What lurks beneath the ocean’s surface? Matthew Pellett dives into aquatic adventure Abzu and discovers a Journey like no other
Switch on your PS4 and it’s highly unlikely you’re in for a relaxing time. Games are puzzling or action-packed or tense or challenging, with any occasional moments of downtime tending to be just pauses designed to help you catch your breath ahead of the next mental push. But therapeutic? Hardly. Heck, even browsing Netflix’s vast library is more daunting than calming, as anyone who’s felt the pressure of picking the right film for everyone present can attest.
Abzu is an exception to the rule. Due on PlayStation 4 as a consoleexclusive this spring, it’s a game about underwater exploration, but one in which everything that’s scary about the concept has been stripped away. You needn’t worry about running out of air as there’s no oxygen gauge and no way to suffocate. You needn’t fear being snacked on by nasties, either: there’s a shark, but it won’t bite. Dying is, in fact, impossible.
So as we slowly swim through the shallow, clear waters of Abzu’s opening, skimming above golden sand and getting a feel for our diver’s controls, we feel calmness take hold. These early minutes are gentle, peaceful, strokes towards a welcoming, sunlit cave filled with schools of fish and pillars of green kelp. Our female diver can twist and roll and loop in the water, yet remains easy to handle no matter our gymnastics.
She’s also equipped with a sonar ability, and pinging it at small schools of fish sees the creatures encircle us in a wordless greeting. It has a more practical use, too: the sonar enables us to zero in on a small drone buried in the sea floor. When we find it, it wakes up, blinks, and then begins swimming in formation alongside us like a cute Pixar robot companion.
Soon, we brush sand off a couple more drones, and then, flanked by our robo-army, set off through a hole in the rock wall screened by kelp. It takes us to a deeper column of dark-blue water, where we can’t help but stop and marvel at the spectacular sight of 10,000 fish circling a platform.
Squid’s in
Labelling Abzu as an ‘underwater Journey’ is too easy. Not just because of what you do (both games can be described as “a silent protagonist embarks on a mysterious odyssey through beautiful and colourful stop-and-stare environments”), but because of who’s making it. The sights and sounds of Journey were unmistakable; its score and its artwork etched into the memories of fans across the globe, which helped the game cement itself in both our PS3 and PS4 Halls Of Fame. And now, those sights and sounds are shared with Abzu: art director Matt Nava and composer Austin Wintory are back together again for this marine meander.
For the former, Abzu marks a new beginning and the bold decision to go it alone. With Flower and Journey behind him, Matt Nava has parted ways with ThatGameCompany and built a new development team. As founder and creative director of Giant Squid, he’s helming a project that people can’t help but view as a spiritual successor to Journey. Fortunately, that daunting comparison doesn’t faze him.
“People have this assumption that if you make something that’s successful then you’re literally in the shadow of the mountain from Journey,” chuckles Nava when we ask about the pressure of following up a memorable game like Journey. “I think it’s true to an extent, but I’ve never really looked at it that way. Journey is something that we always think about, but it’s not something that we worry about. There are so many ways that Abzu references Journey, and there are so many ways that it is really the opposite to Journey, and that brings about a really new experience; both for the player and [for ourselves] as developers.”
As for the latter, Nava knew right from the beginning that Austin Wintory’s music had to be a key component of Abzu. “He’s an extremely talented composer and I was very lucky to meet him when I was working on Journey,” Nava says. “He has a very great sense for capturing the mood of something right off of the bat. I asked him what he thought would be a great theme for this underwater adventure exploration game and he sent a beautiful cue that became the theme for Abzu.
“There wasn’t any back and forth on it. That core theme was just like: ‘Yep. That’s it!’”
Get in the Sea
Back in the ocean, we spend at least ten minutes just interacting with the underwater creatures and plants. We’re able to grab onto the fins of an unsuspecting giant manta ray and steal a ride as if we're skitching cars in Skate. Turtles, too, can double as underwater propulsion scooters – their turning circles are nowhere near as small as our diver’s, but slicing through the blue while clutching onto majestic sea creatures is a glorious moment that recalls Journey’s seminal sand-surfing scene.
