I don't even know how to review this game - I just know that I love it.

It's slow, methodical, atmospheric, gives an incredible sense of huge, open, interesting spaces - just you as the AI in a dive suit, falling in love with this alien world right alongside your dive suit's occupant, an experienced xenobiologist chasing the mysteries of this place.

TLDR - Game is worth the money! The story IS excellent, twists and turns, mystery, tragedy, hope - I'm always fiending for non-violent sci-fi stories, they're such a minority in the genre. If you need an excuse to sink into some real slow vibes, to get out of your head, dream of a beautiful alien world, and don't mind the thalassaphobia of being permanently underwater at various depths for the whole game, you'll be richly rewarded.

The game is text-heavy, slow and ponderous in its execution of movement and music, that it basically forces you to adapt to its pace. A great game for a day when you have to take it easy, if you're sick or recovering from smth. Took me about 9 hours to 100% it, so it might take you 5 hours if you rush the plot.

Accessibility -
There are no options. At all. No audio sliders to separate music and SFX. No colorblindness options (I'd honestly love to see a totally-black-and-white version made with just shades of grey). No way to slow down or speed up the text box arrival and leaving times - you can click the box to skip the built-in 4-second timer till it auto-advances, but that's all.

The Escape key is your pause button - the pause screen allows you to quit to menu, read the message log of what EV has said, or resume the game. It also explains the keyboard shortcuts of space, W, and ctrl. You can save and quit the game at any time, like a visual novel, but to get EV back to base, you have to first find the terminal for the area. While exploring, I did once experience EV hitting zero oxygen. The suit auto-rescued her, so I didn't lose any progress or items. If you have the terminal for the area, it puts you at Base, but if not, it puts you back at the last Waystation, since that's where you can return to resupply oxygen and fuel.


Trypophobia might be set off by the yellow dots representing lifeforms clinging to rocks - peep the official trailer on Steam to see what they look like. The sketches can be sort of gross to look at, in a crab-lettuce-mushroom sort of way, but those sketches are entirely avoidable in-game. The artbook is basically full-color versions of said sketches, tho. Standard alien biology weirdness.
Thalassaphobia is unavoidable here. Threat of drowning is definitely present, but definitely preventable, with planning - bring extra samples in the suit for the dangerous dives, you can feed them to your oxygen or energy tanks to top up. The game also offers sufficient sample spots to use as refueling on the plot-required route.

There's some real existentialism, moral quandaries, references to a lifeless Earth, the standard space colonization themes, so I'd recommend this game to ages 13 and up. I'd actually recommend this especially to depressed teenagers, the message of hope and vibe of calm are so strong, could actually help someone...

It is possible to play with a controller, but even as a controller-preferring gamer myself, I gotta say, this one works best with mouse and keyboard. All you'll need is space, W, and Ctrl, and the mouse to move, left-click and hold, no right click or scroll button. With controller, moving the big ball around the circle with the left stick was UNPLEASANT, it jittered constantly and wouldn't settle where I wanted it to, so, had to switch to mouse.

Gameplay -
What you see in the store page's official images IS the entire game. There's the Base where the human EV lives, and there's the ocean world. You'll always see that HUD - it'll change colors sometimes for dramatic effect, but never disappear.

There's only one side mission, that covers the whole game - to observe the alien life, and collect specimens about them, totally optional of course.

Movement and exploring is well-tutorialized at the start, so to follow the main path, you'll be well prepared.

The Base has several layers, most are decorative. You'll care most about Bay and Lab. At Bay, you choose to move items from Suit storage to Base storage, and leave on a new dive. In the Lab, you take items from Base storage and scan them.

How the Taxonomy Lab works - first, you must observe the creature in the ocean, several different ones around the same area, and wait to hear EV name it. (At this point, you can read the first page of the notes on the lifeform back at the Lab.) THEN you can pick up the two objects related to the creature, and scan them back at Base. Scanning objects before EV has named the species results in the scan failing. (that gaddang pillar worm...) You can put those unknown objects into Storage at the Base, and scan them later. Nothing rots or dissolves in this game. The game puts a /-slash sign over the object in the Taxonomy Scanner once you've successfully scanned it. So those pieces, and any further copies of them, can all go back to the Suit; just drag and drop back in Bay. To be discarded into the environment, or dragged over to the Oxygen or Energy spots for a refill.

I found great comfort in going into dangerous dives with my suit's collection box packed with high-value, already-scanned objects that I was able to use, far from home, for a replenish.

Music? Stellar. Art? Stellar. Real good synergy with the minimalism and chill vibes.

You don't need a TLDR, I put it at the top! LOL

PS - Just a note on the DLC artbook - it is intended for reading post-game, has some plot spoilers.

It takes some time to get into the flow of the controls. Once that's out of the way the game is very meditative and relaxing. It's not fast or flashy.

Also the music at the base is atmospheric af. It reminds me of the map on the Normandy in Mass Effect

I enjoyed playing the game, it has an interesting format and intriguing plot. At times it was slow, and I had a hard time figuring out where to look for things. Also I am very motivated by achievements and there are none for this game so I would get slightly unmotivated when I got stuck/confused lol. Overall pretty cool though!