Freediver: Triton Down is a game that you would avoid when you first see in inside of your virtual stores. Barring a fantastic review from a reliable source, an underwater swimming virtual reality game does not sound too promising, and something worth spending money on.
Freediver released just a few weeks ago with a price point of $9. You can usually tell what type of VR game you are getting by observing the price. In this game, you are getting a polished game with limited amounts of gameplay and storylines.
This gameplay for Freediver only takes about an hour of real time to complete. In this game you are playing as a oceanographer who is is caught within a capsized boat for research. This takes place after you have discovered an unexpected amount of information inside of the cave of the ocean depths.
The game best feature is not the storyline within the game at all. Freediver clearly focused on making this game a smooth experience for the hour that you play, rather than making this game a long and frustrating adventure. This game was built around the idea of swimming inside of VR. For this to be possible the developers of this game had to come up with new swimming locomotion system. This is much harder than making a player move around on the streets, as water moves the body completely differently than regular air.
The developers did a fantastic job at this, as they built tension into the haptics with every swimming motion. With each drop in percentage of oxygen, its seems as though the movements get harder as well. This not only adds an element of realness to your swimming adventure, but puts a time limit on the puzzles that you are solving underwater.
Moving I the water felt as natural as ever. To turn to the side, all you need to do is swing one arm or the other, exactly as you would in real water. You can also turn your head and body in real life, but where is the fun in that? If the water current is too strong against you, you can simply grab onto something near you to propel yourself forward. The movements in this game are beyond natural, and something you want to go back to time and time again.
Freediver: Triton Down, A Game Worth Diving Into
This game is essentially a big problem-solving puzzle game, with the feature of an unforgiving timer. Although the gameplay never gets too deep, and you never get too invested in your character, the game is something worth building off of. They did a fantastic job of building Freediver into a game that you don’t get sick of playing. There was so many places where this game could’ve turned into a motion sickness mess, or a bland feeling of moving underwater, but that never happened once. What this game lacks in length, it makes up for in detailed VR design and fantastic self-made locomotion. This is a game we would love to see get expanded on in the near future, as the building blocks in place are perfect.
