"Under the Waves" Review

Publisher: Quantic Dream

Developer: Parallel Studio

Available for: Playstation 5, Playstation 4, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Microsoft Windows

Reviewed for: Playstation 5

As I said in my Dave the Diver review, I hate to seem predictable and yada-yada...but again, I love me my ocean settings, so Under the Waves has been on my radar for as long as I've known about it. From the trailers, it seemed like it was going to be a beautiful underwater exploration experience framed by a mystery of some sort, and that's right up my alley! I also want to set expectations early...this is a middling atmospheric indie game just like Fort Solis is. However, Under the Waves offers significantly more and is, in my mind, far superior. It does have to be said, though, that it is another middling atmospheric indie game, so don't go into it expecting Bioshock.

Under the Waves tells the story of Stan Moray: an environmental activist turned wage slave for the big evil oil company, Unitrench. The story begins on his first day in his position as a maintenance man (hey, another Fort Solis parallel!) for the company's deep-sea machinery. He locates the submersible vehicle that he'll be using to get through corporate waters, gets settled in the underwater living quarters assigned to him, and prepares himself for the jobs ahead. What follows is a series of days doing maintenance on machines as conditions in the waters slowly become worse and worse, weaving a tale of shady corporate greed and the devastating impact it has on our oceans. This game was developed in collaboration with a real-life European environmentalist group, Surfrider, so a big part of the game is its environmentalist messaging. So if you're a crybaby who thinks saving the planet is "woke" (you know the type: male, under 5'6?), you probably won't enjoy this one. But by now you may be wondering why an activist such as Stan would go to work for this evil company? Well, because he needs to get away for a while, and where better than the bottom of the ocean? See, this isn't just a story of environmentalism and corporate greed...it's also an affecting tale of grief. It's been 3 years since Stan's daughter, Pearl, died in some unknown way. Yes, 3 years. The pain of losing a child, I imagine, never goes away, but even after all this time, the grief is so strong that it has driven Stan to what he considers a moral low for the sake of some isolation and busyness. Don't misunderstand me, this isn't a Last of Us: Part II kind of situation where the whole game is miserable. The moments of grief are sparse and pack a suitable punch, so it's a tasteful kind of grief story. To give yet another comparison to Fort Solis, by the time the credits roll, there are questions in this story left unanswered. However, I believe the story in this game is actually stronger for that. Obviously I won't give any examples, but it's something to note. 

Before I move on, we've got another parallel with Fort Solis: the excellent voice acting. Unfortunately, because the cast isn't star-studded, the cast list isn't readily available and I haven't been able to find the data to give credit to the actors...just keep the names of the characters in mind for your own research. Stan's voice actor does have a tendency to under-deliver some of his lines, but more often than not the understatedness of his delivery fits the character. And when the plot calls for it, he brings the grief of his character to the forefront in a truly affecting way. The actress for Stan's wife, Emma, is even better. She obviously has less screen time than our submerged hero, but in the near-nightly calls between the two, she absolutely steals the show. There's one line in particular where the delivery stuck with me bigtime. In the middle of a tense conversation, Stan tells Emma that he "just needs time." To this, Emma responds with "...to do what, Stan?" That probably doesn't read like a powerful line, but the delivery has so much impact behind it and implies so much history in Emma's character. I still wish I could find the cast list, but if I find it, I'll be coming back to this review to give credit where it's due. 

