Never Alone Dev Reveals Beautiful Underwater Adventure Game, Beyond Blue

E-Line Media, the studio behind the Iñupiat-inspired platformer Never Alone, has unveiled its latest effort: Beyond Blue, a narrative-driven underwater exploration game developed in collaboration with scientists and the BBC. The game was formally announced during E3 2018 and is slated to launch for PC and consoles early next year.

Envisioned as a "thematic cousin" to BBC's Blue Planet II documentary series, Beyond Blue casts players in the role of Mirai, the leader of an underwater research team. Mirai can explore her surroundings either by swimming or manually controlling aquatic drones, which will gradually collect information that can allow her to venture further and discover different types of marine life.

Gallery

In addition to its exploration elements, Beyond Blue places a heavy emphasis on resource management, which will affect how your adventure unfolds. According to E-Line, players will be forced to "make high-stakes decisions and prioritize which objectives can be successfully achieved during the crew’s expedition." You can watch the announcement trailer for Beyond Blue above.

Like the aforementioned Never Alone, which doubled as a sort of documentary on Alaska Native culture, Beyond Blue features footage from Blue Planet II. During the course of the game, players will be able to unlock Ocean Insight videos that provide more information about the creatures and moments they encounter in the title.

"Inspired by the way the Cultural Insight videos inside Never Alone brought resonance and context to a game infused with Alaska Native culture, we reached out to E-Line to explore the potential for a creative collaboration on Blue Planet II," said Bradley Crooks, Head of Digital Entertainment & Games at BBC Studios. "We think there's great synergy in the way E-Line make their games and our own approach to program making where we care passionately about the subject matter and want to help people better understand the world in which they live."