You’ll encounter a shark – is it friend or enemy? – and discover statues where you can chill out and meditate, with the camera switching to following the fish, flicking from one shoal to another with a twitch of the left stick.Īnd it’s around this point that ABZÛ’s structure becomes apparent. Before long, you encounter your first sunken ancient ruins, the blue and gold walls bearing large-scale murals that seem to have something to do with the diver. You can swim around and play with the fish, find a small underwater drone and use it to demolish net-like barriers. The controls do a great job of capturing the feel of moving and turning gracefully through water, and while the camera isn’t always all that helpful, the game does a fine job of taking control of it, either to point you in the right direction or create an effect. The way fish move, flock and respond to your movements is utterly believable.
The underwater environments are convincing and beautifully lit, rendering both the scenery and fish without much surface detail, but with a real eye for shape and motion. Divided into discrete sections and chambers, it’s not a wide-open sandbox in the vein of Endless Ocean, but instead one location leads to another, drawing you deeper into the sea – and the game.Īt first your objectives seem obscure, even empty. You can also make nice with the local fauna, even grabbing them with a squeeze of the left-trigger to catch a lift.
You begin floating in a tropical ocean, where you’re free to explore a series of areas, activating weird fish-spawning zones with a tap of a button, your mainstay for environmental interactions. Your mute protagonist is a black-and-gold-clad diver with the ability to breathe underwater without any special apparatus. Like Journey, ABZÛ likes to be all mysterious. For all the similarities, it also has its own ideas. None of this means that ABZÛ is Journey’s equal, but it tries for many of the same ambitious targets and sometimes hits them. It uses the same composer, Austin Wintory, and feels a lot like Journey, or at least an underwater equivalent. Developed by Giant Squid, a studio founded by Journey’s art director, Matt Nava, it echoes Journey not just in its looks but in its minimalist gameplay style and multi-act structure.
The 10th game is Ratchet & Clank which is available for free right now, till March 31 at 8pm PDT (8:30am IST, April 1).Until thatgamecompany delivers a real follow-up to Journey, ABZÛ could be the next best thing.
Sony is also extending the trial for Funimation – anime-focussed subscription service – also starting from March 25. PlayStation and Sony's indie partners have worked together to provide these games for free. PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR users can enjoy 10 free games starting March 25 at 8pm PT (8:30am IST, March 26) till April 22 at 8pm PT (8:30am IST, April 23) as part of Sony's Play at Home initiative.
Players can also get a free copy of Ratchet & Clank on PS4 till March 31 as well as get Horizon Zero Dawn for free from next month. This is separate from the free games included with PlayStation Plus.
Now, the latest update with the programme brings indie games like Abzu, Enter the Gungeon, Subnautica, The Witness, among others. Sony introduced Play At Home in April last year as a way to provide some entertainment to consumers who were forced to stay home during lockdowns. Sony Play at Home brings ten free PlayStation 4 and PlayStation VR games that will be available for download from March 25.