Every project related to Quantic Dream should have some kind of asterisk that says: this game is going to rack your brain. What we can see in Under The Waves is precisely that, just like what happened to us at the time with Heavy Rain or Detroit Become Human.
Now, this game is not exactly developed by Quantic Dream. Under the Waves comes from an independent studio called Parallel Studio, a relatively young study that has only 3 releases and now they are on their fourth.
This is a single player title, fully focused on a narrative adventure that takes you to the bottom of the northern ocean, exploring the feeling of pain under the sea. The setting is futuristic, but with overtones of the 70s and the players control Stan, a professional diver working for an oil company.
Here, Stan lives away from everything at the bottom of the sea and experiences a series of events of a strange nature that will put him to the test.. Yes, it sounds like a cliché, but when you experience it, you know that there is something special behind this project.
What is Under the Waves about?
In Under the Waves you play Stan, a professional diver who is totally off the beaten path, right at the bottom of the sea. The protagonist was the one who decided to live like this and earn a living in an unorthodox way. Their situation is not that it is precarious, it just makes you wonder how someone reaches such extremes of social isolation. Yes, sanity seems to be about to be lost.
Now, not everything comes down to living the life of this peculiar character, quite the contrary, exploration is a key part of this game which has a few overtones of the open world. The immediate comparison is with Subnautica, however, with the first few minutes in control, you realize that the experience does not go there.
The first thing you are faced with is the mind of an individual which seems to be dealing with pain that is difficult to explain. It’s like a traumatic event had it that way. Communicating this scenario in a video game is not easy, but the way the Parallel Studio team presents it is more interesting, if not intense.
Although there was little that we could appreciate in the narrative aspect of the game, the context is very clear. Isolation is part of the narrative and you must work your way through to understand what is happening, especially to see whether or not you can escape this madness.
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An open world to explore
As we mentioned, we had little time to really test what Under the Waves offers, however, having it in our hands we realized a better way of what the game intends to offer and deliver to the player. First of all, there comes a world that you must know.
To move from one place to another, especially in the vast ocean, you have a submarine that allows you to travel from one place to another. This allows you to see all kinds of marine fauna: huge whales, small fish and scenes that you could only appreciate if you were in front of the television watching a documentary by Jaques Cousteau.
But that’s the sea, which is huge and dangerous at the same time. Stan also has access to a kind of base where one can feel even more alone, much to the comfort of sight. Come on, there is enough space to lead a dignified life, but the absence of other people is also felt.
The setting of this base is achieved in an intelligent way. The color palette causes some pressure, not to call hopelessness. It is not that you are going to have a party everywhere or warm colors everywhere, here the experience boils down to generating pressure on the player in every second of the game.
The complicated physics under the sea
Games in which the sea plays such a prominent role are not so easy to develop, especially when there is so much emphasis on exploration. What we got to see in action was certainly interesting, especially because according to the theme exposed by Under the Waves, just as you can walk, you can float/swim when you are in certain scenarios.
The little we saw in this section was compliant, unpretentious and entertaining. Come on, you feel the pressure to go from one place to another looking to solve micro-puzzles and advancing in the adventure, the point is that we still need to see a little more to understand more precisely what it means to walk under the sea and, at the same time time, in places that hide something.
Diving also means that you must manage the oxygen section and other parameters. It is almost a given that this will be a key factor for scouting to have high levels of pressure on the player. The truth is that it is a pleasure to pay attention to even the smallest details.
One detail that we should not lose sight of is the knowledge of diving and exploration in the Parallel Studio team. It’s nice that they took it so seriously when they could have done it less seriously, because at the end of the day, this is a video game.
When does Under the Waves come out?
Now that you have more or less a good idea of ​​what Under the Waves is all about, let’s get to the important information: When is it coming out?
Under the Waves will be released on PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC sometime in 2023. This title already has its respective page on all platforms where it will be published, so if you add it to your favorites, it is a fact that you will find out sooner when it will be available or if there is any way to reserve it.
This is one of those titles that you should not lose sight of in the remainder of 2023.
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