I emerge from a cave and into a bottomless abyssal oceanic trench with almost no visible life but for the silhouette of a pod of whales below-the music follows suit, falling from an orchestral swell to nearly imperceptible ambience. But in place of David’s narration, the journey is elevated by an amazing score from Austin Wintory. It’s like bouncing around in a psychedelic marine documentary-all that’s missing is some Attenborough. If a hungry shark comes along, the camera chain continues. If you’re watching a small fish while a bigger fish snaps it up, the perspective will then shift to the big fish. It’s an easy way to observe the individual animations and behaviors of the dozens of species a single area might have, and the camera follows the food chain. To really soak it in, you can ‘meditate’ on statues in each environment, which let you leave the perspective of the diver and use the camera to select any present organism to follow them around for a bit. Deeper environments turn down the brightness in exchange for mood, scarcity, and stranger creatures, but the sense of wonder never left me. They’re microcosms of a larger system, signifying an ideal abundance and exchange of energy-a pretty perpetual motion machine.
#Abzu length free#
Feel free to use it.Įnvironments can look comically overloaded with life, but we’re meant to see the ecosystem squished tight and exploding with color. It’s one of the most beautiful, bizarre things I’ve done in a game, and it felt like my idea. They dynamically parted around us, spinning off in erratic patterns, and returned to their flashy tornado. I reenacted the iconic scene from Free Willy with my orca pals, tried to hug a giant squid, and did a barrel roll on a humpback whale through a torrential cyclone of silvery fish. I skirted the sandy floor, looking for skittish octopi and bright blue lobsters. I lingered in the environments for a long time, following schools of fish to get a better look, piggybacking a hungry grouper, or trying to keep pace with a manta ray fleet. I wish there were more frivolous maneuvers to play with, but swimming, in combination with exploration, is fun enough as is. Whether turning a corner in a jetstream or just trying to chain together two consecutive flips to impress the dolphins, throwing a somersault in at the right time is a satisfying way to maintain momentum while feeling and looking cool.
You never need to use it, but it’s a flourish that encourages movement for the sake of it. One button does a powerful dolphin kick, propelling the diver forward, and another, arguably one of my favorite button assignments in a while, performs a somersault in whatever direction you’re pressing. The diver cuts through the water, frictionless and easy to control. I never want to stop moving because swimming feels so great. You’re encouraged to do as divers do and thoroughly explore each vibrant ocean environment, populated with actual creatures from the marine biosphere. With no clear, pressing goals, Abzû is about movement and observation, and enables both in expansive, satisfying ways. You might have to pull a lever here and you’re encouraged to steer clear of certain objects later on, but your progress is never gated by puzzles or actual danger.
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You play as a nameless diver with an infinite lung capacity (or no lungs at all) where you move on a linear path from one big underwater environment to the next at your own leisure. Underwater journeyĪbzû is an expertly directed psychedelic marine tour without a single UI or text prompt telling you where to go or what to do, purely driven by curiosity. I wasn’t worried about solving puzzles or a health bar or where to go next-I was only concerned with swimming and seeing and understanding, a major accomplishment. But for a moment, I was up close with an impressive, abstract being, thinking about what it might be thinking about. The squid doesn’t seem to care and continues to do cool squid stuff, which is fine. We swim together for a minute, and then I do a little somersault to signal I’m off. Something I heard on a science doc years back floats up, ‘Take it out of the water and their eyes deflate like limp plastic grocery bags.’ Be well, giant squid. I’m getting sized up by an intelligent, curious creature. They’re as big as a pancakes with pupils like balled fists. Its massive glassy eyes look me up and down. Still, it’s huge, roughly three times my length from tip to tentacle. This giant squid isn’t the kind of kraken who’d take down a ship or duke it out with Moby Dick.
#Abzu length windows#
Reviewed on: Windows 10, i7-6700K, 16GB RAM, GeForce GTX 980 Ti
![abzu length abzu length](http://recit-trad.eu/wp-content/pics/abzu-trailer-2.jpg)
What is it? A gorgeous underwater exploration adventure.