ABZÛ

"Everyone loves to fly, and flying underwater is even better than flying in air because there are things around you."- Graham Hawkes
Sum-Up
In-depth analysis further down.
🟩 Pros
🟥 Cons

• Gorgeous art style and presentation.
• Simple controls.
• Touching story.

• Not too complex in terms of gameplay.
• Can get boring after some time.
🟨 Bugs & Issues‎
🔧 Specs
⚙️ Settings & FPS

No issues encountered.

• CPU: i7-12700K
• RAM: 32GB DDR4
• GPU: 3080 10GB
• SD: SSD
• RES: 1440p

Settings: High
FPS: 75+
🌌 Content & Replay Value
This game is a great short experience that can be beaten and/or completed in no longer than 5 hours. There's little replay value. Once beaten, you can repeat section of the world to get all collectibles.
💵 Is it worth buying?
Yes, but on a discount.
🎮 Steam Deck Compatibility
Great experience for Steam Deck. Ran very well.
🧾 Verdict: Decent
Rating Chart Here
ABZU delivers a visually stunning underwater experience with vibrant environments and fluid animations. The sound design enhances relaxation, even without voice acting. The story is interesting, letting you explore marine life as a scuba diver. It's a short, easy game with minimal threats, perfect for a relaxing adventure. Overall, it captivates with its breathtaking visuals and tranquil atmosphere.
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In-depth
⚔️ Gameplay & Exploration:
ABZU is a swimming simulator that focuses mainly on the journey of exploration and self-interpretation of the world around you. Exploration is done area by area, with its own type of fish and animals with some having some appearances later in the game.
😄 Fun:
It's great to play and relax, but can't recommend it playing tired. It can put you to sleep.
🏞 Visuals & Presentation:
Gorgeous game, with an impressive presentation. The vibrant and enchanting underwater environments create a mesmerizing and immersive experience. From the fluid movement of marine life to the breathtaking play of light and shadow, the game offers stunning moments that truly evoke a sense of wonder and awe.
🔊 Sound & Voice-Acting:
Sound design is exceptional and significantly enhances player relaxation without the use of voice.
📖 Story & Writing:
Despite not having an incredible story, it's still an interesting one. You play as a scuba diver who tries to explore marine life and the underwater world.
🧵 Length & Difficulty:
Very short game to beat or complete. Not difficult at all. There's barely any threats and dying is not an option.
⭕️Verdict:
ABZU offers a visually stunning and immersive underwater experience, with vibrant environments and fluid animations that evoke a sense of wonder. The exceptional sound design enhances the player's relaxation, despite the absence of voice acting. While the story is not groundbreaking, it provides an interesting narrative as you explore marine life as a scuba diver. The game is very short and easy, with minimal threats, making it a perfect choice for a relaxing, awe-inspiring adventure. Overall, it excels in delivering a mesmerizing journey that captivates through its breathtaking visuals and tranquil atmosphere.

So many games boast about having cutting edge graphics. But so few are actually beautiful like this one. Art direction is the key.

ABZU is a wonderful adventure game where you travel in the underwater and free many fishes locked. The story is so beautiful that I always shed a tear at the end of every trip (it's not a lie). The designs are great and the soundtrack is really relaxing and peaceful. I enjoyed playing this game so much, it's one of my favorite game! That would be a shame to miss out such a great game like this one. I highly recommend it!!! 🐠💙

It's Journey, underwater. The graphics and music are beautiful. It's not a challenging game, but its worth experiencing.

I've always been enamoured with the ocean.
When I was a child I'd watch the same documentaries about the ocean over and over again, enraptured with the creatures that resided within it. Whether it was sharks, other fish, cephalopods. whales or any other sea creature, I was captivated, unable to avert my gaze. As a natural extension of this one of my favourite places to visit as a child was the aquarium, as it allowed me to come as close as feasibly possible to that environment and those animals with which I was obsessed. Though I have always remained fascinated with the ocean, I had lost much of that childlike wonder and reverence that I had previously held for it.
ABZU, for me, was first and foremost an emotional experience. The game lacks gameplay in a traditional sense, with the game being minimally interactive, yet I don't think any other medium would have been adequately able to convey the same experience. The game's interactivity, its deftly crafted environments, its art direction, its soundtrack, and its story coalesce to create a symphony that is much greater than the sum of its parts. The ocean feels alive, seemingly thousands of different creatures swimming around you at any moment, not only interacting with the player, but all other creatures in the environment. The game's periodic provision of meditative statues really drives this home, with these statues allowing you to focus on a singular creature in the environment, following as it goes about its life, eating, being chased, or playing with others around it. In playing ABZU I felt as if I had been transported back into my childhood, the same feeling of reverence for the ocean re-emerging from a long period of hibernation as I found myself surrounded by an environment that felt real.
Although ABZU is minimalist in its presentation, especially in regard to its story, the game manages to convey a great concern for humanity's impact on the ocean. From what I can tell the story centres around an ancient civilisation that in utilising the ocean's resources rendered much of it barren, with life being unable to propogate and survive. The player character is a product of that civilisation, and throughout the game give's back the life force that had been stolen from the ocean, making these barren areas once again liveable. Since ABZU's release in 2016 the world has become increasingly aware of the disastrous impact our actions have had upon the ocean, with both micro and macroplastics having been found at the deepest known parts of the ocean, insidiously worming their way into everything. Under these circumstances it's easy to be pessimistic, the scale of damage appearing irreversible, however, ABZU's story is one that demonstrates a genuine belief in the possibility to repair things, its thesis appearing to be that it's never too late to fix things, a beautifully optimistic and moving vision for the future.
In playing ABZU I was moved to tears on multiple occasions, its beauty being something few other games have ever come close to matching. Although it is short, ABZU is, to me at least, one of the best games ever made, and I'd highly recommend it to all.

This game perfectly proves that games don't need photorealistic graphics to be stunning, this game beats most of them when it comes to visuals

It's more like 2 hours of relaxing experience
Rating: 7/10
In my opinion, its better to watch a movie than spend 2 hours here finishing this game, UNLESS you are looking for a relaxing experience. If you are, its gonna be very fine with its good background music, eye candy visuals, and bits of environmental storytelling.