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
Stores: Steam
Price: Paid
Rated: Mostly Positive on Steam (76% of 1,475 reviews); Metacritic 72 on PC; 3.59 of 5 stars from 239 ratings on the PlayStation Store
Length: about 3 to 5 hours (reviewers)
Players: 1
Made by: Honor Code, Inc.
Released: 2017

Get it on Steam PlayStation Store Xbox Official site

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, violence and language (esrb mature), jumpscares, corpses shown in graphic detail, mental deterioration and trauma, 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 and Mac in March 2017, on Xbox One in May 2017 and on PlayStation 4 in July 2018, with VR support on Steam. An early version earned an honorable mention in the student competition of the 2013 Independent Games Festival. 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, sound and well-placed jump scares mixed with stranger, hallucinatory moments; 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.

Screenshots

Narcosis screenshot: a giant pale tentacled sea creature floats in front of a round hatch in a dark flooded room, the diver's gloved hand and oxygen gauges in view

Narcosis screenshot: a flashlight beam shows a bone-strewn seabed in an undersea cave where giant spider crabs stand under a rock overhang

Narcosis screenshot: two rows of still dive suits with cracked helmets line a dark corridor under hanging roots

Narcosis screenshot: a rocky undersea cave with urchins and coral, lit by an orange flare trailing smoke ahead of the diver

Narcosis screenshot: a flooded control room with floating papers, red chairs and a wall of camera monitors, seen through the dive helmet

Narcosis screenshot: a body lies on a metal grating before a round elevator pod in a dim green-lit undersea facility

Narcosis screenshot: the diver's gloved hand holds a small toy diver in a dark habitat room with shelves of books and family photos

Tips

Spider crabs cannot be killed; throw a flare away from your path and slip past.
Do not stand frozen too long when frightened; your oxygen keeps draining.
Play with headphones to hear creatures before they reach you.
Checkpoints are spaced out, so refill your air before pushing into a new area.

Questions

How long is Narcosis?

Reviewers took about three to five hours to finish the story once.

Can you fight in Narcosis?

Only a little. You carry a knife that works on some creatures, and flares that distract others. Some threats cannot be fought at all.

Does Narcosis support VR?

Yes, the Steam version supports VR headsets. It can also be played on a normal screen.

What platforms is Narcosis on?

PC and Mac on Steam, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The Steam version also supports VR headsets.

Are there monsters in Narcosis?

The makers say there are no eldritch terrors: the threats are deep-sea creatures, darkness, confinement and your own panic.

What languages is Narcosis in?

On Steam it has full English and Korean audio, with text in French, Italian, German, Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, Russian, Japanese, Polish, Turkish, Traditional Chinese and Czech as well.