Barotrauma

It may seem surprising, but some of the most interesting objects to study in the Solar System are the satellites of two giant planets, Jupiter and Saturn. Despite the remoteness from the central star, due to the special temperature, climatic, magnetic and tectonic conditions, an environment is created on them that is quite suitable for the emergence of life.

For example, Ganymede has its own magnetosphere, which is capable of protecting aliens or future colonists from the all-destroying cosmic radiation. Callisto is geologically stable and covered with a thick layer of ice, which, due to its chemical composition, can be used to produce both fuel and water. And under the frozen surface of Europe is a full-fledged liquid ocean.

Actually, it is the ocean of Europe that is to be explored in the game Barotrauma.

What if distant planets don't have dusty paths, where would they leave footprints?

Despite the sci-fi setting, Barotrauma is not a game about space exploration. Like RimWorld, for example, it is a crisis management simulator. Only here you have to manage not a colony, but a submarine that plows the oceans of Europe.

Barotrauma is divided into "rounds". Each of them begins with the fact that the team under the control of the player submarine is given a task. As a rule, this mission is "purely for show" and does not have much effect on the passage. A space submarine needs to sail from point A to point B to deliver cargo there, kill hostile alien animals there, or find an ancient alien artifact.

And then crisis management begins. Once in a submarine, from which there is simply nowhere to run, people begin to gradually go crazy. Well, just like self-isolation, only the consequences are much larger. In addition, external factors also significantly affect what is happening - the boat can be attacked by aggressive representatives of the underwater fauna of Europe, an epidemic of an alien parasite can break out among the crew, and a traitor-dissident can also be in the command. Keeping track of everything is impossible, so after a few tens of minutes the gameplay turns into attempts to minimize the consequences. A traitor character - to a prison, damaged compartments with holes in the hull - to seal, parasites - to identify and cure, to the deceased to pay the last honors, the nuclear reactor started to junk ... stop, the nuclear reactor also started to junk ?!

Variation of gameplay in Barotrauma

The above comparison with RimWorld is actually a praise for Barotrauma, as it speaks of the highest variability in gameplay. The events that take place here can be very different, largely random, but at the same time have a clear cause-and-effect relationship.

For example:

• Found an alien artifact, submerged in a submarine, may start to explode;
• Traitors can carry the eggs of alien predators (the so-called "raptors") into the boat, which will then devour the entire crew;
• When encountering monsters, you can become infected with parasites. Then, even having fought off the aliens and returning to their own ship, they independently turn into these very "predators" and destroy the rest of the crew;
• A character can get drugged, see hallucinations, shoot them, and then suddenly find out that there weren't any monsters.

With all this variability of gameplay, even at some point you forget that Barotrauma is an indie game. So the developers literally had no money or resources for a modern graphics engine and other "niceties". The game is made in the retro style of 16-bit consoles.

By the way, it is not at all necessary to go through the "rounds" survival. You can open the sandbox mode. There the player is given complete freedom of action - collect whatever submarine you want, even huge, even tiny, and go about your business, periodically encountering an aggressive external environment.

Barotrauma Multiplayer

The developers themselves strongly recommend playing Barotrauma in multiplayer mode. In this case, the variability of the gameplay increases significantly, including due to the fact that among 2-16 players (and this is how many can be placed on one submarine) there may be one or more traitors.

In multiplayer mode, you can also replenish the crew with bots, as well as distribute specializations among human players. For example, to appoint someone as a security officer, others as doctors, still others as mechanics, and so on. There are six classes available.

Maps and missions in multiplayer mode are created using procedural generation. So each new task will be different from the previous one.