Submerged is an exploration game in which you follow Miku and her brother after their arrival in a flooded city. We were very excited to play this game after watching its reveal trailer, and we weren’t disappointed by Submerged, its gameplay and its gorgeous city exploration!

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, and use your telescope to scour the city for the supplies needed to save your dying sibling. As you explore the city at your own pace, you encounter the habitat that flourishes in this colorful place and discover hidden objects that piece together the story of a broken world and a broken family.

Submerged – Trailer

This is a double review from Ceidz and EdEN. This review presents what they both had to say.

Submerged is a game that is different from what we’re typically used to playing. It takes place in a flooded city, and you’re practically alone in it. Since Miku’s brother is sick, the main quest revolves around recovering medical supplies that are scattered throughout the city. Since it has been flooded, the city itself isn’t that hard to explore but it felt overwhelming at first since it isn’t apparent at the beginning that only a few of the buildings can be explored. The city feels like New York City 500 years after the events of The Day After Tomorrow: vegetation took over a long time ago, and the buildings are slowly decaying.

Exploring the city is done with a small fishing boat you can use to navigate through the buildings. Once you’re next to a building that can be climbed, Miku can explore it in an Uncharted-like way by climbing on the ledges and the roofs. There are ten medical supply boxes to find, and then the story is over. I managed to complete this in around 3 hours, but of course, a lot of other things can be found in the city, namely 60 hidden relics, as well as finding all the wildlife. Exploring everything Submerged has to offer could take you up to 5-6 hours, so a lot of things can be done by completionists!

I definitely liked playing through the gorgeous world of Submerged, and I look forward to seeing what the studio can do for their next game.

Ah, Submerged. This was exactly the type of game I needed in order to relax for a bit and to cleanse my palate from the rest of the games I was playing. Submerged is all about exploring the sunken city at your own leisure, and with no real danger at any time since there is no combat in the game and no way for the main protagonist to die from her actions.

In general, Submerged ended up reminding me of Shadow of the Colossus, what with all the climbing around large structures as you search for the medical supply boxes hidden at the top of the worn-out buildings. Using ledges, ladders, pipes and sometimes even the vegetation itself to move around each building felt great and very relaxing during the several hours I spent playing the game.

Trophies are generally easy in Submerged since they’re tied to exploring the whole map, finding special locations that showcase what used to be the great monuments of a large city – most of which are now hidden away from the world because of all of the water – or from finding the local fauna that has made the city its home. There’s also some trophies for finding upgrades for your boat so that you can use a turbo feature to travel faster, and there’s also another for finding the hidden artifacts in the game that help to bring some light into the backstory of how things got to this point.

Luckily you can use a spyglass – found early in the game – to check out your surroundings in order to mark your map with the location of artifacts, boat upgrades and even the medical supply boxes, thus making things a bit easier by letting players know where they can find new items. The spyglass will also be helpful for getting one trophy, in particular, but I can’t talk more about that without spoiling some of the game for you.

Final Thoughts

Submerged is a great looking game that gives us a glimpse at what would happen if most of civilization was destroyed by the raging power of water. It is a very relaxing experience, and it will keep players busy for a few hours. The game might be short, but it’s definitely worth it, and trophy hunters can add an extra hour or two on top of their total time if they want to 100% the game.

[review pros=”Gorgeous world to explore
Relaxing experience” cons=”Relatively short” score=85]

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Cost: $19.99

PSN Game Size: 1.6GB

Disclaimer

This review is based on digital copies provided by Uppercut Games PTY LTD.