Apr 3, 2010
No, no, I don’t mean that XBLA is afraid of water, I’m talking about the newly announced game Hydrophobia. This game, made by Dark Energy Digital and published by Microsoft, will be an exclusive Xbox Live Arcade downloadable game!
Dark Energy Digital is a British developer that focuses on releasing high quality downloadable games. According to Dark Energy, it’s game creation system “InfiniteWorlds” dramatically reduces file size, allowing retail level quality in downloadable games. Dark Energy shows a great amount of enthusiasm over the games fluid and realistic water. The in-game water has stunning dynamics, and realistic flow and visual effects.
Some of Hydrophobia's stellar water effects, note the how the water reacts to the environment.
The game is set during a time where humanity is running low on resources and space on land, and the most affluent and important citizens live on a large ship named the ‘Queen of the World’. The Queen tours the seas of the world endlessly, giving the citizens aboard a free and luxurious life. However, things go wrong, and the city sized ship begins to take on water, and fast. You play as the ship’s system engineer, Kate Wilson, as she tries to escape the quickly sinking vessel. Kate must navigate through a maze of the ship’s ruined systems, and flooded rooms in order to escape from the lower decks. All while a large scale political battle rages throughout the panicking ship.
An example of one of Hydrophobia's environments.
Hydrophobia has been influenced by many popular games including Dead Space, Psi-Ops, and Bioshock. The influence of Dead Space on Hydrophobia is almost immediately apparent as the player navigates through the Queen’s empty and haunting half-flooded halls, and bodies line the ruined corridors and rooms of the vessel. Psi-Ops’ influence on Hydrophobia is most apparent when viewing the game’s physics manipulation as seen in the end of the latest trailer. Also, Bioshock’s influence shows up as the infamous audio logs found lying about the ship, detailing the world of Hydrophobia.
An example of the scale of the Queen of the World.
The scale of the game is massive, and that fact may certainly have contributed to the five year development of this game. However, it certainly has paid off, with scenic and enormous environments this game is sure to offer a large variety of gameplay.
Hydrophobia has yet to have an announced release date, but the recent playable demo at PAX East may point to an almost finished game. This is one boat that you don’t want to miss!
Sources:gameinformer.com, joystiq.com
Pictures:gameinformer.com
The premise of the game sounds kind of intense. I know it sounds stupid, but I have a fear of deep and dark water. In Shadow of the Colossus, you had to fight one of the giants under the water, ’cause he was this giant eel, and I literally turned off the game and had my friend come over to do it lol :B
With that being said, though, I’d probably try to play this. Even though it scares me, I like to be scared in a game. And at least it doesn’t look like it’s entirely underwater. I dunno how I even beat Bioshock.
Yeah, it certainly looks like an intriguing and quite well made game. Especially considering it’s downloadable.
Oh yeah that part in the Shadow of the Colossus, I was really creeped out as well. Not to the point that I had to shut off the game, but I was really tense just because it was so dark and murky. I could just imagine something grabbing me and dragging me under. o_o A morbid, and unsettling thought indeed.
Perhaps it was because in Bioshock the water, despite supposedly being at the bottom of the Atlantic ocean, was quite bright and you were able to see through it. It wasn’t just this giant black mass of cold nothingness outside.
lol yeah, I get ya about that feeling while playing SoC. It really didn’t help me, either, what happens after the fight. When those shadows DID come out of nowhere and paralyzed the dude while he’s in the water. Oh geez :|
Y’know, that makes perfect sense what you said about Bioshock. You really don’t see the water as dark and murky, even though you’re technically at the bottom.
I heard about this a while ago, I’m glad some survival horror is coming to XBLA. I’ve heard that the game will be released episodicly, or have they changed that.
Cant wait for this!
As far as i know it’s coming out in episodes….which is aBonus for me..i get to spread the cost and the gamplay. Plus they always tend to listen to feedback and work it into the other parts…I mean look how good HL Episodes are getting. Tech improves too…Been waiting for a real fluid system….Just what we needed!!!