Call of the Sea (video game)
Call of the Sea is an adventure video game developed by Out of the Blue and published by Raw Fury. The game was released for Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S on December 8, 2020.
| Call of the Sea | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Developer(s) | Out of the Blue |
| Publisher(s) | Raw Fury |
| Director(s) | Tatiana Delgado |
| Engine | Unreal Engine 4 |
| Platform(s) | |
| Release | December 8, 2020 |
| Genre(s) | Adventure, puzzle |
| Mode(s) | Single-player |
Gameplay
Call of the Sea is an adventure video game played from a first-person perspective. The game is set in the 1930s, and players assume control of Norah (Cissy Jones), who must explore an island set in the Southern Pacific to find her husband, Harry (Yuri Lowenthal), who has gone missing after embarking on an expedition.[1] The game does not feature a combat system, and players progress in the game by solving various puzzles.[2]
Plot
After receiving a mysterious package with a strange, ritualistic knife, and a picture of her husband Harry with a note on the back reading 74 nautical miles east of Otaheite (Tahiti), Norah Everhart embarks on an journey to this mysterious island in search of Harry, who had vanished after embarking on an expedition to find a cure for a mysterious illness that has plagued Norah's family, killing her grandfather, mother, and slowly killing Norah as well. Norah arrives on the island, which was left unnamed by Tahitian locals, and finds it matches to one that she has dreamt about for weeks. Moving further inland alone, she arrives at an abandoned village used as a base camp by the expedition. She finds the expedition itself consisted of Harry, Cassandra Ward, a reporter, Frank Dayton, a black mechanic who Harry quickly became quite close to, Dr. Ernest De Witt, a dermatologist, and Roy Granger, a Hollywood stuntman. They had arrived on the island accompanied by a Tahitian named Teaharoa acting as their guide, who previously arrived on the island by accident while fishing until he was attacked by a mysterious sea creature, and was taken back to Tahiti by a man who spoke no words. There, the expedition found a well that was used by the islanders for some kind of forbidden ritual using a black ooze. Growing impatient with the expedition, Roy had attempted to use the dynamite brought by the team to blow open the well, only to wind up killing himself in the process and splatting De Witt's arm with the ooze, causing him to slowly start losing his sanity and develop minor skin blotches similar to the ones Norah has. The team attempted to replicate the ritual, but abandoned it and the village after they discovered the ship that brought them to the island, the Lady Shannon, had washed ashore on a nearby beach. Norah herself manages to replicate the ritual, causing the well to fill up in black ooze with her inside.
Norah subsequently experiences a vivid dreamlike state in which she walks uncontrollably off a cliff into a river, while being watched by a giant amphibious-looking creature holding onto an obelisk. Diving into the water, Norah finds she can breathe underwater, and as she swims towards two glowing eyes (presumably belonging to the creature), she finds her arms have been transformed into something like a fish and her hands have become webbed. Norah wakes up on the same beach where the Lady Shannon washed ashore, and finds it covered in huge, claw like gashes, that would have assured the ship had sunk, and its crew nowhere to be found. Norah finds the expedition had set up a new camp, salvaging materials from the ship, and De Witt, growing more and more insane, had stabbed Frank, but was stopped before he went further and tied up, only for the team to find his bonds cut, De Witt missing, and a inhuman footprint at the base of where he was. Additionally, the team had discovered an organ carved into the rocks and played based on the levels of the tide, using it to open a passage to a temple on the top of the highest peak of the island. Norah travels to the temple, where she finds the expedition had built loudspeakers in an attempt to open the temple door using the same music they had used with the organ, only to cause a rockslide that crushed their tents (thankfully no one was inside them), and that Frank had succumbed to his stab wound and died, after the group had previously thought it was merely a flesh wound. While restoring power to the loudspeakers, Norah is knocked out, and finds herself in a desert surrounded by the bones of ancient sea creatures, before arriving at her old house floating in the air as if it was underwater, finding her mother's music box able to play its music. Using the tune of the music box in her memory, Norah is able to open the temple, and finds a note by Harry explaining that there is no cure for Norah's 'illness,' and that she is in fact changing into something new.
