When I first heard about Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss right before reviewing it, I was very intrigued to experience it myself, especially as someone who adores narrative based games.

By the end of the game, however, I felt a tad bit disappointed.

Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is a story about the disappearance of the ship Thalassa and its crew. The game aims for an immersive psychological drama that completely takes place under the sea where the players can engross themselves in exploration and finding secrets about characters that further uncovers a larger plot within the Thalassa itself. Sure, the premise sounds exciting but how well does the overall game hold up? I would say it was a mediocre story at best and by the end of it, I didn’t find myself caring about any of the characters.

Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss Review – A Narrative Game That Lacks The Thrills - - News | | GamesHorizon — The crew members of Thalassa. Image by GamesHorizon

A Story of Loss And Melancholy

In Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss, you play as Cam, one of the resident divers aboard the Thalassa. The whole game takes place in first-person so every aspect of the story plays in Cam’s point of view.

The story begins with Cam having a heart-to-heart with their best friend, Alex. Just before revealing something important, Alex is dragged away with Cam for their next diving job. The first few minutes of the game is focused a bit on exploration and interacting with other crew members but the story actually starts when an accident occurs and one of the crew members ends up drowning under the sea. After the tragedy happens, Cam goes into depression and requests a leave of absence for a few months. However, when Cam is informed by Bailey that the Thalassa mysteriously vanished under the sea, both of them then set off to find out what actually went wrong. Cam is once again welcomed to the depths of the sea where the Thalassa is now part of and it is up to the players to navigate Cam through the ship and find out what happened to the crew and what was the cause of Thalassa’s sinking.

At the first sight of Thalassa sitting on the seabed deep within the sea, it surely looks like a heap of bad news waiting to be discovered. But nonetheless, as the player, I was very curious to find out and unravel the mystery of the story. However, unfortunately Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is very slow narrative-wise. There were times when I wanted the game to just get to the point because there are multiple storylines that can only be discovered the more you explore. If you miss a certain area, you might also miss a relevant storyline. And because of this, the storylines relating to each disappeared crew member felt scattered and not whole which led to feeling less invested in the characters.

As Cam, we are first introduced to the crew of the ship who are voiced by a diverse set of voice actors. So, I found it a bit strange why the main character, Cam, doesn’t have a voice actor and is quiet whenever an NPC talks to them. So, essentially, it felt as if the NPCs were talking to themselves during an interaction or cut scene. Furthermore, by the end of the story, as the player, I realized I barely knew anything about Cam that left me feeling neutral about the protagonist.

A Game Heavily Tied to Exploration

Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is very much an exploration game.

The Thalassa is a massive ship with six floors to discover as you play and unlock the story. Each floor has their own small areas where clues and secrets can be found that are relevant to the main objective. Along with this, the game also offers detective-esque gameplay. Using the clues found, Cam can solve certain mysteries and answer questions. Each of these mysteries act like a side story related to certain crew members and there are around fifty mysteries to solve throughout the game.

After Cam deduces a mystery successfully, they can visualize the scene from their own point of view which I thought was a nice little detail to give the players more information on how certain interactions went down between two or more crew members. Additionally, there are wax rolls scattered across the ship and these contain interview recordings of the crew members where they might reveal important information useful for solving mysteries. However, finding them all can be challenging since the player has to actually explore every room in the ship. I did end up finding all the wax rolls in my playthrough but missed out on solving two mysteries. Of course, these side stories can be easily missed so it is recommended to thoroughly explore each area in the Thalassa.

The map is user-friendly where each floor and area are labeled so players recognize where they need to go. While exploring a room, the map informs you by highlighting the section in green which means area of interest or purple that indicates there is crucial information there to be discovered. A lot of backtracking is involved as the story progresses and new areas open up for exploration especially after Cam finds the required tools to access certain rooms like keys, wrench, bolt cutters, and knife.

Just like the story, the gameplay in Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is pretty slow. It takes its own time which isn’t a bad thing but with both the story and the gameplay being slow, it did frustrate me at times. Since the exploration part is connected to the story in a big way, it takes an awful lot of time to actually find the clues and solve mysteries because without doing them, the story doesn’t progress. Not just that, since most of the game takes place under the sea and with the main character wearing heavy diving equipment, Cam walks/dives around really slow and the game doesn’t have a sprint button which I guessed is because realistically you can’t sprint underwater.

Underwater Has Never Looked So Haunting

Immediately entering the depths of the sea, you are met with an eerie ambience of haunting silence which continues throughout the game. Exploring the sunken Thalassa did wrap me with the feeling of melancholy, especially with discovering objects that were left behind by crew members who were no longer around. The game doesn’t fail to remind the players of real life tragedies like the Titanic or the Titan submarine incident of 2023. As much as the beauty of the sea brings a sense of calm, it also brings the danger of death and Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss reflects that with its gorgeous visuals.

In terms of the audio, sometimes the dialogues felt too low to hear even with headphones on and other times, they were cut off and felt choppy so I had to mostly depend on reading the subtitles to understand what they were saying. I wouldn’t say this game has a lot of sounds because there were times that I was exploring for a long period and there was just silence which I think makes sense with being underwater. But I definitely think they could have done a tad better with the audio even though it wasn’t bad but it also wasn’t extraordinary.

In The Heat of The Sea

I think Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is worth experiencing if you love exploration based games.

In terms of the narrative aspect Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss could have done better. I am not saying it was a bad story but with the build up I wish the ending was as satisfying as I expected it to be. Despite that, the themes of death and overcoming a loss was where the game shines. As a protagonist, Cam’s character felt a bit weak and I wonder if that could have changed if we got a bit more of backstory involving them.