There are examples of the narrative driven game being done very well, such as Journey, or Amnesia: A Machine for Pigs, or even more prototypical versions of this genre mostly seen by Team Ico. It’s not hard to see where the DNA of Submerged comes from, but it failed to replicate what made these games work in the first place.

"There are no peaks and valleys in the story to maintain a level of interest from the player that better games like Journey command so effortlessly. "

An homage (or rip off) to the opening of Shadow of the Colossus brings us into the world of Submerged, as a brother-sister pair in a boat float up to an isolated building amid what is suggested to have once been a bustling, New York-esque metropolis. The sister Miku must then search the dilapidated world for supplies to care for her injured charge.

These are the stakes at the start of the paltry few hours of runtime, and even over such a short length of time, the first and biggest failing of Submerged is that the narrative remains static throughout. There are no peaks and valleys in the story to maintain a level of interest from the player that better games like Journey command so effortlessly.

While searching the world, Miku is bound to come across at least a few of the 60 collectibles, which help piece together what happened to the once thriving city around her, and reveal more about the personal story of the two non-characters the game expects you to invest in. It’s interesting how they’re presented in comic strip like hieroglyphs, leaving a certain amount of interpretation to the player. However, they hinted in my mind toward a far more interesting story, and one I would have preferred to play.

"The world is as empty as the vast ocean before our boring heroine. A world that doesn’t even seem to want a player."

The world we’re begrudgingly allowed to exist in seems all at once serene, empty and hostile. I dodged around the word ‘play’ here, but we’ll get to that in a moment. There are no real characters to speak of in Submerged. There’s nothing outside of Miku herself that moves besides the occasional whale in the distance. The world is as empty as the vast ocean before our boring heroine. A world that doesn’t even seem to want a player.

Submerged was proudly touted as a non-combat game by the developers, and we’ve already discussed how this decision means the game does nothing to vary tone throughout the experience, but I skimmed over what interaction it does resent offering you. Firstly the supplies Miku requires aren’t by default pinpointed on the map for you. Rather you scan around the world with a telescope to locate them.

Once pinged onto your map, you slowly motor over to your discovery and make a generally slow ascent with dumbed down Uncharted type climbing. The weakest part of Uncharted titles, generally mocked, and simply there to vary the pace between firefights, is made even weaker and turned into the main activity you do in Submerged.

"There is no skill needed or anything to be asked of the player here in Submerged. It doesn’t even really want you there. It wants you to sit down, shut up and look at the pretty world they made."

The climbing is so mundane, and the environments so unchanging that I longed for some kind of variation. I could only enjoy the world itself for so long that I needed something new, even if that meant embracing death. I actively tried to die at several points, and was not capable of this. The game simply doesn’t allow it, regardless of how perilous the on screen action may appear. There is no skill needed or anything to be asked of the player here in Submerged. It doesn’t even really want you there. It wants you to sit down, shut up and look at the pretty world they made.

The worst part is, the presentation isn’t even all that stunning. The game is all about the water and it doesn’t even have better water effects than Super Mario Sunshine, and there are plenty of muddy and similar looking building textures that turn any of the climbs into the same old slog. The soundtrack isn’t bad in and of itself. But it isn’t exciting either. You could swap it out with almost any atmospheric Hollywood or “art game” soundtrack and you would have the same thing.

"Lazy storytelling and giggling contempt for having to be played drag it down enough, before the visual pitfalls stick the game’s foot ever further in its almost pretentious mouth."

“Walking simulator” is a term I hate to use, but Submerged is totally deserving of such an odious label all the same. Lazy storytelling and giggling contempt for having to be played drag it down enough, before the visual pitfalls stick the game’s foot ever further in its almost pretentious mouth. Even as a narrative driven game, there are better selections to make than drowning in the tedium that is Submerged.

This game was reviewed on the PlayStation 4.

Uppercut Games has announced that its third person adventure game Submerged will be releasing on August 4th for the PS4 and Steam and August 7th on PC. To make things more ideal for PS4 owners, PlayStation Plus subscribers can avail of a 20 percent discount from launch day onwards.

Submerged is a rather interesting story as it centers around siblings Miku and Taku as they’re stranded in a flooded city packed with mysteries and vast environments. Miku will be in charge of caring for her brother, who is wounded, and that involves exploring underwater structures and flooded streets for supplies.

