Game Review: Deep Beyond (Xbox Series X)

From developer AVIX comes Deep Beyond, a first-person walking simulator that tries to tell an emotional story about loss and redemption but ends up delivering something that can be simply summed up as boring. Not only lacking depth, but lacking characters, and nuances to make any of its plot points interesting.

In fact, this is a rare example of where a game gets praise solely for its visuals, which are made up of dynamic monochrome colours, giving everything a sharpness, even within low resolution environments. It is a nice game to look at, but that’s not enough to make this a worthwhile play.

It all comes back to the issue that is its unremarkable story. Where players step into the shoes of Lily, a deep-sea explorer searching for the final piece of a puzzle that will lead her to a fabled treasure. One that her father was searching for, before he was lost at sea and never seen again. With his best friend Howard having raised her, we join Lily as her journey is nearly complete, on her boat with her faithful companion, the dog Chester.

Diving to the bottom of the ocean, she finds it, but returning to the surface she finds her boat ransacked. If that wasn’t bad enough, whoever was responsible may be after Howard, so Lily must race home to stop any harm coming to him.

It’s an adventurous concept that has all the parts to be an exciting journey, except it’s not. Every single beat of the story can be seen coming a mile away. There is no intrigue, no urgency, no danger, just Lily plodding along, speaking with proficiency, but not a lot else. The voice acting, like everything else, is just lifeless and with nothing interesting to say. It’s the fault of the writing, again, as a voice actor can’t do much with a character that has zero spark. However, Lily isn’t alone, and this applies to all. Come the end, you’ll be shocked by how little you know about her, Howard, and another who will remain nameless to not spoil the game’s ‘twist’.

Of course, it is a short game, but that’s no excuse for the total lack of depth it has. Especially as it doesn’t have a whole lot else to offer. It’s a walking simulator, so you’ll walk and occasionally have to solve a puzzle or two. Nothing particularly taxing, but they do help break up the tedium of the walking.

Beyond that though, it’s an hour-ish long unremarkable experience that most will forget a day or two after playing it.