Open world games allow players to explore a wide variety of vast regions and municipalities, from ancient civilizations to modern cities or countries wrought with crime.
Most open world games primarily restrict players to exploring these areas either on-foot, by horseback or car, or via air travel in games set in the 20th and 21st centuries.
However, more and more games released in the 21st century have increasingly allowed players to explore the varied bodies of water both on the surface and deep down in the dark watery depths of rivers, lakes, seas, and oceans.
While not every open world game goes too much in-depth with underwater mechanics, a few utilize the setting to the fullest, offering spectacular underwater sights and activities unlike anything seen on the dry surface.
The following games are ranked by the quality and variation of activities available to do underwater and the level of freedom in which players can explore underwater locations.
8 Horizon Forbidden West
A Flooded California
Horizon Forbidden West is a primarily land-based open world game, but it does feature a few underwater puzzles and multiple underwater exploration opportunities thanks to the introduction of the Diving Mask.
A few dungeon-like Cauldrons are partially submerged underwater, forcing Aloy to explore the machine-making facilities in entirely new ways and face dangerous machines designed to operate in the water, such as Snapmaws and Tiderippers.
If players travel to the far western coast of Horizon Forbidden West‘s map, they’ll come upon the flooded ruins of California, specifically the city of San Francisco, after the San Andreas Fault collapsed centuries ago around 2150.
Here, I often dive underwater to witness sealife’s beautiful reclamation of many of San Francisco’s iconic locations, such as the remains of the Golden Gate Bridge, Oracle Park, and the Palace of Fine Arts.
7 Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag
Shipwrecks of the Caribbean
Assassin’s Creed 3 was the first Assassin’s Creed game to properly introduce naval combat, but Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag perfected naval combat and expanded it with ship-based exploration mechanics.
Most of Black Flag‘s ship-related activities have Edward Kenway battling other ships with the Jackdaw or hunting large sealife with a rowboat, but in select areas, Kenway can explore underwater shipwrecks for long-lost treasure.
After acquiring the diving bell, Kenway can briefly swim underwater to search for shipwrecked loot, all while struggling to take breaths from other diving bells and avoid being attacked by sharks.
Black Flag‘s diving bell is one of the most unique and historically accurate ways to survey underwater locations I’ve ever seen in a video game, and it’s a shame it hasn’t appeared in other AC titles.
6 Sea of Thieves
The Sunken Kingdom
Rare’s Sea of Thieves is well known for being one of the best multiplayer-focused pirate games ever made and while most of its gameplay is focused on ship and sword combat, it does feature a bit of underwater exploration.
Most of Sea of Thieves‘ underwater exploration, aside from plundering underwater shipwrecks, is done via Season Four’s Siren Shrines, underwater temples home to monstrous mermaid-like Sirens and clam-headed Ocean Crawlers.
Here, players can solve complex puzzles with a bit of platforming and fight the sea monsters using their standard weapons or a magical trident called the Trident of Dark Tides to receive rare treasures such as Breath of the Sea.
I always enjoyed exploring the Sunken Kingdom’s Siren Shrines with my crew of friends and the new enemies and underwater locations added some much-needed variety to Thieves’ general gameplay.
5 Maneater
An Underwater Massacre
Tripwire Interactive’s 2020 third-person action role-playing game Maneater is the perfect shark game Jaws fans such as myself have been waiting for our entire lives.
Set in the United States’ Gulf Coast, Maneater has players embody a young bull shark bent on avenging the death of its mother at the merciless hands of veteran shark hunter Scaly Pete.
While Maneater is focused primarily on eating various passive sealife, defeating other aquatic apex predators, and attacking humans, it does feature several hyper-detailed underwater environments to explore and be enthralled by.
From filthy submerged sewers, swampy bayous, to deep water bays, Maneater allows players to fully immerse themselves in an aquatic killer shark fantasy unlike any other game has done before or since.
4 Death in the Water 2
Horror in the Ocean Depths
Somewhat similar to Maneater, Lighthouse Games Studio’s Death in the Water 2 explores the more horrifying side of the ocean as opposed to its more naturally calming aspects.
Unlike other water-focused games, Death in the Water 2 is perpetually set in dark, murky waters, creating a constant eerie feeling and making sharks, sea snakes, and even mythological sea creatures such as Sirens difficult to notice and fight against.
On top of the hostile sealife, Death in the Water 2‘s environments are absolutely haunting, featuring skeleton-filled shipwrecks, coral-covered sculptures, claustrophobic canyons, and long-forgotten temples, all of which can be explored at players’ leisure.
All of these elements culminate in one of the most creepy underwater games ever released and gives me pause from scuba diving anytime soon.
3 Dave The Diver
Diving for Sushi
In contrast to Death in the Water 2‘s bleakness, Dave The Diver is one of the most refreshing and uplifting water-focused games ever released.
Set in the newly opened Bancho Sushi Bar near a massive, mysterious Blue Hole, Dave The Diver follows the title character as he dives in the Blue Hole searching for fish and other underwater ingredients to support the restaurant.
While spearfishing in Dave The Diver is fairly relaxing, players will encounter more dangerous sea life, from sharks to giant squids and even seemingly extinct creatures such as a kronosaurus, the farther down they explore the Blue Hole.
Dave The Diver is one of the few games to perfectly balance an intriguing world with comedy, relaxing gameplay, and a thoughtful story and is one I often go back to during summer.
2 Endless Ocean
A Calm Aquatic Tour
Not every great water-focused game has to feature combat or even depict aquatic predators as constantly hostile.
Instead, a few games can simply depict ocean life as peaceful and passive as it naturally is in real life and perhaps the best series to depict underwater exploration this way is Nintendo’s Endless Ocean.
While Endless Ocean does have a bit of story, its primary focus is letting players simply explore the ocean, interact with sea creatures by petting them and taking pictures, and filling up an aquarium.
Endless Ocean is a perfect recreation of how real aquatic animals interact with the world around them, and it’s one of the first games to truly make me interested in learning more about the ocean.
1 Subnautica
A Familiar Yet Alien Frontier
Possibly the most famous open-world, underwater exploration game made to date is Unknown Worlds Entertainment’s first-person survival game, Subnautica.
Set on an alien ocean world designated 4546B, Subnautica centers around a lone survivor of the spaceship Degasi struggling to survive in an alien ocean and find a way back home.
While players could simply stick to completing Subnautica‘s main storyline, the game offers players immense freedom in exploring alien oceans in any way they desire.
I have a plethora of fond memories of exploring 4546B’s diverse aquatic ecosystems, getting frightened by Reaper Leviathans in open water, and building my own underwater base surrounded by some of the most interesting alien aquatic life ever designed.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