There’s quite a bit of mystery to the area though and hidden objects peppered throughout will provide clues. And it certainly helps that the visuals look good on Unreal Engine 4.

Will you be picking up Submerged when it releases in the next few weeks? Let us know your thoughts in the coming weeks.

GamingBolt spoke to Upper Cut Games’ Ed Orman about the design process for Submerged, working on the PlayStation 4 and other aspects of the gameplay. Could we also squeeze out a few details behind the mysterious story? Let’s find out.

" We didn't want you to be stressed out about how long you were taking to boat around, and at the same time we need to establish how important Taku is to Miku."

Rashid K. Sayed: Submerged will be Uppercut Games’ first current generation console title. How has the experience of transitioning from iOS and Android titles like Epoch to PS4 and Xbox One been like for the studio as a whole?

Ed Orman: It’s been a lot of work, to be honest. Although most of us have console experience from our time at other companies, we’re now using a new engine on new consoles. So there’s definitely been a learning curve just from a technical point of view. Design-wise, one of the biggest challenges has been making a game with a third-person camera – something that, while it has been done many times before, is notoriously difficult to get right.

Rashid K. Sayed: Submerged appears to have a mysterious and yet very plot-driven story with the two siblings Miku and Taku trying to survive in uncharted territory. Was it more than coincidence that brought them to this city?

Ed Orman: It is indeed a mystery; one of the key mysteries of the game! So I don’t want to talk about it too much. Suffice to say that over the course of the game, you will slowly learn what brought them to this city, and what happened to the city itself.

Rashid K. Sayed: The game comes across as adventurous but fairly safe with no failure states. How does this kind of relaxing atmosphere clash with the immediacy of Miku’s mission to nurse Taku back to health?

Ed Orman: That’s a great question – it’s a really difficult balancing act. We didn’t want you to be stressed out about how long you were taking to boat around, and at the same time we need to establish how important Taku is to Miku. So rather than focus on the immediacy of the problem, we’ve worked hard to make you feel the attachment between Miku and Taku. Their relationship, and how they got here, is ultimately more important than the actions Miku is now undertaking.

Rashid K. Sayed: What served as the inspiration for the mysterious, submerged city? For some reason, the first thought that comes to mind is “Venice” and Submerged displaying what it could ultimately end up as.

Ed Orman: I’ve always loved post-apocalyptic settings, and the mystery and wonder that they can provide. But a lot of the settings have been well trod by this point (by myself and others). So I’m always on the lookout for something fresh.

"Submerged is a very casual game. Each building you climb is a navigation puzzle where you have to analyze and find the correct path. It's not meant to be super-hard; rather, we want you to be able to take your time and stay "in the moment" while you're exploring."

Then one day I saw a GTA mod that raised the sea levels so that the city’s buildings ended up sticking up out of the water like mangroves, and that image hit me immediately. Here was a setting we hadn’t seen before, one with the potential for serenity and exploration. From there, we started building out the world, answering questions: what might have happened to submerge an entire city? What kind of buildings would be cool to explore? Who would live there? What would happen to the rest of the world?

Rashid K. Sayed: How did Unreal Engine 4 help create the gorgeous visuals seen in Submerged? What facets of the engine have helped make small scale development easier while still offering AAA presentation to players?

Ed Orman: As the next incarnation, Unreal Engine 4 is easier to use in almost every way from Unreal Engine 3. Some standout features that help smaller teams are Blueprints to automate repeated level building tasks and the World Composition Tool we use to handle the Streaming and Level of Detail in the city itself. They have completely overhauled the Animation systems and Renderer, these help us create AAA visuals for the game. It’s not finished yet: Unreal Engine 4 is in Beta itself, so you’re dealing with a moving target and sometimes there are nasty surprises when you upgrade to the latest version and things break!

Rashid K. Sayed: Along with exploration, what kind of gameplay can we expect in Submerged? Will there be various puzzles or any platforming aspects to get through?

Ed Orman: Submerged is a very casual game. Each building you climb is a navigation puzzle where you have to analyze and find the correct path. It’s not meant to be super-hard; rather, we want you to be able to take your time and stay “in the moment” while you’re exploring.

For the completionist, there are many hidden objects scattered around the world, some of which fill in story holes, and others provide upgrades to your boat.

Rashid K. Sayed: How long can one expect Submerged to last, at least insofar as the story is concerned?

Ed Orman: It really depends on how quickly you want to progress. And because we’ve built it to be a place that we want player’s to want to hang out in, we don’t really think about it in terms of total play length.

