You find yourself licking the salt from your lips, an automatic action, as you guide your small boat through a flooded metropolis, the motor sputtering like an old man struggling to catch a breath. The encompassing silence in the seemingly desolate city would be crushing had it not been for your brother, who lies moaning, semi-conscious, on the far end of the boat. By the grace of some higher power, you and your brother survived the rising waters and are left to navigate this strange world. After you’ve located a safe place for your sick brother to recover, you drive out into the waters again, hoping to find medical supplies or another living person. What you discover instead are strange looking mammals and silent, fast moving men covered in moss. The world you once knew has been reconstructed and you’re uncertain if it’s for the better.
Upper Cut’s Submerged, released on August 4th for PC and PS4, instantly bewitched me with its oddly serene world. The flooded landscape exhibits some dystopian elements such as a newly assembled society and the shattered remains of a world that once was, but it doesn’t feel like a dystopia, where chaos often reigns. It differs from the world in Bioshock, a more traditional presentation of a dystopian world, where a formerly structured society disintegrates to excessive violence and corruption. Submerged‘s world is peaceful because it’s so quiet and isolating, more like an empty playground than some hellish place. My interactions with the watery landscape are, at times, playful and an absolute joy. As I was exploring the world, dazing out a bit to the droning sound of my boat’s motor and occasionally smiling as I glided over patches of bioluminescent water, I suddenly heard a throaty, chirruping noise and couldn’t figure out its source. When I slowed the boat to a stop, I discovered a group of dolphin-like mammals jumping out of the water around me. I laughed and twirled the boat around a number of times, greeting them. It’s not a violent world, but a changed world.
Though charmed by the world and its fantastical inhabitants, I had more meaningful experiences encountering creatures as I soared across the water than I did scaling the broken buildings and finding boxes. The buildings, all poking out of the water like dead or sleeping giants, are presented as a kind of puzzle. Which ledge do I latch onto first? Do I have to shimmy across that pipe to get to the other side? Whenever I finish a puzzle, especially one that’s long and arduous, I expect a big reward. When getting to a certain point or area on the building, the player will locate a crate or a shining object, the prize or reward. I like a good puzzle here and there, but the payoff wasn’t satisfactory in Submerged. Instead of being rewarded with a bizarre encounter or a cinematic clip that helps flesh out the game narrative, the player is gifted with simplistic drawings that piece together the origin of the flood and the protagonist’s backstory.
The presentation of the narrative was unique and ambitious but didn’t deliver the punch I wanted. The game relied on these archaic drawings to inform and weave a narrative for the player. I was frustrated because I wanted the protagonist, a female identifying person of color, to vocalize her experiences. I wanted her words, thoughts, and actions. The drawings are elegant with their bold lines and vibrant colors, but they don’t add much substance to the story. They’re recreations of prior events, which distances the player from the emotional impact of the actual events. It also severs the connection the protagonist may have had with the player. I wanted her to seize my hand and guide me through her personal experiences because it would have cultivated a more intimate or organic relationship. The developers did a fine job characterizing the enriching landscape, but it frequently overrides the central protagonist, a real shame because she has a lot of potential.
There was only one instance that truly startled me, a moment that felt more like a gift. After I climbed a particularly challenging building, outcroppings abound, I lifted myself onto the nearest platform and was met by a human figure covered in moss. It wasn’t long before the human figure, with its mutated hands and pale flesh, sprinted off to a prohibited area. It was such a fleeting encounter that I thought I had imagined it. The encounter left me in a tizzy, unable to comprehend what I just saw but wanting to pursue it and find out more.
Lastly, I had a difficult time steering the boat. Though the boat is indestructible, a feature for which I’m thankful for because I constantly crashed into the buildings, it was still frustrating because there was a time I wanted to follow a whale-like creature and lost track of it because I couldn’t turn my boat around in time. The player controls the direction of the boat with the left analog stick and the camera with the right and, for some unknown reason, I consistently confused the two. With the exception of my boat troubles, the game mechanics were relatively smooth.
Submerged is, without a doubt, one of the most visually stunning games I’ve played in a long while. The world is an utter delight to play in. Though there are some bumps, particularly with the pesky boat, it’s an ambitious game that deserves attention. I also applaud the developers for including a female protagonist that’s a person of color. Diversifying games is so important because we operate in a culture where whitewashing is the norm.
