Test your fear of the ocean in this underwater horror game | Death in the Water 2 - Full Review

Death in the Water 2 is a single-player horror FPS game that is set deep underwater, pitting you — a specialist deep-water diver — against various mind controlled sea creatures perpetuated by a sinister being – The Kraken, or what they call Death.

🟩Pros

+immersive deep underwater experience

+best animations I’ve seen for video game sea creatures

🟥Cons

-repetitive mediocre gameplay loop

-uninteresting premise

Welcome to the Deep

Imagine a deep sea survival game like Subnautica, which is basically an underwater version of the survival horror game The Forest. Remove all the base building, crafting, and focus on the shooter aspect. Make it darker with lovecraftian elements and you get Death in the Water 2.

At the outset, I thought the game was set in antiquity, like in the age of pirates and the golden age of exploration, but soon I found out that it was actually set in modern times, clearly evident with the radio communication and high tech gear that the main character uses along with his backup contact at the surface.

I guess humans can’t swim very fast

Death in the Water 2 starts slow and uninteresting. The introductory plot exposition is just unstimulating white lines of text displayed at your screen to read; no visuals, no narration. This  felt so stretched out and was a bit longer than I anticipated that it made such a negative impact. The introduction just basically sets up the premise and the narrative ends there.

Afterwards, there is a tutorial segment that is as equally as slow. Something that I would say is not the best example of gameplay to get a player hooked on. You just are ordered to kill 10 hard-to-find fishes and hard-to-find treasure chests. There is a bit of voice acting during the tutorial, but that’s all there is, after that, it’s now laser focused on the wave shooter-esque aspect throughout the entirety of the game.

Gameplay Analysis

The gameplay loop — which is the main focus of the game — largely stays the same, it consists of starting a mission in a much more passive exploration phase, in which you are trying to find treasure chests scattered in the open world in order to afford upgrading your gear. Along the way you will also see other harmless creatures that populate the area.

After a bit of exploration, the wave shooter element begins where you are attacked by a variety of sea creatures and you’d have to fight them. Complete it to proceed to the next mission, rinse and repeat this for ten plus missions and that’s about it.

It will take you around five hours to complete a Death in the Water 2 playthrough. And by “a playthrough”, I mean there is some semblance of replayability in mind, with its scoring system, ending, and open-ended gameplay. But considering the already repetitive nature of the gameplay throughout the first playthrough, it’s not really well suited to be a replayable type of game.

Tactical but too easy at the same time

The combat is more methodical, your weapon is not an agent of destruction. It fires and reloads slowly and does not always one shot the enemy. Although across the game you can also acquire other weapons aside from the typical one-shot harpoon, like semi automatic shotguns, and slightly faster-rate spearguns that you can use, depending on the occassion.

Some enemies will have the ability to attack you from a distance instead of the usual lounging melee attack, but more often than not, they’re already dead from your harpoon gun before they can even attack you. In short, the game is too easy, and you’re too overpowered, even if the weapons are as slow and methodical as they are already.

On the other side of the difficulty scale, your oxygen and ammo are limited, and you’d have to find and loot supply drops scattered along the sea surface. You cannot surface above the water as well to find reprieve. This gameplay loop is all there is throughout the ten plus missions, without much variation.

Technical Analysis

Death in the Water 2's graphics and sound design are phenomenal and impressive considering this was just made by two people. They really captured the underwater aesthetic and feeling exceptionally well. It's dark and scary, just like real-life but still light enough for it to accommodate the gameplay. The environments are also well designed; visually, they look realistic and believable as an underwater landscape; Mechanically, they are dynamic enough to provide a decent arena for the player to battle with the sea creatures, with coral reefs and caves as cool hiding spots and covers.

Best in class animations

The sea creatures are beautifully animated. These animations are probably the best I’ve seen for video game sea creatures. They are very fluid and life-like. The animations, the physics, matching it with the movement all checks out. Even the transition from live animation to ragdoll physics when dying is seamless. Clearly out of the uncanny valley when it comes to realism.  This is highly impressive considering sea creatures are I think among the hardest ones to imitate.

Conclusion:

Death in the Water 2 is a mixed bag of experience for me. It is highly immersive, looks visually stunning, and the animations are exceptional, but the overall gameplay lacks substance and gets repetitive easily. It feels more like a tech demo or a proof of concept instead of an actual enjoyable game.