Stirring Abyss is a missed opportunity. The setting is of course amazing, and we do need many more deep sea games and we need them now. As far as the Lovecraftian mythos goes it's very basic, minus the whole story revolving around the Minoan civilization, which I thought was cool. The Minoans are often overlooked in how brilliant of a people they were, ultimately ending in disaster due to a variety of factors such as being an island nation (for those who don't know, they were Cretans) in a time in which the supply lines weren't nearly as robust as they are today; the Mycenaean invasion, and of course the rather mysterious Bronze Age Collapse itself.

Just an example of how advanced they were, especially for the time. The Minoan artifacts still hold color today, whilst the Greek and even the Roman sculptures have weathered into their colorless versions. In a lot of ways the Minoans are a civilization of lost knowledge, that was arguably more advanced in some ways to the (for the lack of a better term) Classical Age.

And this brings me to my central point when it comes to story. Even here it's a missed opportunity. The Minoans should have been better explored, instead they're just a substitute for the trite Atlantis fabrication. I think this topic deserves much more respect that it has been given by the developers of Stirring Abyss.

Gameplay wise it's mess. The turn-based combat does nothing new or even remotely interesting. It's like playing Terror from the Deep in the 90s all over again, but somehow even worse. Full disclosure: the original XCOM was way ahead of its time and is in my opinion a perfect game. Its sequel however is just an exercise in tedium and frustration. The levels are enormous, just as the case here. The soldiers don't cover nearly enough ground, just is the case here. The buildcrafting is lifted straight out of the XCOM remake and is therefore not very interesting at all. The mutation adds some flair into the game, but most of them are either underwhelming or outright useless.

This brings me to the finishing blow that reduces any chance of the game being recommended to ash. The game's brutal difficulty forces one to use broken builds (trust me, a double revenant mutation is a must). Even on hard this broken build makes the game way too easy. But everything else is way too hard. Even on the narrative difficulty the game will kick your 4ss if you're not playing meta.

As if that weren't enough all of this also forces one to safe scum like crazy. Even to just get the right mutations, as they're presented in a random list of two or three with an upgrade, with only a single reroll allowed. That reroll costs a valuable resource too, because of course it does.

Next you can't grind for resources as the supply missions are limited. There's a bunch of useless items that the game grants you recipes for (of course there's crating), The problem is, the resources are shared for upgrading the sub, which you really need to do. And as mentioned before the only useful items really are the flak vests, the harpoons for officers, and the oxygen tanks. Don't even bother with anything else. Explain to me why I would take a turret that lasts 4 turns and does barely any damage, or a stimulant when I get 2 item slots, 3 slots with a very rare upgrade at most? It makes no sense.

Seriously, skip this one. If you want to play a sea game, just play Subnautica. I'll try Barotrauma next. Fingers crossed for it being good.

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