True to their tease, Insomniac have revealed their newest game today- and as the tease had hinted, it’s a game that has to do with what lies beneath the surface of the sea. It’s called Song of the Deep, and it is Insomniac’s ‘passion project,’ a game that follows the adventures of 12 year old Merryn, who builds her own submarine to try and find her father, who she believes is lost under the sea.
The game has a gorgeous storybook animation style, and basically seems to be a fairytale unfolding on your screen- with Insomniac’s tech savvy and their inimitable sense of style both shining through in the first teaser trailer for the game.
Song of the Deep is going to be a platformer Metroidvania- and like other Metroidvanias, it’ll have a combination of puzzle-solving, world exploration and combat, though Insomniac made it very clear that combat will actually be de-emphasized in the game.
“[Merryn’s] not a killer. She never hurts a human over the course of the story, but if she’s just destroying things along the way, it didn’t feel like it fit the tone and the mood and who she was,” Insomniac’s Chief Creative Officer Brian Hastings told IGN. “She’s the hero because she’s smart, because she’s persistent and because she’s resilient. How do you get that across as a character? How do you have the player feel that? A lot of that was, you need to explore, you need to solve puzzles, you need to use your mind in order to get through.”
It sounds like a fascinating premise for the game- and it is something that, as Insomniac themselves have said multiple times, has the potential to induce some surprise and delight for the player. Song of the Deep is out on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC later this year. It will be available for $15, and will primarily be a digital release, though in the US, you can get a physical copy of the game at GameStop.