Nava promises that later on we’ll be able to use these systems for more things: grabbing onto a dolphin and steering it towards dynamic schools of fish, for instance, will enable us to shepherd them to different areas. No doubt this ability, coupled with a pervasive food chain system, will form the basis for some light puzzling to help us access new areas.
For now, we’ve just got our trusty drones to help us progress, and they prove to be quite adept at digging in the sand to uncover ways forward. Sadly, it appears that Abzu’s great white shark doesn’t share our love for the mechanical helpers. “The relationship between the diver and the shark is one that’s pivotal to the game,” teases Nava, hinting at a budding friendship, but the iconic creature’s introduction is far from friendly as it crunches one of our companions in its jaws.
It’s a scene that shakes us out of our comfort zone. As soothing and awe-inspiring as the game’s beginning may be, and as much as we liking clinging onto that ‘we can’t die’ tenet, it transpires that Abzu isn’t afraid to mix things up.
“You don’t have to do a lot to create a tension in the player when you chuck them in the water,” explains Nava. “Abzu takes you to very unexpected places and I think it’s definitely going to surprise a lot of people. There are moments where we can all of a sudden take away the things that have been secretly giving you these cues that make you feel safe. I’m not saying it turns into a crazy horror game or something – it’s never going to be that – but there are definitely areas where there’s intense action and unexpected twists; it’s not necessary to have the mechanic of the player dying to create those moments in an adventure like Abzu.”
And with no human-controlled companions to meet and partner up with during your swim à la Journey’s magical online interactions, there won’t be any other players to turn to for comfort in these moments of heightened tension – you’re always on your own.
Wave story
Don’t expect to learn a great deal about Abzu’s character, its story or later-game environments before release – they’re necessary secrets in a game that primarily aims to astonish and amaze. Instead, fill in the blanks by considering the different places that Journey took you to as you set out to reach and scale its gargantuan mountain, then picture the possibilities if the geometry was flipped and your goal was to instead dive down into a deep sea trench that nobody has ever visited before…
“The very first place that we came from in designing the game was trying to communicate this mythic story of the diver diving deeper,” says Nava, who describes his own amateur scuba diving sessions as being “the most inspiring thing I’ve ever done in my life,” and a huge source of inspiration for Abzu’s creation.
“It’s a very metaphorical story; diving deeper into the ocean and diving deeper into the darkness – it really is this metaphor for diving into yourself and discovering who you are. This metaphor is really where the idea of the game emerged, and then we just went from there.”
If the metaphor was Abzu’s genesis, the core of the game naturally emerged from real-world questions about Earth’s oceans. After all, we understand more about the surface of the Moon than we do about what’s lurking beneath our own waters.
“There’s so many things down there that you don’t know,” Nava muses. “One of the reasons I was so excited about making a game that takes place in the ocean is that it’s a mystery. Everyone has a connection to the ocean; everyone drinks water, and it affects us all. It’s a powerful symbol and a place that’s just full of life.
“Journey was this desert world, and I think that Abzu is this lush, forested sea floor with corals and so much to discover. Every square inch is covered with life, and I think it’s one of the most fun things about the ocean; just being amazed at how many places you find creatures and life in the most unexpected places.”
For all the talk of how Abzu is an opportunity for players to dive into themselves and discover who they are, what has the game’s development taught Nava about who he is?
“Working at ThatGameCompany as art director on Flower and Journey was my first job in the industry – before that I had just graduated from college. The jump from that to managing a studio and hiring a team… there was a lot of learning to be done.
“But overall, it was a fantastic process. I think we really have been able to hire a very strong team, and we have a great culture here. The thing that I really didn’t know out of school was the importance of a strong team culture in making the process of creating a game go smoothly. You can have a whole bunch of talented people working together, but if they don’t get along then it’s going to be very difficult to get anywhere. That’s really where there’s been a lot of growth; understanding how to work with others and how to communicate clearly, and how important that is.”
The communication appears to be paying off. For sure, the inevitability of players drawing comparisons with Journey means Abzu has a lot to live up to, but all the indicators suggest the team at Giant Squid (“We were just talking about how every game we make in the future will probably feature very good water,” Nava laughs of the dev’s name) is up to the challenge of equalling that anticipation. We don’t yet know what lurks in Abzu’s depths, but we’re utterly convinced that finding out is going to be an unmissable voyage.