Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss

Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss is a first-person narrative mystery that transforms the depths of the ocean into the setting for a deeply personal and emotionally charged investigation. Developed by Sarepta Studio and published by Team17, the game places players in the role of Cam, a diver who returns to explore the wreck of the research vessel Thalassa after a devastating tragedy. Rather than focusing on action or survival, the experience centers on uncovering the stories of the people who once occupied the ship and understanding the circumstances that led to its downfall. The result is a slow-burning adventure that combines environmental storytelling, detective work, and emotional reflection in a compelling package. The game immediately distinguishes itself through its remarkable underwater atmosphere. Every section of the submerged vessel is filled with a sense of mystery, loneliness, and quiet tension. The ocean surrounding the wreck is beautiful yet intimidating, creating an environment where every discovery feels significant. Lighting effects, drifting debris, and the natural movement of the underwater world contribute to an immersive setting that consistently draws players deeper into the narrative. The wreck itself feels like a preserved moment in time, allowing players to piece together fragments of lives interrupted by disaster. Investigation serves as the core gameplay mechanic. Players gather clues, inspect personal belongings, review documents, and connect evidence to reconstruct the final days of the crew. The deduction system encourages careful observation rather than trial-and-error puzzle solving. Each clue contributes to a larger web of relationships, motives, and hidden truths, making progression feel rewarding. The mystery unfolds gradually, revealing that the disaster was not simply an accident but the culmination of personal conflicts, ambitions, and emotional struggles among the crew members. One of the game's strongest achievements is its character writing. The crew of the Thalassa are more than names attached to a tragic event; they are fully realized individuals with distinct personalities, hopes, fears, and complicated relationships. As players uncover more information, the emotional impact of the story grows stronger. The narrative explores themes such as grief, guilt, friendship, sacrifice, and the burden of unresolved trauma. These themes are handled with maturity and restraint, allowing the story to resonate without relying on melodrama or sensational twists. The presentation further strengthens the experience. The environmental detail throughout the ship is impressive, with each cabin, workstation, and corridor contributing to the overall narrative. Audio design is equally effective, combining ambient underwater sounds with a subtle musical score that enhances the feeling of isolation and discovery. Voice performances add authenticity to the characters and help bring their stories to life, ensuring that players remain invested in the investigation from beginning to end. Despite its many strengths, the game may not appeal to everyone. Its pacing is deliberately measured, and players looking for combat, survival mechanics, or fast-moving gameplay may find the experience too passive. Exploration and investigation make up the majority of the adventure, and the limited gameplay variety can occasionally make certain sections feel repetitive. However, those who appreciate story-driven experiences will likely find these elements secondary to the strength of the narrative itself. What makes Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss memorable is its commitment to storytelling and atmosphere. The game uses its underwater setting not only as a visual spectacle but also as a metaphor for memory, loss, and buried emotions. Every revelation feels meaningful, and the final pieces of the mystery come together in a satisfying and emotionally impactful manner. It is a thoughtful adventure that rewards patience and attention to detail, offering a narrative experience that lingers long after the credits roll. Rating: 8/10

2/5 - Bad It's a good mystery/detective walking simulator but people should know that this game is deeply flawed on a technical level and they should avoid it. There is constant stuttering when traversing the world which seems related to dynamically loading assets. It doesn't improve even if graphics are low or you reduce frame rate. So right from the get go you can see there's bad programming going on. Moreover, I noticed my VRAM usage was progressively going up and almost used my full 16GB after 2 hours, so there's a VRAM memory leak. That's pretty terrible. The main character has no voice and no text, so when NPCs are talking to you, you are seeing only half of the conversation which doesn't work at all. They also refer to you with gender neutral pronouns which is immersion breaking. I also found several typos and bad edits in the text that you have to read, this is very unprofessional writing. The GUI is also clunky with too many clicks to nagivate and accomplish anything. Button mapping on controllers is bad and you can't change it. The game could have been good because they had good ideas and the mystery is interesting. But it seems they had incompetant developpers working on it and they didn't bother to fix all the problems after release.

9/10. One of the best games I've played from the last few years. Really good story and build up, really unique characters as well. I do wish more games just like this were coming out as well; with a focus on an engaging story, mystery, investigation, exploration, and characters that you care about. Only reason why it isn't a 10/10 for me, is because you do sometimes see the limitations of the game, graphically. But the art style itself is very nice to see.

