More than two years after its first trailer debuted, magical surfing adventure Sword of the Sea finally has a release date—August 19—announced during Sony's State of Play showcase last night. It'll be the third game from Giant Squid, the small studio behind the award-winning undersea exploration game Abzû and magical parkour archery adventure The Pathless, which our Luke Kemp gave a powerful 85% score.
Once again, Giant Squid is playing to its strengths, aiming to get players into that magical flow-state where fancy movement just feels as natural as breathing—something they've proven that they're very capable of. This time, players are an undead wizard exploring a desert where the dunes flow like water, and there's magicking to be done to restore the ocean (and accompanying greenery) to its rightful place. And where there's waves, there's the chance to do radical 1080s, especially when you're riding a giant magical sword as a surfboard. Have a peek at some of the vistas in the date announcement trailer below.
It's hard not to draw comparisons to similarly styled mystical desert trekking (and occasionally sand-surfing) adventure Journey, which it shares some development talent with. From what the team's shown, it feels like Sword of the Sea is going to be a bit more action-focused.
While Giant Squid hasn't shown any scoring systems or other Tony Hawk-inspired wackiness to incentivize it, there are all kinds of flips, twists and tricks you can do on your magical surfboard-sword. The trailer also shows some fun-looking traversal, including ceiling-riding on full-pipes, bouncing across giant flying jellyfish and grinding across massive chains.
Unlike The Pathless, there's been no combat shown in the footage so far, although there are some menacing looking big creatures, so I'm expecting at least one big set piece where you get to surf along the back of a town-sized monster. In fact, I'll be disappointed if I don't get one. You can't give me a magical surf-sword and not provide that kind of wish fulfillment. At least the trailer does confirm one important point: You can pet the magical flying dolphins, and there's bigger critters to find. Will we be able to kickflip over a whale to assert dominance? Only time will tell, but I'm hoping.
Sword of the Sea launches on Steam and Epic on August 19th. Giant Squid's previous game (and my personal favorite) The Pathless is also 75% discounted on Steam right now, if you want a taste of what the studio has to offer.
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