Maybe I’ve played too many video games – 18 years as a games critic makes that likely – but for my first couple of hours manning a sea-floor oil-drilling outpost in Under the Waves I couldn’t shake the feeling that some dire supernatural presence was about to appear. Heading out from my life-sustaining module in a manoeuvrable little submersible to check readings and maintain machinery, I was braced for undersea monsters to reveal themselves. But I can promise Under the Waves’ horrors are all the human-made kind: climate vandalism, corporate greed, loss, grief. And bugs that kick you right out of the game at crucial moments.
Under the Waves does not run well. Its technical imperfections range from broken map markers, to uneven translation from its native French, to fatal errors that force you to repeat whatever you’ve done since the last autosave. But I like it despite all of that, because the things it does get right conjure something original and moving.
Being on the sea floor feels like being in space. You are professional diver Stan, down here because you have suffered a tragedy that you are struggling to process, moving between the nimble submersible and the open water. Pipes need maintaining; frighteningly claustrophobic underwater oil-drilling structures and buildings must be explored and swum through, generator switches pulled and batteries installed to keep things running. Stan is conflicted about working for oil conglomerate UniTrench, confronted daily with evidence of its negligent attitude towards marine life and the environment it has invaded. As he spends more time alone, he also becomes haunted by hallucinations, attempting falteringly to share what’s going on in his head in stilted phone calls with his wife and boss.
The game is at its best when you are in solitude exploring the ocean floor, searching out wrecks and investigating sunken shipping containers, soundtracked by an outstanding portentous proggy soundtrack from Nicolas Bredin. Single sustained guitar notes thrum through atmospheric soundscapes as you swim through caves, keeping a nervous eye on oxygen levels and the location of your sub, which soon begins to feel like home, a place of safety in a huge and intimidating vastness.
Swimming feels beautifully freeing, and contrasts with how it feels to ground Stan on the sea floor or a metal platform and plod along, dragging his body through the water. Inside structures, puzzles tended to be obvious but laborious, involving ponderous lever-pulling and crank-turning. You can craft things from the endless plastic and metal trash lying around everywhere, but as the game tends to place necessary explosives and repair kits near where you need them, this feels oddly pointless. I never drowned, thankfully, as oxygen pickups are plentiful, nor did my submersible ever take damage so catastrophic as to disable it, though both these things are technically possible. These are the only threats, however. Sharks float on by, never troubling you.
I have played several bigger, better, and dramatically less interesting games this year. Despite several crashes and restarts and a cumulative couple of hours lost in claustrophobic pipes, caves and complexes due to faulty objective markers, I kept playing Under the Waves not because I had to, but because I was fully immersed in it. I have rarely played a game more atmospheric, despite its faults; I experienced moments of quiet awe down there, with just a submarine for company. The story’s increasing tendency to stretch the limits of credulity didn’t matter, because in that unknown deep, it felt like anything could happen, and the surface world would never know.
It is imperfect but affecting, and hopefully after a few patches and updates, players will be able to enjoy it with fewer caveats. It’s peaceful under the waves. I can see why Stan, desperate to escape a measureless grief, would be drawn to it. But in the end, this turns out to be a game about what it takes to avoid being dragged under.
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Under the Waves is out now; £24.99