Reviewed on: PC

Debris has an interesting premise: survival with dashes of exploration and lots of suspense, innovating by using a setting so little explored in games as the stage for its plot. Developed by Moonray Studios, Debris is available for PC, and arrived at Savepoint this week for us to check it out.

The story is set in the Arctic, where a group of employees hired by a powerful energy company called ALTA and an underwater videographer named Ryan travel to record video information of a meteorite that fell into the ocean, in order to shoot a commercial revealing to the world the latest discovery of the ALTA energy company.

Like any big corporation, not everything is told to our heroes before they begin recording, and before they start suspecting anything, they fall victim to a huge explosion in the meteorite area and are separated at the bottom of the immense complex of caves and darkness of the ocean floor.

The Gameplay

The game is played in first person, seeking to keep the player’s immersion in the dark world that is the seabed as high as possible, keeping simple locomotion controls and actions for Ryan. But how on earth could anyone escape or survive in the deepest corner of the ocean? Well, Ryan is equipped with a high-tech survival suit made to withstand the most extreme situations.

However it needs to be constantly recharged, and since there are no outlets or recharge capsules at the bottom of the ocean, Debris inserted a “friendly” drone called “The Squid”, which, besides guiding Ryan into the sea through the dangers that appear during the game, also converts the meteorite’s debris into energy, thus allowing Ryan’s suit to remain active amid the absence of ordinary resources.

Each tunnel and submerged area Ryan traverses has its peculiarities. Their own sounds, plus some enemies we can kill using her tool. I say some enemies because the game precisely lacks enemy variety, which over its few hours of gameplay don’t innovate, and make the game’s combat system tiring and not very exciting.

The feeling of claustrophobia the game tries to convey is overshadowed by the scenery’s poor textures and the excess of dark corridors the game always puts in front of you. As the game is played, the care in creating structures and enemies becomes clear, but not much attention was given to the scenery, which is basically always the same visually. But okay, after all, the game is set on the seabed, and there’s really not much to innovate on that front.

In fact, Debris offers the player essentially this: dark corridors, a few enemies to kill, and a variation between collecting meteorite fragments, reading dialogues between the protagonists, and hearing sounds that try to induce feelings of fear and panic in the player. In addition, the game has 3 different endings, which are unlocked depending on how you advance in the story.

Recently, Debris also got a cooperative multiplayer mode, where another player can explore the underwater world at your side, instead of depending on the AI of our companion Squid.

The Audio

We have to give credit where it’s due on Debris’s sound overall, because while some shortcomings are noticeable in the visuals, the game’s sounds are fantastic. I strongly advise readers, if they play the game, to do so with headphones, because the game’s sound experience is very good.

The dialogue is also well handled, and the voice actors manage to convey the emotion the game aims to convey, and make the player feel truly inside the game without needing any advanced technology such as VR.

[Spoilers below]

[youtube link=”https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m_XdIHZscJE” width=”800″ height=”440″]

However, there are clear sync failures between the dialogue and the subtitles, which sometimes go by too slowly and sometimes run ahead of the dialogue, giving you a quick spoiler of what is to come through them, sometimes 5 seconds before the audio happens.

Verdict

The game’s technical flaws weigh a bit during gameplay; which is a pity, because Debris has a very interesting plot and constantly makes you want to keep playing to find out how the story will end.

The game has tons of good ideas that are often poorly executed, but which overall will not make you give up on the game halfway, because, as already said, the plot is worthy of a sci-fi in the vein of “The Abyss”, in which anyone a bit old school like me will spot some references.

Available since October 2017, Debris offers a decent experience, and attracts all lovers of Survival horror or Sci-fi who want to test their resistance to the fears that claustrophobic environments can offer. We now hope this game is re-released with VR support, which will certainly attract an even larger audience than it has today.