Since I was young, I always dreamt of a world where I could go underwater without having to worry about things like breathing or anything else that could easily prevent me from doing so. And this last week, I had the chance to simulate that through the releasing of a new video game called Abzu. Like it sounds, Abzu takes place in an ocean and is seen through the eyes of the player as they control a nameless character who is clad in a black wetsuit, save for the yellow cat-ear-like lights that are used to shine in the darkness.
In Abzu, players control this nameless silent protagonist by swimming around in the water. The game progresses in a very linear fashion, meaning that there aren’t little side events that you can activate if you go somewhere else. To move further ahead in plot, you simply have to go to the next area. There is no fighting, only swimming. And that’s OK, because the game is absolutely gorgeous.
Sure, all you can do is swim around (and in very few instances walk), but you’ll spend so much time just swimming around in circles while you praise the detail that this game was made with that you won’t care. In the game, you can grab onto different aquatic creatures and they’ll take you with them as if you were riding with them. By doing that, you’ll be able to learn what type of creature they are, scientific name and all. You’ll also be able to do the thing that I spent most of my time doing, which was jumping up out of the water like I was a dolphin or a whale. It was GREAT!
Now, this is a game that was not on my radar until very recently. It popped up on one of my feeds and I figured I would take a look at it. Immediately from the trailer I got a Journey vibe, which was good. For those who haven’t heard of Journey, it is a game that came out in March of 2012 for the PS3, depicting a nameless, silent character (hmm, sound familiar?) that is traveling through a desert in order to reach a sort of holy mountain.
These two games share a lot of similarities and there’s no denying that. Both play in a linear fashion under the control of a silent protagonist, going solely from point A to point B while basking in the glory that is the scenery of each game. I told my friends about it by calling it an underwater version of Journey and all I told were intrigued by the prospect.
One other similarity that I probably cared the most about was the fact that both games share the same music composer, Austin Wintory. It might not matter to many others, but the music in these games are absolutely spectacular and they partially made the games for me what they ended up being.
So, if you liked Journey, or if you have no idea what that is and are just interested in the idea of these two games, I highly recommend Abzu to you. You can find in the PS4 online shop and Steam right now. If you do end up getting it, happy swimming!
