DEV DIARY#5 WHAT LURKS BELOW

Aye, figured you'd come by…😌

As we are closing in on our release date it felt like the right moment to talk about what's actually waiting for you down there. Steam post image

Giving Thalassophobia a shape.

The underwater world can be scary for many reasons. The pressure, the lack of oxygen and the environment's general hostility for us land dwellers. Some fear what they can't see. Some fear what can see them.

We built every creature in the Abyssal Pool around that fear. Not jump scares or gore for its own sake. Just that primal feeling of not knowing what's sharing the water with you. Maybe it patrols around the next corner or stays hidden, waiting for a sound to give you away. Maybe it will lure you in with an unsettling kind of charm or simply beeline to you at speeds that defy common sense. Creatures aren't obstacles in Dive or Die. They're the reason every descent feels like a bet you might lose.

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Real water, made worse

The world of Dive or Die used to be our own before an eldritch entity decided to play with it.

We pulled from real deep-sea life: Anglerfish, Pycogonida or simple twisted Sharks. Things that already looked wrong under a flashlight before we touched them. Then we let the Black Rain do what it does.

The result sits in an uncomfortable middle ground. Familiar enough that your brain goes "oh, I know what that is." Wrong enough that a second later it goes "no I don't." 😬

-- Théo, Achille & Julien (Drop Rate Studio)