you dive back down from the surface.
- Performance issues, namely visual bugs (black voids) and occasional low framerate
- Unexplained story elements, key mechanics/mysteries left unanswered.

Gameplay: 6
Visual: 9
Audio: 8
Story: 7
Fun: 7

Overall: 7.5

7/10
(2-hours review)

Under the publishing house of the developers of "Detroit: Become Human", came out visually beautiful, with very high-quality smooth animations, with an emphasis on atmosphere, realism, which includes an educational aspect (created with the support of a European foundation), but, alas, in terms of gameplay - a fairly simple survival game,
on the one hand, games about scuba diving is a strong deficit, and on the other hand, if they do something, then it is mandatory - a bunch of questions on the map, yes, no one forces you, but on every damn meter you can vacuum some sorts of plastic bottles, and each time getting out of the cabin and climbing back, you will have to endure 5-seconds meditative animations, and about the same with story missions, we just need to swim from point A to point B, find something, open some kind of valve with 1 button.. so that you understand how stretched the game is in this way - the opening credits will be shown to you only at the 3rd hour of the game, I personally went through only 2 days out of 17, you have a main hub here, of which there will probably be several (the map in the game is quite large), in which you will open a simple upgrading, meditatively sit and cinematically change the camera angle (by the way, it's cool that you can swim in the bathyscaphe in 1st person view), play 1-button mini-games, such as a punching bag,
In the plot, it seems there is a backlog for some kind of mysticism, the main character has nightmares at nights (Alan Wake was immediately reminded), but I don’t think that this will “turn off” everything from the basic line - about a man who divorced his wife, now he has left everyone for "single" work and sometimes calls her.. about talking on the walkie-talkie, this is also far from the level of "Firewatch", just 2 men 40+ are constantly being sarcastic.

If all you need is a beautiful atmospheric immersion from the 3rd person with sometimes cinematic shots, and you are ready to just relax on the "collectaton" of the same thing on the map, and somewhere in the background the plot can be a bit tangled, then you are need here - under the waves, yes.

😊Subscribe on my Steam`s Curator`s page: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41977550/
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Под издательством разрабов Детройта, вышел прекрасный визуально, с очень качественными плавными анимациями, с упором на атмосферу, реализм, включающий в себя образовательный аспект (создано при поддержке европейского фонда), но, увы, геймплейно - достаточно простенький выживач, вот с одной стороны игр про подводное погружение - сильный дефицит, а с другой, если что-то и делают, то это обязательно - куча вопросиков на карте, да, никто не заставляет, но на каждом блин метре можно пылесосить всякие пластиковые бутылки, причём каждый раз вылезая из кабины и залезая обратно, вам придётся терпеть медитативные анимации, причём примерно тоже самое и с сюжетными миссиями, нам просто надо доплыть из точки A в точку B, что-то отыскать, открыть какой-нить вентиль 1 кнопкой, чтобы вы понимали насколько растянута игра таким образом - вступительные титры вам покажут только на 3-ем часу игры, я лично прошёл только 2 дня из 17, у вас тут есть главный хаб, которых видимо будет несколько (карта в игре достаточно большая), в котором вы будете открывать простенькую прокачку, медитативно сидеть и кинематографично менять ракурс камеры (кстати, круто, что на батискафе можно плавать от 1 лица), играть в 1-кнопочные мини-игры по типу боксёрской грушы,
В сюжете вроде есть задел на какую-то мистику, главному герою по ночам снятся кошмары (Alan Wake сразу напомнили), но не думаю, что это всё "свернёт" с базового сюжета, как мужик развёлся с женой, теперь ушёл ото всех на "одиночную" работу и иногда ей звонит.. разговоры по рации с напарником тоже далеко не "Firewatch", просто 2 мужика 40+ постоянно ехидничают.

Если вам хватает только красивого атмосферного погружения от 3-его лица с иногда кинематографичными кадрами, и вы готовы просто на расслабоне заниматься "коллектатоном" одного и того же на карте, и где-то на фоне может быть чутка цепанёт сюжет, тогда вы нужны здесь - под волнами, да.

