DEV DIARY #3 – Creating a Lovecraftian Underwater World 🌊

Aye, I figured you'd come by… Dev Diary #3 is here, and this one goes deeper.

We wanted to share how we’re building the world of DIVE OR DIE, from the lore that underpins everything, to the art direction and the sound design of the diving gameplay.

LORE & THE BLACK RAIN

(THE WORLD)

When we started building the world of DIVE OR DIE, we had one question in mind: what does it feel like when something happens that has no explanation and no cure?

That's what draws us to Lovecraft. Not the monsters, not the gore, but the idea that some things are just too far outside human understanding to process.

The Black Rain was our answer to that feeling.

It happens without warning. The sky goes dark at noon, the sun fades behind a starless sky, and then it starts raining. Thick, heavy, black droplets. Not ordinary rain.

A single drop on your skin is enough. Whispers first, then apathy, then delirium, then madness. There is no cure. We wanted that to feel inevitable, like something you could never reason your way out of.

For five years, it poured without stopping. Oceans swelled, cities drowned, and the survivors just kept climbing until only mountaintops were left above water.

Then one day it stopped.

When people stepped outside for the first time in years, they saw it. A towering translucent silhouette, stretching from the sky all the way down into the water. No real way to describe it. Just vast, and completely indifferent to the people staring up at it.

The Rainmaker.

It didn't say anything. It didn't need to. A whirlpool formed beneath its shadow, tearing open a fissure in the mountainside.

ART & CONCEPTS

(THE DESCENT)

Visually, we wanted the world of DIVE OR DIE to feel like it follows its own rules. The deeper you go into the Abyssal Pool, the less familiar it becomes. More profound. More somber. Crazier, as we say.

We're building biomes that feel like they were never meant to be seen by human eyes. Underwater cityscapes of drowned ruins, poisonous submerged farmland choked with giant spider webs, blood-red waters hiding cathedral ruins and things that shouldn't exist. Each biome is a layer further from the surface and further from sanity.

We'll be sharing concept art and screenshots in future updates as we get closer to launch.

HEAR BEFORE YOU SEE

(MUSIC & SOUND)

When it comes to sound design, we went with restraint.

When you're diving, there is very little music. What you hear instead is the water. The pressure. The creak of something shifting in the dark. Sound becomes your first warning system down there; you will hear what's coming before you see it. And by the time you see it, you'll wish you hadn't.

Above the surface, the vibe shifts. The camp has its own soundscape. Quieter, but not quite peaceful.

Silence does more work than any soundtrack could. And when it comes to underwater...what's better than muffled screams? :P

HOW WE CREATE THE MOOD

(THE FEELING)

There's one feeling we kept coming back to while building all of this: the feeling that you're somewhere you were never supposed to be, and that something down there knows it.

The vertical level design pushes you deeper with every dive. The less light there is, the less you can predict. The deeper you go, the stranger the rules get. We wanted every dive to feel like a decision you might regret.

It's not really about jump scares. More about the dread that builds in the thirty seconds before something happens.

• Théo, Achille & Julien

Nobody wishes for a nightmare. Do it anyway...

DIVE or DIE Children of Rain DIVE or DIE Children of Rain Demo