Giant Squid announces Sword of the Sea for PlayStation 5

A brand new Journey

During today’s PlayStation Showcase, we saw a glimpse of the newest game from Giant Squid, the creators of ABZÛ and The Pathless.

Sword of the Sea showed off a lot of sand surfing, immediately evoking memories of 2012’s Journey from thatgamecompany. In fact, the trailer reminds us that this game comes from the “visionary artist” that brought us Journey. In other words, the developers aren’t shy on this connection to the decade-old classic PlayStation 3 title.

In a supplemental post on the PlayStation Blog, Giant Squid founder Matt Nava provides a few key details about this upcoming title. As seen in the footage provided, Sword of the Sea controls movement via what it calls a hoversword. This cutely named device promises to control like “a snowboard, skateboard, and hoverboard all in one,” according to Nava.

Controlling like Tony Hawk everywhere sounds intriguing, though it’s the “sword” part of the “hoversword” that intrigues me. I’m not anticipating combat necessarily, but if there’s a blade in a game, I assume we’ll need to slice something.

The post also provides a few key story details to give context to the trailer. We control a character called Wraith, tasked with restoring life to submerged ruins known as the Necropolis of the Gods. We’ll bring back “giant shoals of fish and creatures,” though we’ll also encounter leviathans that won’t take kindly to our presence. We’ll have to learn more about this world after the game launches.

Honestly, the promise of an “emotional core” and a plot about returning life to the world reminds me of Terranigma. In other words, I’m already all in for this one. No release window has been revealed so far, so we may need to wait until we can ride on hoverswords ourselves.