Подписывайтесь на Кураторку в Steam: https://store.steampowered.com/curator/37365104

Despite some minor glaring issues, including a few glitched collectibles blocking a couple trophies, this was a wonderful narrative focused underwater adventure that allows you to explore both an expansive sub-aquatic open world, and one man's isolation and grief.

One thing I definitely want to point out is the game's music. Tranquil, contemplative, and so relevant to the themes of the story. I found myself quietly cruising about the map looking for treasures and items with the music pulsing in the background while pondering my own contrition and regrets. These are the types of experiences that make me love the medium.

A nice good-looking game for a good cause. That being said:

- Emotional drama of the game is overdone trope done better in many other games
- Trying to be SOMA meets Firewatch but with "collect item 0/5" Gollum-tier busywork gameplay. Just make a walking simulator if you don't have gameplay ideas.
- Stan climbing into bed and sleeping in his wetsuit is the most disturbing thing I've ever seen
- Low framerate daughter
- One fatal crash
- Controls while swimming were quite annoying
- Voice direction really, really... overuses... dramatic pauses. As if... that makes for naturalistic dialouge... when, it actually becomes... very unnatural.

+ A very nicely set mood with lots of cinematic effects, film grain, cinematic lighting and camera angles. This feels like a short movie at times.
+ A nice, eerie environment and a cozy base.
+ J0. The dog of the sea, the best friend.
- A terribly unlikeable main character. I get that he's not supposed to be snarky or collected as he's going through grief, but my god he is just so...lethargic in his speech. Also, just what sort of an insane person goes to the shower while wearing not only a full diving suit but also a beanie? Do people shower like that?

I knew what I was getting myself into - practically every game set around the ocean is always going to be about ocean conservation. It's good that awareness is being raised, but educative/informative topics don't make for a good narrative alone, there must be something interesting going on too.

From the very beginning, this was set up to be a very simple, rehashed story about the big bad polluter being destroyed by an ocean-loving hero. Not that there's anything bad with this premise, but their only "twist" to the template is a parallel story about grief and loss...told in the most mundane, expected and downright tedious way. How many times have we seen weird dreams about the sad past haunting the main character in a game?

Also, at times it feels like the writers played ABZU but hated the fish and the mesmerizing nature of the game. At other times, it feels like they played Firewatch but it was too nostalgic and calming for them.

Boring experience, albeit one that looks nice and has decent music.

It’s a fun mini open world exploring all these little cave systems and finding countless unique crash sites for planes, boats, and cars even. And when you want to get back to the story beats you complete varying tasks for this oil conglomerate, while learning of your backstory.

I will say the open world starts out feeling really cool and calming to explore, but becomes tiring to travel through by the end.

There’s this crafting system for making decorations for your underwater home, tools for your expeditions (usually unnecessary), and ship upgrades to make getting around easier. But frankly the whole system felt poorly implemented for how easy the whole adventure was. Besides the ending sections that have some minor difficulty bumps, it’s smooth sailing.

Narratively speaking, it’s a psychological tale with some minor horror elements. This guy’s battling some demons and they only get worse as it progresses. The voice acting was decent imo. I was tearing up by the end.

It really falls short as far as the gameplay goes during the missions. You’re either pulling levers or pushing buttons to get through doors, with some hectic moments during the horror parts. I never was so bored that I’d quit it since the voice acting, developing story, and interesting and beautiful environments were enough for me.

One thing that is bafflingly bad is the facial animations. It becomes distracting at points during some cutscenes. I understand that it’s one of those things that’s very hard to get right (especially for indies), but man it’s glaring. Also this game has some minor bugs with its map not showing icons and objectives not displaying, but nothing game breaking for me. My game crashed once but it autosaves constantly.

The final thing I’ll say is that your underwater home is kinda fun to mess around in and you fill it up with random stuff you salvage during your dives. Also there are some fun and basic mini-games (if you find the items) where you can play the guitar and punch a punching bag, which are briefly fun.