"Whilst there can be incentives to choose one console over another, and production reasons to focus on just one console at a time, we felt that using Unreal Engine 4 opened the door to both of the major consoles, PC and mobile all at the same time, so we went for it."

Rashid K. Sayed: Submerged will release on Xbox One, PS4 and PC. What differences did you notice while working across the various platforms?

Ed Orman: The same game is pretty much running on all 3 platforms, and each platform has its own quirks. With the consoles these are dealt with in small settings changes, like how you would tune the setting on your PC, each platform has to be tuned to look as good as it can at the best possible framerate. We didn’t have to write any special rendering code or create separate models or textures for the 3 versions. This is great from a developer point of view, and for players, as they know they are getting the same experience no matter which platform they own.

Rashid K. Sayed: With various indie studios choosing one side or the other in today’s console war, what motivated the decision to bring Submerged to both consoles?

Ed Orman: It’s largely a business decision – we want our games to reach as many people as possible. Whilst there can be incentives to choose one console over another, and production reasons to focus on just one console at a time, we felt that using Unreal Engine 4 opened the door to both of the major consoles, PC and mobile all at the same time, so we went for it.

Rashid K. Sayed: Last but not least, can we expect a moderately happy ending with Submerged?

Ed Orman: No spoilers.

Rashid K. Sayed: Will Submerged run at 1080p and 60fps on both the PS4 and Xbox One?

Ed Orman: We’re still tuning the games settings on each Console. We’re a small independent developer, so arbitrary technical goals is not something that drives us, nor do we have the bandwidth to try to chase these types of goals. We leave that for the big publishers to chase.

"Even console specific systems like XBOX Live, PSN, (or even Steam on PC) are already implemented in the engine, and while there is still some glue that must be written to hook everything together, we generally use the engine on a higher layer."

Rashid K. Sayed: Submerged looks pretty sweet in my opinion, how taxing was it on the PS4 and Xbox One GPUs?

Ed Orman: Submerged is definitely a graphically heavy game, most of the optimizations we have done to get the open world city running has been on the GPU side. It’s safe to say we’re trying to squeeze every last inch we can out of them.

Rashid K. Sayed: Furthermore, what is your take on the differences between the architectures of the consoles? Do you find them similar contrary to what is being said out there?

The good thing about licensing an engine like Unreal 4 is that we don’t have to worry about architecture or low level implementation. Even console specific systems like XBOX Live, PSN, (or even Steam on PC) are already implemented in the engine, and while there is still some glue that must be written to hook everything together, we generally use the engine on a higher layer. There are hundreds of folks at EPIC games who take care of the low level rendering implementation for us!

Rashid K. Sayed: What kind of modifications did you make to Unreal Engine 4 for the consoles? Did any of the consoles posed a challenge of any sorts during this transition?

Ed Orman: We are a very small studio (six people full-time), and our focus is on gameplay coding rather than tech, so our goal in general is to modify as little of the engine as possible.

Rashid K. Sayed: Shifting our topic slightly towards other topics, Microsoft’s Xbox One already has a low level API that resembles DirectX 12. What possible benefits do you think DX12 will bring to games development on Xbox One?

Ed Orman: EPIC will implement this when it’s available and then we’ll be able to evaluate the benefits.

Rashid K. Sayed: Is there anything else you want to tell us about Submerged before we let you go?

Ed Orman: Submerged is nearly done! We’re now aiming for a ship date in Summer 2015, so keep your eyes peeled.

Prior to working on Submerged, Uppercut Games developed the iOS and Android video games, Epoch & Epoch 2 as well as SnowJinks.

Thus far, Submerged has been officially confirmed to be launching on the PlayStation 4, making it Uppercut Games’ first current generation video game. The game is thought to be releasing on other platforms including Xbox One and PC in “early 2015”.

• 1. Development
• 2. Story
• 3. Gameplay
• 4. Characters

Development

As clearly shown in the official development blog for Submerged, the game will be running on Unreal Engine 4. This has given the developers access to tools that have made the development process a bit easier than if they had been working with previous Unreal Engine builds. Inverse Kinematics, a system that allows for more accurate movement in certain objects, is used to help position the limbs and extremities of Miku and Taku.

