Thank you Arachnid Games for sending us a review code.

It is always interesting to think about how the world will end. How will humans survive? Sadly some think it's going to be by zombies and we are all going to turn on each other. What if, through our own ingenuity, we survive an Ice Age instead? With Diluvion we get to go on an under the sea adventure for a great treasure at the bottom of the ocean. We have no land to get back to for the world's new Ice Age has frozen the entire world. Humanity has thrived with renewed culture, faith, and hope. However, whether it be greed, curiosity, or desire we dive deep into the dark depths of the ocean.

In Diluvion you play as a captain you can name, and your one and only goal is to find the greatest secret of humanity buried at the bottom of the ocean. You choose from one of three submarines to begin your game with and a short tutorial will start your journey. As you progress you purchase crew to increase the power of your weapons, sonar capabilities, torpedoes and engine. Keeping crewmates in the hanger will slowly repair your ship over time; it will be faster if you keep repair kits handy. Managing resources is key as you need air tanks to keep your crew breathing and food to keep their bellies full. Scrap metal will serve as your main source of ammunition for guns. When you visit one of the sea's many sub nautical locations such as the cities and research capsules you will automatically refill on air tanks. 

Merchants will have scrap metal and other essential materials for sale if you have enough currency to trade. Less populated locations usually have various materials from fish bones to old above world items. It seems memories of life on earth have a monetary value. The ocean has plenty of foes to prevent passage from undersea monsters to enemy submarines. When you defeat enemy submarines you can choose to dock with them for great loot. Occasionally some crew members of sinking subs will offer to join your crew for the right price. Engineers can upgrade your submarine or sell you new ones as long as you have the material and the cash. In order to dive deeper you will need to move your ship past level one so don't expect to do level 1 runs with Diluvion. If you explore well you can even find a place to build your own personal base to upgrade. As you upgrade this place it will be filled with merchants and crew members to help you along. 

The best part of the gameplay for me was the combat. Each battle felt tense and exciting and I had to make quick choices to run away or to turn and fight, charging into glorious combat. I didn't necessarily care why they were fighting me and that's a good thing. Whether they were pirates or grumpy travelers, the only reason I needed to fire back was to keep myself out of Davy Jones' Locker. Lots of survival combat games don't give me that sense of dread of when I lose because I know I'll come back one way or another. Diluvion doesn't even have a perma death system of any kind and I still fought tooth and nail to survive. I ended up caring about my crew. The lore you get is from finding story entries in different landmarks and NPCs swapping tales. It is a simple way to tell a story and nothing presented to me was complex or deeply thought provoking. Yet something about the simplicity of the characters made me all the more interested in them. Whether it was my gunner's love of explosions, my shy sonar man's personality or my older and wiser engine captain, I came to fall in love with my crew and I swore I would keep them alive. 

The cons will manifest in your patience with the game. This game has no direct navigation system you may be used to in other games. As mentioned before you find landmarks in the game that will be marked on your map once you find a map treasure for it. Yet a compass and the discovered landmarks are all you have to guide you. By holding down your sonar button you can bounce sonar waves to find walls as well as mark enemies and places. The NPCs will not point you in any particular direction and only tell you where you need to go. To explore you're going to have to remember directions you've explored from particular landmarks. For example, to find a SOCOM base first I chose a landmark to use as my base of operations then explored each and every direction to find tunnels and locations. Golden fish trails will point you in the general direction of where you might need to go. However this won't give you the exact location of the next story events. This game can require extreme patience, and it can begin to get aggravating. That sense of exploration was lost to a burning desire to find where the next part of the story was.

The ship turns on a dime with a controller, but keyboard controls feel awkward and stiff. The keyboard controls are not bad, but they won't give you the precise movement and control that a controller offers. Not only is constant docking with defeated enemy ships immersion breaking, it's messed up that people charge you before they join you on sinking ships. Would you charge someone to rescue you from a watery grave?

This is a winner take all world. While you don't necessarily see any form of gore or violence in the combat. This is a world where morals have no place and the world is focused solely on survival. The characters can be very cut throat and in the world of Diluvion everyone seems to be focused on what's at the bottom of the world rather then trying to return to the top. Don't expect anyone in this world to have strong moral fibers. I'd recommend this game for anyone above the age of 14 due to way this game's story can push you to focus on survival over moral character. I said earlier that if you find a survivor on a ship you dock they will still ask for money before they join your crew. How immoral do you have to be to put money over your own life? 

How deep will you dive with Diluvion? This game definitely is worth putting your captain’s hat on for; give it a try!