Barotrauma

I saw this game mentioned in the comments of a video of Sseth about Space Station 13 and wanted to play it ever since then. A few months ago, an old friend of mine and I decided to play it together while reconnecting after a long time.

I like this game because it greatly rewards good communication, realistic planning and wise decisions. The way you cooperate with others has many layers and you can learn a lot about yourself this way.

It was kinda hard to get a solid group going after my friend went back to his other games. I started visiting random private servers. But it can be hard to find a public server with a good host. So I started my own public server. I put in the effort to be a good but serious captain, to motivate earnest people and quickly sort out problematic randoms and to plan forward and keep morale high.

With a good amount of patience and diligent, perpetuous attention, I built a solid server out of the random players who came at different times during the weekend. We now have a Steam groupchat and a Discord server. We recently finished the campaign, too, which I didn't get to do with the old friend nor in singleplayer.

We bonded over all kinds of terrible situations and epic clutches. Every single one of us grew in the process. We got to know each other in our highs and lows and learned how to talk about everything with mercy as well as severity. And above all, we learned to function as a team in all kinds of situations. This is exactly the experience I was hoping for and I am very glad that I took the leap of hosting my own server.

Barotrauma is obviously a very niche game and it is a niche I uniquely enjoy. I believe that cooperative multiplayer games with great freedom and complexity like this one bring out the whole spectrum of human behaviour. That is too much for most people, but I enjoy it because it means freedom and opens up the possibility for exchanges and experiences which would otherwise not be possible.

It does take effort to take the brunt of all the strange, dishonest, sadistic or also just kinda daft and unworkable people, to fairly talk it out with all of them, give everyone their just "trial" while keeping up the energy (and managing a submarine of eight other people at the same time), but it rewards you with friends who will stick around for some really crazy unexpected rounds of Europan madness. It can feel very punishing but also very rewarding.

I haven't really played with any serious mods yet, but there are good community mods which easily add another hundred hours to the normal campaign, new enemies, weapons, pets, all kinds of items, even musical instruments and much more. The community is wacky, but I kinda like it. The memes are funny.

It's probably not for everyone, but I am very happy with this game.

Over 550 hours playing this game, vanilla, modded, singleplayer, multiplayer, pvp, finnished the campaign about 3 times, went trough significantly traumatic events.
It is a good game.

very fun game to play with a large group of friends and roleplay
until they beat the game without you because you arent on for 1 day out of the 20 you guys played.

The trailers don't do this justice. Give it a try. There is a reason it's so highly rated, but they are terrible at advertising exactly what it is that makes this game so special. You won't regret trying it.

If you've never experienced running a nuclear reactor, going off to go fix something when the captain asks, coming back to the nuclear reactor, getting hit in the jugular by a 10 inch spike fired from outside the ship by nightmares beyond your comprehension, slowly bleeding out while the medic is trying to put out all the fires (plot twist they only exist in his head), and watch as the ship clown enters the reactor room, alarms start blaring, and the nuclear reactor detonates, instantly vaporizing the entire ship (and the contingent of immortal zombies lurking outside it). Then play this game, that'll happen

Barotrauma is an ambitious game. That's the most honest way to describe it. It wants to do a lot. And as a result, many of its parts are undercooked. BUT...
The premise of the game and its core idea are wonderful. You are taking a long journey with your friends through the underwater hell that is Europa, piloting and maintaining a shoddy submarine, purchased at a suspiciously low price. You watch Europa's resource-starved human society crumble as a result of a natural disaster, and try to make the best of this terrible situation.
The gameplay is what you make of it. You can settle into a relatively comfortable role on a submarine, doing the intended job of your class. Or you can do a bit of everything - maintaining devices, handling navigation, manning the turrets to keep aggressive creatures away, going outside to mine and salvage materials... The class you choose doesn't limit the selection of jobs you can be competent at. And everything gets better with teamwork.
Barotrauma's developers are working tirelessly to improve the game. I've been here for a couple of years, playing the game actively and aiding the devs in its development, alongside other community regulars. In that time Barotrauma has changed a lot, with a bunch of its features getting more fleshed out. Each update bringing much needed improvements, based on the team's own vision and community feedback.
Steam Workshop support is part of the game's appeal as well. There is a lot of custom content out there. Some balanced, some not. With mods and a wide selection of in-game settings, you can craft whatever experience you want for your campaign. Though I do recommend doing a vanilla run first, all the modded stuff can keep things fresh in the future playthroughs.
Singleplayer mode is available and is actually pretty okay, but I'd really recommend playing the game with actual people. Barotrauma is a prime environment for fun social interactions. The game goes on sale relatively often, so keep an eye out for that and pick it up with your friend group. The base price is steep (thanks, Daedalic), but getting Barotrauma with a 50% discount is a good deal.

