Why I love Barotrauma the game so much

Never heard of this game? Well its easy to understand why, the marketing for this game is almost non existent, the cover art is wildly misleading and the name itself is kind of off putting as it both it’s a technical term for terrible things that can happen to those that delve the watery depths and it also was done in a font that makes it look like it spells out ‘Barotuuama’ which is just…well…silly.

Putting that to one side, the game itself is a masterpiece, now if that sudden change of direction didn’t knock your jaunty angled hat off then keep reading. It’s a game that shouldn’t work yet really does.

Lets break this down into parts:

1 – The story / idea / pitch – you are a submarine captain on the moon of Europa in orbit around a rather angry and radioactive Jupiter, colonies have been established here on the moon for years however recently all contact was lost with Earth and the supply ships have stopped coming.

Ominous right? Well let me continue, Ancient structures have been found in the deep parts of the under ice cap seas, far down in the dark strange things stir.

Pretty amazing sci-fi story right there yeah? Ok so lets continue:

2 – The mechanics – you live on an ever upgradable and changeable submarine, this alone is a huge selling point to me as I adore games where they make it possible to move house / base often. I think deep down I rather enjoy the process of setting up bases and systems. The submarine is as you would expect, barely out of the 1940s Das Boot era, some new tech but mostly ballast holds to fill with water to descend and the rest is a bit too technical for me but you get the point. It’s a submarine.

Add to this the need to have a crew and the game starts to get seriously interesting, I had a crew of 5 on my first few runs and by the end of a particularly difficult mission, I was down to 1, one crew man opened the hatch to the supply base and popped out, I had in my minds eye that this person would have some serious explaining to do as to why the sub was filled with a coppery arid red mist and a huge number of ‘Crawler’ corpses littered the sub like a deli counter down a back ally in Baghdad. (that guy went on to become sub captain and survived….a bit longer…)

The game is a 2d side on affair, janky as the day is long the ragdoll effects are hammed up but it all works rather well, there is no point storming an abandoned research station with 4 crack security officers here, they will just all shoot each other in the back, slow, careful, creeping mechanics are needed.

3 – The Progression – As you progress in the game you start to unlock more submarines, fill up the boat with fresh meat, you lose people a lot, you stop caring after the 3rd gets impaled on a cave walls sharp crystals, his last moments are watching the ever dimming light of your sub moving away as there are schedules to keep. The game opens and expands into more dangerous areas, rip tides, dangerous sea titans that want to hump your sub mistaking it for a date, it becomes all together…. Terrifying.

So what makes the game so good? Add all these elements together and it starts to grow into what I would deem a classic, there are few games like it, it has style, the story is really good and makes me want to explore, we haven’t even touched on the ability to rewire everything ala Factorio, circuits and logic are all a thing here also (I didn’t like the sub lighting so I wired in a load of additional spot lights…. Insane levels of customisation)

Go get this game when you see it on sale on Steam, its worth the small price as it will entertain you, the challenge I set you is not to be disheartened when you get splashed all over the Europa sea in a red smear, its got a learning curve but once you get past it, its epic.

Rating 10/10.