Rating
Submerged
Submerged is a third-person combat-free game in which you explore a mysterious flooded city and discover the beauty of desolation in vast outdoor environments. You take on the role of Miku, a young girl who has brought her wounded brother to the city in their small fishing boat. Navigate the flooded city streets by boat, scale the drowned buildings...
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Submerged Reviews
Professional reviews from gaming critics
What impressed me most about Submerged is that it never tries to be more than its concept. It set out to be a simple narrative-driven and emotional experience with a strong environmental message, and it achieves just that. With no unnecessary actions to distract those with limited attention spans it might be perceieved as “dull” by some, but in practice it’s a reflective, mature, and artful work, and this here is where games should be going.
In the end, Submerged successfully achieves what it sets out to offer: a relaxing and thought provoking exploration experience. Its a game that’s rough around the edges but grabs you from the moment you start playing, drawing you in until you’ve reached the game’s somewhat predictable conclusion. The lack of danger and urgency in the game as well as its possibly over-simplified game mechanics will undoubtedly be a big turn-off for many, but those looking for something serene and out of the ordinary may be pleasantly surprised by this quirky little title.
Submerged attempts to replace tension with curiosity as a motivating force, and largely succeeds even though its environmental storytelling isn’t as dense as it could’ve been. It’s an unchallenging, occasionally beautiful experience that caters to our instinct to see what’s on the other side of the mountain. In the moments where Submerged rewarded inquisitiveness, I loved it. When it occasionally stumbled in that responsibility, I found myself wishing for a more polished and complete world to explore.
Submerged is an exploration adventure game about sacrifice and the serenity of desolation.
I found the climbing mechanics alright to begin with, but a side-effect of the “explore at your own pace” feature means you could stumble across the buildings in any order, meaning it does not get any more challenging. Collecting items on the way up depends largely on guessing the right direction to go as well, which means painful back-tracking if you can be bothered collecting it. Eventually, this became repetitive and frustrating too.
What if the combat-free opening hour of BioShock Infinite stretched on for much longer? Indeed, what if you could explore the beautiful ruins of a destroyed city without having to constantly fend for your life? Submerged – a game developed by ex-Bioshock staffers, incidentally – attempts to answer these very questions. But does this sailing sojourn live up to this potential, or does it sink to the bottom of the ocean?
Submerged is...Well, it exists. It wants to stand beside games like Journey, yet missed the mark so much on why Journey worked. It puts you in a world and expects you to be amazed, but never delivers any reason to become attached or really, a world pretty enough to just become absorbed into visually. Float on.
Submerged is very pretty, but there isn't much to keep you playing and it's not worth the price tag.
After only ten minutes in the game you’ve already experienced everything that Submerged has to offer. It’s a rather dull and shallow title in what could have been an exciting and scary world. There is no combat, no urgency, and no chance of failure. The gameplay is boring, the landmarks and scenery are mediocre, and the story is almost nonexistent. Submerged is a rapidly sinking ship that never even left the harbor.
All in all, Submerged is a nice game to play, with minimal things to keep track to. The map is easy to follow, the journal keeps track of the story (even though they’re only pictures), and the controls are simple. It’s also not a great game, but it is definitely a breath of fresh air from all the similar post-apocalyptic games out there.
It’s a reasonably short game for £14 – perhaps an afternoon’s stuff to do first time through. But it’s so unrelentingly lovely, and such a rare pleasure to be experienced without constant worry about being shot in the back of the head, or eaten by a wolf, or running out of time, or any of the other ways games so desperately want to concern us. Complete it, and it'll let you return to the city to find all the many secrets and bits and bobs you'll have missed along the way, which certainly extends its lifespan.