It’s like the titan sub you saw on the news, but the game.
A Moloch in the deep,
Silent and sleek.
A Basuk it did sink,
In just a blink.
Drugs, guns and hookers but instead of hookers you have aliens trying to kill you. But the drugs are pretty cool.
It’s like Among us meets We Need To Go Deeper.
My wife calls it Space Submarine Sims 4
My wife’s boyfriend says It’s a Death Simulator...
… And maybe a "how to kill your colleague and boss" simulator.
I'm an experienced domestic terrorist in Barotrauma, so that fits.
Imagine a bunch of idiots that either don't know what they're doing or don't want to do it, in a submarine 4000m deep in the ocean, on a planet where pretty much everything wants to kill you and any mistake can be fatal. Also clowns.
The best disaster simulation you’ll ever play.
It's an unforgiving 2D Co-op Horror exploration and management game with many ways to die, many ways to survive and many ways to murder anything or anyone you wish… With a submarine editor to make your own ride and mod support to add or remove almost anything you'd want.
But before I go on, let me ask you this…
Have you ever wanted to go on a rampage and slaughter an entire outpost while being so high on several different drugs that you don't feel pain, just to save one guy?
Have you ever ventured too deep into the icy crust of Europa and found something THEY don't want you to know?
Have you ever wanted a pay raise, only for the captain to refuse, so you caused the nuclear reactor to increase the amount of steam produced, causing an explosion?
Have you ever got so high on meth, that you joined a highly controversial and illegal church, that wants to transcend humanity by uniting with a flesh eating parasite?
If you answered yes to any of these questions, then congratulations, Barotrauma IS a game for you!
During the game you walk around this submarine in space and everything and everyone that you aren't directly playing or isn't directly playing you wants to kill you. Disclaimer: Your crew will ABSOLUTELY and WITHOUT HESITATION fire a full on NUCLEAR RAILGUN SHELL at you POINT BLANK, given the opportunity. You need to manage weight, hull strength, cargo space, ammunition, fuel, welding fuel, navigational systems, ship maintenance, and medicine along with having a proper medical practitioner, just to survive transporting f**king 3 clowns to the next station over. You beat the game in campaign mode by killing God with the scraps of bulls**t you've harvested in the course of being a glorified delivery man. You eventually die… In some of the most horrific manners by the hands of ungodly creatures born from the depths of our fears. All the while trying to keep your floating coffin working and armed to hopefully prolongue your nightmare that is life just a little longer. Within an ocean of darkness that hides our fears even inches away from your face.
This is one of the few games where you can do a very simple job (repair everything, keep people healed, etc) and still have a vital role to the mission. It is really satisfying. And then the mudraptors decide they want a hug...
My wife’s boyfriend has called it a "Drowning simulator" many times. The game is complicated and much of the player skill comes in learning the various systems. Single player it is a submarine and crew management simulator. Multiplayer can be anything from a crew simulator to an RP station or pure clown chaos. There is a tendency for one problem to spiral into many. One example is monster attack and tear holes in your hull, which floods the adjacent rooms, water damages the electrical equipment which cuts power to the pumps. So you might have to choose between fighting the monsters causing the leaks, fixing the pumps to remove the water, fixing the leaks so more water doesn't come in, or fighting the monsters now boarding your ship! In fact the name "Barotrauma" refers to death by water pressure. This can be very frustrating or exciting as you overcome challenges and survive desperate situations. It is an attitude to gaming made famous by Dark Souls, but with less twitch skill and more cooperation, strategic decisions, and understanding of the game.
The main gameplay loop happens when travelling from one station to another, where you are moving through a passage. You will have to navigate and repair your sub, as well as defend it from aggressive fauna. Each segment is broken into travelling and spending time at a station. At stations you can buy/sell repair and craft items. There are skill trees for each role, and there is an interesting campaign progression based on making sure stations are available late game.
The average round goes a little something like:
Captain chooses path on map from station. Everyone is ready.
The Captain chose a missions to kill a Hammerhead.
Along the path, you encounter a few smaller monsters that the ships guns handle easily.
You encounter the Hammerhead, it doesn't die immediately and it attacks your vessel.
Here is where it gets fun.
Maybe you quickly repaired your leaking sub and were able to continue.
Maybe someone gets crushed by the water pressure when a room filled too fast and they weren't wearing a suit.
Maybe the navigation console was fried and now you have to drain and repair.
Maybe you weren't able to repair fast enough and you accidentally missed the bottom of the passage and now your sinking towards crush depth in the abyss. Oh and a monster larger than your sub just spawned.
It’s got underwater clown shenanigans, big guns, cool ships, lots of things blowing up and breaking down. Also unspeakable, deep-sea horrors… what the hell are you waiting for?! Have fun.
10/10