If you had asked me to play a game that was basically just diving, all the time, I would have said no.
But my brother kept at me about it, so I finally caved, and it was awesome. Maybe for the wrong reasons.
I have never been a fan of horror, even though I’ve unwillingly seen a lot of it. My brother and mother love the stuff, so family movie nights were sometimes pretty horrible.
This game is more than the usual ghost horror though. It’s about uncertainty, and failing to confront that uncertainty means you don’t progress. It is, as you can guess, the hero’s journey.
You start at the surface, finding food and resources in the shallow water. As you progress, the game forces you deeper and deeper, and each depth is more uncertainty to confront.
I remember being on the way down one time and hearing a “roar”, and I turned tail and went straight back to base. “It’s just a game,” they say. But man, did it feel like I was the one going into the depths.
The game truly embodies “the only way through is forward”. No amount of preparation helps against uncertainty. You just have to do it.
This game evoked so much in me that I wrote about it: What a video game taught me about fear.