Speaking about this, Uppercat Games’ Ben Driehuis has said that ,”Doing basic IK in Unreal 4 is quite easy”. While Inverse Kinematics isn’t revolutionary, it’s an important system in character focused games like Submerged. Driehuis also said, “The other issue we had is once we started adding in the level art the limbs would often look out of place or go through the meshes. The solution was to use Inverse Kinematics or IK. The quick explanation of this is that we can set the hands and feet to exact positions and the IK system will rotate the bones before it in the chain so that they end up there.”

Also talking about the options afforded to them by Unreal Engine 4, Uppercut Games’ Ed Orman said, “We use Unreal Engine 4 to create the gorgeous graphics that you see above.”

The first playable build of the game was presented to Canberra Game Devs during PAX Australia, this served as both a gameplay reveal and a means of locating bugs in the game based on played feedback.

Working on the game’s score, is the Canadian/Australian, BAFTA award winning composer Jeff Van Dyck. His portfolio is extensive, he has worked on titles like Alien Isolation, Medieval 2: Total War, Total War: Shogun 2: Fall of the Samurai among other Total War games.

Talking about getting Van Dyck on board to work on the game, Orman said, “We’ve enlisted BAFTA-Award Winner Jeff Van Dyck to provide the musical score. The gameplay is designed with no failure states: play at your own pace, safe in the knowledge that you’ll never die. It all adds up to create a relaxing, mysterious adventure that everyone can enjoy.”

Speaking by way of the European PlayStation blog, Orman has expressed an interest in introducing Virtual Reality support, but only if it’s introduced in a meaningful way. Answering a question put to him by a gamer about Project Morpheus support, Orman said, “We are interested in VR support, but we would want to put some real thought into designing for it – don’t want to just slap it in. That said, I’d sure love to be able to stand in the world of Submerged and have a good look around.”

Story

Submerged focuses on siblings Miku and Taku, who arrive at a strange location by boat. Due to Taku being injured, the sister Miku must explore the area and find supplies to help him recover. Finding supplies will be a bit of an issue though due to the collapsing nature of the nearby city. Exploring by boat, Miku will use her telescope to discover supply caches and ultimately explore various, deteriorating structures to find resources to help her brother.

Gameplay

Submerged is an adventure video game that focuses on the two main characters, the game is designed in a way that the player cannot lose, given that there are no “fail states”.

Arriving in a strange and mostly collapsing and submerged city by boat, you must find shelter for your wounded brother whom you will also provide for.

Navigating the game world with your boat, finding your way and locating useful items thanks to a telescope and climbing your way through the ruins, you will gather the items neccesary to shelter yourself and your brother as well as supply aid.

Talking about this, Uppercut Games’ Ed Orman said, “As she traverses the sunken metropolis, Miku starts to uncover the secrets of how this world came to be. And in turn, we begin to learn about Miku and Taku: what drove them to this mysterious city, where the only inhabitants appear to be malformed copies of the native sea-life?”

Character

At this time, not a great deal is known about Miku and Taku, the brother and sister duo that serve as the primary protagonists of Submerged.

Note: This wiki will be updated once we have more information about the game.

Update: Also coming on Xbox One and PC.

Uppercut Games has announced a brand new exploration adventure game, Submerged, that will be coming to the PlayStation 4 later this year.

Submerged seems to be the latest in the new line of games that de-emphasize combat or aggression as the primary mode of interaction with the game world. Instead, the focus seems to be on actually exploring and appreciating the world around you, and interacting with it in other, more non violent ways.

“Submerged is a serene adventure set in a city that has mysteriously become flooded and overgrown,” said Uppercut Games’ Ed Orman. “It follows the story of siblings Miku and Taku — the pair arrive in this strange place in a boat, and Miku has to carry her wounded brother Taku to shelter before she can start gathering the supplies she’ll need to nurse him back to health. But to do that, she’ll have to find the supplies first! She will have to explore using her boat and telescope, locate the forgotten caches, then climb the crumbling buildings to retrieve them.”

It also seems like a lot of impressive talent is involved in the making of the game.

“We use Unreal Engine 4 to create the gorgeous graphics that you see above,” Orman said. “We’ve enlisted BAFTA-Award Winner Jeff Van Dyck to provide the musical score. The gameplay is designed with no failure states: play at your own pace, safe in the knowledge that you’ll never die. It all adds up to create a relaxing, mysterious adventure that everyone can enjoy.”

If you want to see the game’s first trailer, you can check it out above. And stay tuned to GamingBolt for more information.