Narcosis

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Walk the Pacific seafloor in a dive suit before your air and your nerve run out.

Platforms: PC, Mac, PlayStation, Xbox, VR
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (76% of 1,472 reviews); Metacritic 72 on PC
Length: about 4 to 5 hours (reviewers)
Players: 1
Made by: Honor Code, Inc.
Released: 2017

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What frightens After an industrial disaster you are stranded on the dark Pacific seafloor inside a heavy dive suit, with a weak light, a knife and a few flares. Your oxygen keeps running out, giant crabs, cuttlefish and anglerfish lurk in the dark, and when the diver panics he uses up air faster while his sight and hearing start to distort.
Content: blood and gore (esrb mature), claustrophobia, deep water.

Narcosis is a first-person survival horror game from Honor Code, set at the bottom of the Pacific after an industrial accident. As a diver trapped in a half-ton suit, you trudge through a wrecked undersea facility and the dark water around it with little light, a knife and flares, hunting for oxygen while panic eats your air and twists what you see.

About Narcosis

Narcosis is a first-person survival horror game by Honor Code, a studio based in France and California, released on PC in March 2017 and on PlayStation 4 in July 2018, with an Xbox One version and VR support on Steam. It began as a student project. The music includes a closing theme by Akira Yamaoka, known for the Silent Hill series.

After a disaster at an undersea facility, an industrial diver is left on the seafloor in a heavy atmospheric dive suit that the game calls a walking coffin. You move slowly through flooded rooms, rock tunnels and open water with a flashlight, a knife and a flare launcher, looking for oxygen tanks and refill stations to keep going. The survivor's own account plays alongside your progress.

What frightens is the setting itself: darkness, a suit you can barely move in, and air you can watch running out. When the diver is startled or comes close to a threat, his heart rate climbs and he uses oxygen faster, and his view and hearing begin to warp. Some creatures, like cuttlefish, can be fought off with the knife; others, like the spider crabs, cannot, and must be distracted with flares or avoided.

The makers set out to scare with real sea life and human limits rather than monsters from beyond. It suits players afraid of deep water and tight spaces who do not mind a slow, heavy pace. Reviewers praised its atmosphere and sound; the usual complaints were the very slow movement and checkpoints that can cost several minutes after a death.

How to play Narcosis

Walk the seafloor in first person; the suit is slow and heavy, so plan your route.
Watch your oxygen gauge and pick up spare tanks or use refill stations whenever you find them.
Use the flashlight to see ahead and fire flares to light dark areas or distract creatures.
Swing the knife at creatures that can be fought, and stay away from those that cannot.
Keep calm: getting startled or close to a threat makes the diver burn air faster.