Either way, I'm excited to take the dive.

I couldn't say whether that's a result of the input from publisher Quantic Dream – the Detroit: Become Human studio is consulting on storytelling and sharing its technical expertise – or merely a drive within developer Parallel Studios to just fully submerge us in this exploration of grief and gratuitous beauty. Set to release on August 29 for PlayStation, Xbox, and PC, the game is described as a 'poetic underwater adventure. Quantic Dreams has unveiled the first look at its new narrative adventure game Under the Waves, from developer Parallel Studios. I'm not saying that it's doing anything truly revolutionary, that you haven't seen before in other narrative-driven adventures, but there's a quality to its composition that's hard to ignore. The underwater game about grief launches on August 29. Maybe comparisons don't work for a game like Under the Waves. Would more comparisons help you get your head around it? I can say that it requires more physical input than Firewatch or Everybody's Gone to The Rapture, but less than something like The Outer Wilds its world is as aquatically appealing as Subnautica, but less dangerous, and far more beautiful.

There's a lot to like about Under the Waves, even in this early-development demo that does little more than carve out a frame for the adventure. There's a true sense of verticality here, which opens up the ways in which you navigate the seabed and the made-made structures that adorn it – I hope Parallel Studios makes true use of this concept, leveraging it for more than flipping switches and circumventing ladders.

It's when Stan is wearing his wetsuit that Under the Waves pulls off one of its neatest tricks, as it lets you switch seamlessly from walking to swimming.

Download under the waves quantic dream