Glaciered, an icy underwater action game, looks sick

Why yes, I would like to ‘soar through the seas’

Underwater levels in mostly-above-ground games can be a drag, but when the whole concept is centered around swimming, I’m usually on board. I’ve never seen anything quite like Glaciered, an action-adventure game from Japanese indie team Studio Snowblind.

Picture a stylish character action game with slick-looking ranged and melee attacks — now submerge it in a frozen-over planet with beast-filled waters. That’s the basic pitch.

What exactly is that thing?

The overgrown underwater threats will look familiar if you had dinosaur picture books as a kid, but what in the world is this freaky main character? Why is it making eye contact?

Glaciered stars the fin-kicking Tuai species, which are “descended from birds and successors of the dinosaurs.” They can “control heat and cold,” because why not? It looks cool! In practice, you’ll be able to dive, swerve, slash, and unleash a barrage of projectiles — typical stuff for the genre at large, but not so much for a game set underwater.

“Build your character by combining various abilities and passive skills like high-speed swimming that creates tunnels of supercritical water, temporal crystal blades, and more,” according to the developers’ summary. “Visit grasslands growing from icy skies, swim past schools of thermophilic fish coating the seafloor, and fend off members of the Crocodilia family that have been freed from gravity’s grip and grown to enormous size.”

Brief as it may be, the announcement trailer has me hooked on the *idea* of Glaciered. It simply looks like something I’d enjoy playing, and from the crisp, fast-moving footage we’ve seen so far, it’s easy to imagine how it all feels. I’m hoping that players (like me) who aren’t the best at air juggling in other games can slide right in and pull off some sick shit. It’s a great first impression, now we just need to see more to understand the scope.

Studio Snowblind doesn’t have a release date in mind yet. That said, there’s a Steam page if you want to wishlist Glaciered — or just check out the rest of the screenshots. I love catching an out-of-nowhere game like this that just seems to click. I’ll be keeping tabs!