A change of temperature but not of tune

Developer/ publisher-Unknown Worlds Entertainment 

Format-PC, PS4, PS5, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series 

Origin-US 

Release-May 14

Like its 2018 predecessor, Below Zero is a game of vivid atmospheric shifts woven around a simple bodily necessity: oxygen. The need to keep tracking back and forth between the ocean’s surface and the deep makes for a world that is always changing, taking on different moods from second to second. As you dive, sunlight gives way to bioluminescence. Day-and-night shifts pattern the water above while schools of glowing fish trace the contours below. Each aquatic biome, from cave system to kelp forest, has its own atmosphere and soundtrack of animal calls, which blur together in your wake as you hurry to make the most of your dwindling air.

New weather systems add to this sense of a constantly shapeshifting environment – hail froths the shallows, and lightning throws icebergs into menacing relief. The sensory onslaught can make navigation difficult and, once again, Unknown Worlds doesn’t give you a map. There are story waypoints to latch onto, plus beacons you can deploy over resourcerich areas, and a handheld mineral detector to weasel out deposits at close range. But these tools never entirely dispel the disorientation, and the result is a setting that never stops feeling alien because it is always challenging your efforts to reduce it to familiar territory.