Normally, with games that have isometric viewpoints, the floor is the most boring part of the whole thing, a beige backdrop that exists solely to stop you falling off into the aether. Not in the case of The Edge of Water where it’s a vibrant underwater world that you can influence as you walk over the surface.
Long ago, as The Edge of Water‘s story goes, people lived underwater. That was until they betrayed the trust of the god of the ocean and were cast out to the land, and cursed with an inability to swim in the sea — forced instead to walk across it. That sounds pretty cool at first; The ability to walk on water. I imagine it probably brings about several issues. Whatever those issues are, however, are not of any concern to Hedi — the protagonist — who is actively mourning the loss of her family when she is drawn on an adventure by her mysterious brother fish.
Adventuring takes place, as you’ve probably guessed, from an almost isometric viewpoint, however there’s an almost platforming feel to it. Buildings and structures rise out of the water and archways are blocked by rubble or other obstacles. You have an option to move about, faster on the water, by surfing using a kite-style windsurfing construct which cuts beautiful patterns into the water as you slide about. I can’t say enough about the water effects in The Edge of Water, and I don’t think I’d get sick of them, even if they are at the heart of the gameplay.
I played an incredibly short demo of the game while at Devcom, but I probably spent twice the time it was designed to last simply because I kept running around in circles, creating ripples and waves in the water. While very short, the demo demonstrated the core gameplay really well: I travelled to an area, scaled it to meet somebody, then used a noise to attract a large shark which I guided towards some particularly rude piranhas in order to scare them away and clear a path for me.
It’s not all visuals though, even from the brief whispers of story that I heard while playing the demo, there seemed to be an underlying lore that touched on an old world built on a rich mythology featuring battling gods; Whether that plays a role, or is just a justification of how the world came to be, is yet to be seen though.
The Edge of Water is currently available to Wishlist on PC, via Steam.
