Have you ever been fascinated with the Ocean? Under The Waves. A narrative story-driven adventure made by ‘Parallel Studio’ and published by ‘Quantic Dream’, scratches that itch or fascination.
I have, It both amazes me and terrifies me at the same time. The terrifying part stems from when I went on a boat trip in Tenerife and rope swung into the sea. When I was underwater I opened my eyes and couldn’t see the bottom. I love swimming, however, when I couldn’t see the bottom at that very moment I began to panic so I swiftly made my way back to the boat. As many have said before (mainly fishermen I believe) the sea is a cruel and unforgiving mistress.
Many have been lost to it, many ships have come to permanently reside in it (Titanic being the most famous). But beyond that danger is a vast unknown that covers 72% of the earth’s surface to which humans have only explored 5%.
So the mystery of what is down there is certainly intriguing.
So why am I talking about the sea you may ask?
Now the first eye-catching thing about Under the Waves is that it is published by ‘Quantic Dream’, a studio known best for its cinematic and story-driven games like ‘Heavy Rain’, ‘Beyond’ and ‘Detroit: Become Human’. What makes this a perfect pairing between studio and developer is that ‘Parallel Studio’ is made up of four professionals who have worked on games like ‘Heavy Rain’, ‘A Plague Tale’, ‘Remember Me’ and ‘Life Is Strange’. All are highly regarded story-driven games.
So how does ‘Under The Waves’ fair up?
Let’s take a look.
Under the Waves follows the story of Stan, a professional diver working for an oil company called UniTrench.
We begin with Stan descending into the ocean depths and then follow him on his way to access the submersible called ‘Moon’ that will be his means of transport on the ocean floor. We then depart the underwater garage and make our way to the ‘Hab Module’, (Stan’s new underwater home) to get set up.
‘Under the Waves’ story is played out in days. There are 17 in total (however 7 playable due to a narrative time jump) and each day brings itself a new set of tasks and missions for Stan to complete.
Under the Waves story progresses through these missions being completed, however, there are also some side missions and lots of collectables scattered around the ocean floor for you to find which helps complete the story in the long run. My favourite things to do outside of the main story were to find and discover sunken wrecks and to photograph the local sea life. It helps you connect to the setting as a whole, making the ocean depths a complete character of its own.
Now the main crux of the story is shown during dream/nightmare sequences at the end of each day. The game is all about Stan and we learn over the course of the game that he is dealing with grief over the loss of his daughter. We find out that things aren’t great at home with his wife and that the reason he came to the ocean depths was to help clear his mind (ironically in the most claustrophobic setting imaginable). So the dreams are a way of showing the player Stan’s experience with the grief.
We also learn that above the waves a massive hurricane has drifted in which is making life difficult for the UniTrench employees above, but also for Stan down below.
Under the Waves plays like a hybrid cross between ‘Life is Strange’ and ‘Heavy Rain’. You have some of the quick-time elements from ‘Quantic Dream games mixed in with the more explorative nature of ‘Life is Strange’. It’s a nice mix as it falls into a new category of its own.
You have two ways to navigate Stan through the ocean. The first is in the ‘Moon’ submersible which is fast but with a turn base of a Renault Kangoo. The second is by swimming in a diving suit. It’s much slower to get around than the submersible, however, you have a lot more freedom in the movement. Turning is more fluid, you can ascend and descend quicker, plus you can access spaces too small for the submersible to fit. You can also ‘land’ and walk around on walkable surfaces if you don’t want to swim.
One thing though the submersible trumps swimming around in though is that you can get Stan to start singing sea shanties as he zooms through the waves.
Artistically Under the Waves is a mixed bag. The locations, sea life, buildings and vehicles all look wonderful and very authentic. The sea in particular is amazing, and if you venture up top side and break out into the open waves you will see the most stunning and photorealistic water and wave effects to date. Put all that greatness to one side however and we have to talk about the character model of Stan. I can’t tell how Stan’s voice should match his character model.
His voice sounds like a genuinely honest and caring man dealing with trauma. Yet his character model looks like a plasticine face after accidentally sitting on it. There’s no emotion there. Just a hat that sits permanently on his head throughout the entire game, a fisherman’s beard and then two crooked and uneven eyes.
This is a perfect Segway to lead me onto the technical aspects of this game.
Stan’s face would be forgiven if his voice acted lines actually synced up to the mouth movements.
At first, I thought it was a bug, however, after playing this game on both my Xbox One S and Xbox Series X and after multiple restarts, the lip sync is none nonexistent. You hear the line delivery and then see the mouth open and shut like watching a dubbed foreign film. This is a real shame as it really takes you out of the immersion.
The music in Under the Waves is brilliant and works well as a background ambience, never getting too in your face and overloading your ears. Well, when it works that is. During my playthrough, I would have random dropouts where the music would be building and then suddenly cut to the silence of the ocean depths. I’m not quite sure why this happened but it kept on doing it even after multiple restarts of the game.
Yet putting these two issues aside the game ran a consistent frame rate with the ocean depths rendered beautifully. There is some draw distance to this (rather large) underwater map, however, this all comes crashing down when the game literally crashes and forces you back to your dashboard. During one sitting I experienced a total of 5 crashes over a playtime of 2 hours.
I’m not entirely sure as to why. Under the Waves isn’t exactly large at 7GB and it’s not exactly taxing.
It would happen consistently when the gameplay would move into a cutscene of Stan opening a chest, coming out of the Hab or opening an airlock and then ‘BAM’ freeze and back to the dashboard. Luckily the auto save on this game is pretty on the ball so not much to re-trek over, however, it really does become an annoyance and takes away from the fun of Under the Waves.
Like I said before there is plenty of stuff to do in this game aside from the main missions. You can find sunken wrecks, search for collectables, blueprints and stickers, complete photo missions of the local sea life, or just explore. There is certainly a lot to do here.
So should you buy now or wait for a price drop?
I’d recommend waiting for a sale.
As I say it’s Under the Waves great game with great exploration and story, however in its current state it is riddled with bugs that detract from the overall experience. My recommendation would be to wait for these to be fixed first to get the full enjoyment out of this game.
‘Under the Waves’ gets a 6 out of 10. A great story-driven adventure let down by glitches and bugs.
‘Under the Waves’ is out now on Xbox One, Xbox Series S/X, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5 and PC.
This review was based on an Xbox One and Xbox Series X.
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