I’m looking for something. I didn’t know what it was, but I needed to find it, and my map swore it was here. I walked around a deliberately empty room, desperately searching every nook and cranny in case it was hiding on the side of the fireplace, or hidden in an antique globe. It is not. Suddenly, I was acutely aware of how long it had been since I had noticed my back, so I turned sharply to look at the door I came in from.
It was open, and beyond was the ocean, which filled the underwater chambers of the wreck whose interior I had been wandering. No one would ever look at me, but for a moment I was absolutely sure someone would. What I’m looking for is on the balcony above me. I can’t find it yet.
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It took me a moment to feel like I was playing Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss, the latest game from Norwegian indie studio Sarepta Studio. But once I did, the game really grabbed my attention. The depths sunk.
The mission that awaits you at the ship’s final resting place is simple. Just find out what happened so their family – and you – can get some closure. You’ll take on the role of a lone underwater detective, searching the flooded and damaged rooms and sections of an early 1900s private cruise ship designed to allow wealthy ship owner Isabel Greenwood to fulfill her archaeological Dreams, a Spanish galleon salvaged from the depths for notes, projects and wax roll recordings to help you piece things together. You might immediately compare it to Lucas Pope’s Return of the Obra Dinn (which I certainly did when I originally tried out the game’s Steam next fest demo).
While I’m surprised that the two games don’t share at least some inspiration, I think Thalassa sets itself apart enough from other very good games in that it’s less stylized and has more depth to play. A personal connection between those lost souls who are digging and sifting through their lives. Before you delve into how it all happened, your biggest concern isn’t trying to nail down simple details like putting names to faces – how it all happened, that’s what was done from the beginning. How could this happen to someone I knew and cared about?
It questions you more than the usually pretty subtle Obra Dinn, which isn’t a bad thing. In fact, the only area where I think Thalasa might be lagging behind its spiritual brethren is in not making more use of its historical context as the unshakable defining element of its identity.
As you’d expect given the subject matter, the emotion that really fleshes out Thalassa’s gameplay is made up of exploratory or crime scene walking simulations and solving mysteries via menus where you can find all the evidence you want. We collected gaps that connect different scenarios. If you’re a particularly fast Inspector Clouseau, you might find both a bit slow and laborious, but that plays well into the story Thalasa tells.
You should take a moment to appreciate the unnatural beauty of the dwellings people recently called home, slowly rusting and crumbling, with fish gently sliding in and out of broken windows and closed doors. You shouldn’t rest until you’ve sorted out every detail of the event and the essential points of it are already on the page. You should take your time to think, as the voices of several of your crewmates will echo in your skull, reacting to your findings and offering their thoughts.
While I can’t get into what it is about certain characters and performances that really make the exploration of complex themes that Thalassa tackles hit as hard as it could without going into spoilers, I will say the following: Survivor’s Guilt It’s the game that, for the most part, handles it very deftly, letting you really get sucked into a person trapped in a helpless cycle of regret and grief, seeing them constantly forced to dwell on what they’ve lost.
That’s where Baldur’s Gate 3 alums Amelia Tyler and Peter Hannah (Alex and Bailey, respectively) are tasked with Aspects deliver the most important performances, and they all do an excellent job with the dialogue, though perhaps a bit wooden in the dialogue. The protagonist falls into dreamlike scenes at certain key points in the plot, and without excellent voice acting, it would be difficult to complete these scenes while maintaining the game’s consistent serious tone.
Other than these two, I wouldn’t say there are any weak links in the other characters, each of them gets enough screen time and depth to play their role in the proceedings, and interesting enough connections to the rest of the staff, They feel like a realistic, well-developed group. No one feels like they’re stranded on an island, feel superfluous, or don’t have at least one flaw or feature that makes them interesting, something that’s hard to achieve in a game with a relatively terse runtime.
A similar attempt was made in terms of tone, and I think Sarepta did a great job of tapping into complex and uncomfortable themes, and it did a great job of building on the foundations of My Child’s Life while ensuring that it still delivers One experience is interesting enough. That said, if you’re making a game like this, you’re obviously not going to go down the path of laugh-a-minute hijinks and high-energy action, so I’d probably skip this and hilarious black magic if it worked through some weird stuff It will appear in the “Games like Fortnite” section of the storefront of your choice.
I can’t really talk about the climax of the game’s narrative without getting into spoilers like I did before, but it will sum it up like this – Thalasa’s story only gets better as it goes on.
At some moments early on and before you actually get to the final sequence, the flow can stumble a bit – or, in the latter case, may grind to a halt without explicitly telling you why, if you haven’t unraveled it yet. Nearly all are mysteries – but for the most part, her sailing is correct and true enough to sweep you into her waves. Once you reach the conclusion, no matter which choice you end up making, you’ll see an ending that fits the story being told.
If all of this sounds like what you want from a game, then I’d say you’ve found what you’re looking for.
Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss launches August 1, 2024, and will be available on PC. This review was conducted on a PC and the code was provided by the publisher.