All around, Thalassa is a good mystery game with a compelling enough story to keep you charging through the occasional drudgery. I recommend it to people who like narrative and/or mystery games, but you should hesitate to purchase this title if you're very sensitive to slow animations, walking speed, and backtracking. Thalassa did a great job weaving its story into an explorable environment and utilizing modern mystery solving mechanics to keep the loop engaging. The ship itself served as an interesting setting throughout the story, and the crewmembers all have individual motivations and concerns that make them stand out and give you a reason to care about what happened to them. Then there is the mystery itself, which remains compelling throughout the narrative and supplies just enough twists and turns to make you feel the ride was legitimately worth it. On the negative side, the technical performance leaves a lot to be desired and the frequent slowness in animations and audio logs can be very annoying at times. From the technical side, the game isn't super well optimized - at least not for my machine - and I would occasionally drop frames in places that didn't feel appropriate. Any time you lock in your conclusion to a mystery, there is a multi-second long wait while the game processes... something. It's very odd how often you see an actual loading spinner in the menu throughout the game. In addition, the flashback scenes where you visualize what happened have some stuttering and audio issues if you move around inside the scene, and you'll frequently see the environment of those scenes pop back and forth between the scene itself and the actual rendered setting in the map as we see it. Hard to explain but it's a little annoying. And then the slowness. Your character walks at a snail's pace for 100% of the game. For the most part, this is appropriate: you are underwater in an old diving suit, and the game itself is paced slowly and steadily. Thus, it wasn't until about halfway through I really started getting annoyed by the occasional backtracking. However, this issue was exacerbated by the looooooooooong animations every single time you interact with something and terrible implementation of audio logs. You will frequently be stuck watching your character slowly nudge something out of place or bend down inch by inch to pick something up, only to watch them put it right back down when you're done examining it. When you pick up an audio log, you are _frozen in place_ while you wait for the log to play, and every single line is individually recorded and very slowly and meticulously placed a few seconds apart with little record stutters in between. It is agonizing and really wore me out by the end. But all that said, the story itself was interesting, the mystery mechanics were largely well done (except a couple mysteries with some arbitrary selections for answers), and the game's commentary on grief was meaningful. All around a good pickup for the patient gamer.

[h3]Un voyage contemplatif et mélancolique.[/h3] Je m'attendais à un walking sim d'explo sous-marine et je me suis presque retrouvé à faire le deuil de personnages attachants. [url=https://store.steampowered.com/app/1783680/Thalassa_Edge_of_the_Abyss]Thalassa: Edge of the Abyss[/url] a été pour moi une belle découverte. Il s'agit avant tout d'un jeu d'exploration et de narration qui prend son temps. Chaque avancement vous investit d'avantage dans son histoire que l'on découvre au compte goutte dans laquelle on est finalement englouti (littéralement). Le sujet abordé, comme décrit, est en effet assez triste et à quelque chose d’inévitable. Et plus on avance, plus le jeu devient mélancolique. Alors oui, il y a bien quelques des défauts. Pour commencer, le graphisme des personnages n'est pas fou, surtout de prêt, bien que cela soit une histoire de goût. Les déplacements sont lents et il y a pas mal d’allers-retours. Mais pour ceux qui sont habitués aux walking sim, cela est presque attendu. Si vous êtes prêt à accepter son rythme, alors vous serez récompensez par une ambiance aussi dramatique que contemplative. La force de ce jeu est qu'il cherche à vous faire ressentir quelque chose. Pour moi en tout cas, cela à marché et rien que pour cela, la recommandation est méritée. A jouer au casque, sous faible luminosité, l'esprit détendu. Bon voyage aux futurs explorateurs !

This game has an amazing story. It is dark and weighty but I did not feel it was for shock value and by the end it feels really...normal but in a meaningful way. I think a lot of it is the mental state of Cam and his grief. Other reviews have talked about the monotony and the slowness, but...you are deep diving underwater. I am fairly certain you can't run like that. This game is 100% focused on storytelling and I would agree that it is closer to a walking sim than a typical adventure game. I feel like all of the slowness added to my immersion in the story and the setting and the mindset of the character we control as the player. I will succinctly state that if you are looking for something quick and to the point, this is not that game. If you are looking for a very dark, weighty, and immersive story experience, this is that game.

So, while I do recommend this game, I only recommend it on a discount. I wouldn't pay full price for this even though, by and large, I enjoyed it, because there were a few hang-ups that kinda spoiled the experience for me. Good first: the storyline is pretty good, the characters are good, and the voice acting is good. What happens to Alex in the prologue is legitimately horrifying and because of it you are completely sold on why this guy suffers from such acute PTSD. And I did like how the entire game you aren't really sure if they're seeing what they're seeing because they're working through stuff, or because they're suffering from nitrogen narcosis. That being said, this game is so sloooooooow. I love walking sims, they're my bread and butter, and I understand fully that the devs wanted every movement to have weight (because you're underwater) but man, guys, every single character movement takes so damn long. Climbing up and down ladders and traversing enviroment obstacles I read a few paragraphs in the book I'm ready while the character completed them. I didn't 100% complete the game because the thought of going back all over the ship with such an excruciatingly slow movement on everything the character does made me go, nah, I'm not doing that. It also wasn't optimized the best. I had lagging (especially in the prologue. It got a little better as the game went on), stuttering, etc, but no game-breaking bugs. Otherwise, it was a smooth experience.

A strong prologue that leads into a very compelling mystery, centered around an immersive story with heart and stellar voice acting throughout. It keeps you on the edge of your seat, while you slowly uncover what must have happened, with twists and turns along the way that keep you guessing and challenge your assumptions with skilled (mis)leads. I played it over two days in the evenings to relax and had a very good time. Would very much recommend if you are into immersive mysteries.