Amid the hustle, bustle, carnage, and mayhem of E3 Expo, Abzû is a breath of fresh air. Or a gulp of cold water.
To be released on PlayStation 4 and Windows from publisher 505 Games in the first half of 2016, Abzû does for water what Journey did for sand; for seaweed and fish what Flower did for flowers---it turns them into a soothing world ready to be leisurely explored.
This shouldn't be a surprise, as Abzû developer Giant Squid's co-founder and creative director is Matt Nava, who served as art director on both Flower and Journey. Other thatgamecompany alums at Giant Squid include composer Austin Wintory, who received a Grammy nomination for his Journey score, and longtime designer and engineer Nicholas Clark.
You play as a scuba diver exploring a dark but colorful undersea world. You're not sure where you're going, but neither are you lost. You are by yourself in the undersea world, but never quite alone.
Fish swirl around you, schooling together to ride the currents. Hold a trigger and you join their numbers, carried along by the collective will of the whole. The same trigger calmly latches you onto larger aquatic denizens. Ride a sea turtle, ride a shark, ride a whale.
The demo I played prior to E3 featured a series of areas to explore linked together by a small hole or tunnel. Each area was large enough to not feel like a cramped room, but small enough to be recognizable as a finite space.
Through natural exploration, you discover the secrets of each area, hidden not by intricate traps or difficult puzzles, but instead simply by the darkness of the ocean. There is no fail state, and it takes zero skill to uncover mysteries and move from area to area, but the game is designed in a way that doing so feels like an accomplishment nonetheless.
I hear there is, in fact, a giant squid lurking somewhere in the depths of Abzû's waters. I can't wait to find it next year.
