I.S.H.B.A.G. (Aquatic Edition)

Warning:  The following contains spoilers for the 2020 film "Underwater".

The title of this blog post is an acronym for "It Should Have Been A Game", a long running series here in which I point out various movies that would have been better served in a different form of media (namely video games).  Today, the topic is the rather blandly named film "Underwater".  As far as scifi/horror hybrid movies go it's not bad.  Then again, the competition isn't exactly fierce regarding this particular subgenre (both in terms of quality and quantity).  Nevertheless, when watching the film I got the distinct impression that it would be a lot more interesting to actively play "Underwater" rather than just passively watch it.

I want to reiterate, it's an alright movie (especially when compared to similar films such as "Leviathan", "DeepStar Six" and "The Sphere").  "Underwater" tries hard to avoid cliches like someone turning traitor, doing something boneheaded stupid or somebody going crazy and endangering the lives of everyone else.  The film also avoids wasting time with boring character exposition that tends to occupy the first third of these sorts of movies.  Instead, the action starts pretty much as soon as the opening credits finish.  Characterization and backstories are woven into the plot rather than being front loaded.  So, while good in some respects "Underwater" has a problem common to a lot of modern films.  Subverting expectations and deconstructing tropes is fine, but if the script writer doesn't have anything interesting to replace it with.  The storytelling feels empty, and without any real narrative substance "Underwater" becomes a simple case of hopping from A to B to C with bad stuff happening in-between.  For a movie it's a bit lackluster, but for a video game this about what most players expect; an excuse to go someplace to do something.  In fact, a more complex or intricate plot line might risk getting in the way of gameplay.

So, how would this theoretical "Underwater" video game play?  To me, it has survival horror written all over it.  I like the idea of indoor first-person sections primarily about scavenging and puzzle solving.  Meanwhile, suiting up and going out on the ocean floor is where the third-person exploration and combat kicks in.  Over the course of the game the player could repair damaged infrastructure, rescue survivors and upgrade their suit equipment.  There's also an opportunity to expand on the nature of the threat.  More enemy variety is an obvious way to go about it, but there are other possibilities...perhaps the monsters have exploitable weaknesses that the player learns as they progress through the game?  What is the life cycle of the monsters like?  Too much detail might ruin the mystery, but I think digging into certain aspects of the fiction more could enhance the overall experience.  Deep sea environments also offer all kinds of potentially interesting gameplay elements.  I dove into just such a topic about a month ago with regards to a hypothetical XCOM: Terror from the Deep remake.

"Underwater" makes a big deal out of light (or the lack there of).  The creatures in the film seem to strongly dislike it and actively avoid being lit up.  It's the sort of gameplay mechanics one would find reminiscent of Alan Wake or the Blair Witch game.  The stealth driven bits of the film reminded me of Soma, as did the environments themselves.  Despite not having any swimming Demon's Souls has some areas (the Valley of Defilement, in particular) that feature large stretches of darkness with points of interest illuminated in the distance.  Such a design template might work well here.  A common complaint about the film was many shots being dark and murky, but in a video game that's a feature not a flaw.

One last thing I want to talk about is the ending.  "Underwater" concludes with what feels like two, out of a potential six, survivors.  If one were to take an Until Dawn approach then there could be a number of variations based on the player's actions throughout the game.  Maybe only one character escapes to the surface...or maybe three, four, five, or (even all) six do.  There's also an opportunity to tell the story of "Underwater" from multiple perspectives, thus increasing the replay value of the game.  A movie doesn't change on repeated viewings, but a video game has the potential to be noticeably different each playthrough.  For those reasons I think that "Underwater" really should have been Underwater.