Norah presses on, and finds a gateway that allows her to transform back into her amphibious water form, and uses many of these gateways to arrive at a primitive village, used by the island's inhabitants, who were in fact 'slaves' of some unknown masters. Continuing on, Norah finds another note by Harry explaining that the Masters took their slaves to a 'sanctuary' to complete the ritual and the slave's transformation, and he intends to undergo the same process in an attempt to be like Norah so that they could be together, leading to an argument between Cassandra and Teaharoa, resulting in the latter leaving to the same beach Norah arrived at in order to build a raft and escape the island. Norah manages to find her way to the sanctuary, and finds that while the island and its creatures reacted negatively to the Lady Shannon and the expedition, they seem to treat Norah as one of their own, and that being on the island makes more sense to her than her whole life in the states. Arriving at the sanctuary, she finds another note from Harry in which he seems to be losing his sanity, and blood on the steps leading into the building, believing it to be Cassandra's. Norah enters the throne room where the ritual commences, and finds a body on the throne with Harry's glasses, which he never took off, right beside it. As she is once again submerged in the black ooze, Norah realizes the body is not Harry, but Cassandra, who had been driven mad by the island in an attempt to uncover its secrets, and had shot Harry with his own gun when he tried to stop her from completing the ritual. After seeing Cassandra die, Harry was finally convinced that the ritual was not meant for 'people like him,' and left for Tahiti, faking his own death. It was in fact Harry who had sent Norah the package, lying to her for the first time, as he knew the only way she would go to the island and undergo the ritual was if she thought he was dead.
From here Norah, and the player, is presented with a choice; either Norah can accept her fate, completing her transformation and journeying to an underwater city, for an eternal life free of pain, suffering, and death at the cost of never seeing Harry again. Or reject it, wake back up on the beach from where she arrived, journey back to the ship that brought her to the island, and live out the rest of her years with the love of her life by the sea. During the credits, Norah and Harry sing their favorite song, Dear Old Pal of Mine, together, and depending on the player's choice of ending, the song can either conclude with the two exchanging terms of endearment (accepting Norah's fate), or be interrupted by a coughing fit from Norah (rejecting Norah's fate). Regardless of the ending, Harry is left alone, and years later, contemplates whether or not he made the right decision in lying to Norah, remarking that fate has cursed him "with a long and sorrowful life, with no other incentive than [his] work" as the Dean of Archaeology at Miskatonic University.
Development
Call of the Sea is the debut title for Out of the Blue, an independent studio based in Madrid, Spain.[3] The team consisted of about 12 people.[4] According to Tatiana Delgado, the founder of Out of the Blue, the game was heavily inspired by the works of H.P. Lovecraft. However, she added that they only took inspirations from the "surreal" and "oneiric" part of his work, and asserted that the game would not be a horror game. She added that "Call of the Sea isn't a descent into madness but a rise to sanity".[5] The game was a narrative-focused game, with the team working to ensure that the puzzles featured in the game are fully integrated with the story. The game also drew influence from other adventure games such as Firewatch, Myst, Soma, and Subnautica.[2]
The game was announced on May 7, 2020 during a digital event hosted by Xbox Game Studios. Call of the Sea was released for Windows, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S on December 8, 2020.[6]
References
- Bolding, Jonathan (June 13, 2020). "Call of the Sea looks lovely, here's a breakdown of the trailer by the devs". PC Gamer. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
- West, Josh (June 13, 2020). "Call of the Sea is an otherworldly exploration of love and loss on a mysterious island". GamesRadar. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
- Purchese, Robert (May 7, 2020). "Gorgeous 1930s tropical adventure Call of the Sea announced for Xbox Series X". Eurogamer. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
- Carter, Chris (July 5, 2020). "Raw Fury announces intriguing fish adventure Call of the Sea". Destructoid. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
- Ramee, Jordan (August 28, 2020). "Call Of The Sea Is A "Twist On The Traditional H.P. Lovecraft Works," Says Dev". GameSpot. Retrieved September 22, 2020.
- Romano, Sal (May 7, 2020). "Otherworldly adventure game Call of the Sea announced for Xbox Series X, Xbox One, and PC". Gematsu. Retrieved September 22, 2020.