So, let's move on to gameplay. While there isn't any combat or puzzle-solving to speak of, I wouldn't call this a walking simulator...and that's not just because you're swimming, not walking. It's really more of an exploration game. You have two modes of travel: your submersible vehicle ("Moon") and free-diving in a scuba suit. When you're in the ocean, you can switch between the two almost at will (you do have to be next to Moon to enter it if you're free-diving). You'll be using Moon for the vast majority of your traversal (you'll run out of oxygen eventually if you're not in there), but if you spot something you want to pick up or if you come across a cavern too small for Moon to fit through, you can start free-diving and get to work that way. But what are you going to be doing while you're free-diving? Typically, you'll be picking up trash. Doesn't sound incredibly thrilling, I know. But if you're like me and you want to spend quality time with the ocean, then it'll be an excuse to do just that. Even if you're not like me, if you get a teeny-tiny little serotonin boost from small tasks like that, you'll get your fix! But it's not just cleaning for cleaning's sake: everything you pick up is used for crafting and upgrades. You can craft better boosters for Moon, extra oxygen capacity for your scuba suit, decorations for home base, etc. So it's not exactly the most objectively rip-roaring crafting suite, but it's a worthwhile motivation to drive cleaning. With everything I've said, you probably already know if this is going to be for you or not. But we're not done yet, because as laid back as all of this has probably sounded, there's one MAJOR negative: the level design of later missions. Unfortunately, the later-game missions phase out the open ocean format in favor of cramped corridors...both in the Moon and free-diving. Both of these are terrible for different reasons. For the Moon segments, the reason is simple: the passages are too tight to be able to steer efficiently. You'll find yourself rubbing up against the walls, bumping into this thing or that thing, and damaging the Moon more and more each time. This makes destroying the Moon and failing the mission a real threat for the first time in the game. For the free-diving segments, the problem is the camera. There's no unfair chance of failure in these segments, but the camera tends to zoom in and out and swing around too much, resulting in a truly nauseating experience. These gameplay issues, thankfully, wait until the very last levels to rear their heads, but that's exactly the worst spot to show up if you're an issue.

And unfortunately, the issues don't stop with those little bits of level design. From a technical standpoint, this game is as messy as the oil spills it tries to raise awareness of. But before we get to that, let's focus on the positives. The technical budget here clearly went to whatever would strengthen the environmentalist message. The soundtrack is beautiful, and the graphics, good lord, the graphics are wonderful. The ocean in this game is nothing short of a dream come true for someone like me. Shimmering light filtering down from above, the unimaginably and contradictorily beautiful and terrifying silhouette of an enormous blue whale in the distance, it's just unlike anything else. However, that's about where the technical strengths end. As I've already said, the camera has a tendency to go crazy in close quarters. But beyond that, there are also audio issues such as sudden sound and soundtrack cutouts. There's also major issues with the lip-syncing in that I legitimately couldn't tell if the devs were trying to sync the lips with the words or if they were going for the old-school style of just having the mouth open and close at a certain rhythm. It's not like the lip-syncing is front and center, but it's a thing that you will notice. Another thing not front and center that's worth noting is the fact that the game sometimes doesn't remove collectible icons after you pick them up. Hardly the worst thing in the world, but it does throw a wrench in the works if you want to try for 100%. When it comes to the game's checkpoint system, it's half-perfect, half-horrible....by which I mean every bit of progress you make is saved, but when you start the game up again or load a game, you're dropped back at the location where your last checkpoint was. So...you do keep any collectibles you pick up, but if you were trying to get somewhere and suddenly have to reload, you might load in kilometers away. And on the note of suddenly having to reload, the game does have a tendency to crash. I only had it happen twice, but that's not great. And even beyond that, almost without fail, after about half-an-hour to an hour after starting the game, I would get an error notification stating that the game failed to save. This was never accurate, but once the error started, the error would appear every time the game saved (which is often, as you might imagine given what I've said about the checkpoint system). So, in order to make the constant interruptions stop, I would restart the game each time this happened. I'd always have my progress, but it was extremely annoying, and this appears to be a widespread problem on the PS5. As I've already said, the devs clearly put the technical budget towards the technical aspects that benefitted the game's messaging, but they reeeeeally should've spent a couple of bucks on other aspects.

Folks, as I implied earlier, you likely knew whether or not this game was for you when I was discussing gameplay. So, I'm going to keep this concluding section short. If you love the ocean and can put up with a lot of problems, you might enjoy this game. If not, you can probably forget it exists.

Let us review:

Late-game level design - 1.0

Minor technical add-ups - 1.0

Crashes/Save issues - 1.0

The final score for Under the Waves is...

7.0/10 - Good

You got lucky, Parallel Studio, you got lucky