You know that feeling when you replay your favorite album for the hundredth time? That’s how I feel with Giant Squid. Three games deep, and the team is still on a similar meditative journey, albeit with a different surface layer and premise. Sword of the Sea has me torn. I want to celebrate how good Giant Squid has gotten at this formula, but also shake them and say “enough already”.
Look, point blank, this is the team’s best work—no question. They’ve taken everything about movement, beauty, and silent storytelling and polished it until it gleams. However, let’s be honest here, Sword of the Sea, in many ways, feels like the same game Giant Squid has been shipping since 2012 with a new coat of paint. I want to be clear from the start: I loved almost every minute of Sword of the Sea, but I also can’t lose the feeling that this needs to be the end of this particular road.
The Studio’s Odyssey
Matt Nava’s career is essentially a study in perfecting a single, specific idea. As Journey‘s art director, he helped create what became the template: a lone figure crossing beautiful landscapes toward some transcendent goal, all without a single word of dialogue (a literal speechless journey, if you will). When he co-founded Giant Squid, he brought that exact blueprint with him.
Abzû came first. Journey underwater, basically. Sand became ocean currents, but everything else stayed the same: no dialogue, smooth movement, fixing a broken world. The Pathless tried mixing things up with actual combat and objectives, though it still felt like it came from the same place. Each game took tiny steps forward, tweaking and adjusting the same core idea over and over.
Now we have Sword of the Sea, and yes, it’s basically the same game again. The structure is identical. A mysterious figure awakens, traverses stunning environments, restores life to a dying world, and reaches a spiritual crescendo. The mechanics have evolved but remain familiar. The themes haven’t moved an inch. Yet, despite these striking similarities, it all somehow works. There’s a mastery in this repetition, the confidence of artists who know exactly what they want to create and have finally achieved the perfect version of it.
Surfing the Sacred Geometry
The hoversword is Sword of the Sea‘s big new thing. You ride this glowing blade like a skateboard, carving through sand dunes, water currents, and snowy slopes with incredible fluidity. I spent the entire first hour grinning like an idiot, ignoring objectives to surf in circles and launch off dunes, pulling unnecessary flips just because movement felt that good. I wish I could replicate even half of this in a game if I ever finish making one.
The controls are impossibly forgiving. You literally cannot fail. Jump wrong, land weird, doesn’t matter; the game gently corrects everything. Giant Squid lets you focus entirely on the joy of movement for this unfortunately bite-sized experience. It’s skateboarding without the bruises.
Throughout the three-to-four-hour journey, I collected shells to trade for new tricks: kicks, grabs, spins. These felt mostly cosmetic, adding style without substance. The Tony Hawk-style score challenges scattered around were a neat surprise, two-minute sessions in small skate park areas where you rack up points. They’re optional and oddly out of place in such a meditative game, but I kept going back to beat my scores anyway. It just felt good.
The boss encounters deserve special mention. At key moments, you mount massive leviathans, such as sharks and whales, and ride them like living surfboards. These sequences channel Shadow of the Colossus beautifully, providing spectacular set pieces that showcase the game’s sense of scale. They’re also the only parts where movement feels slightly off, a bit clunkier than the butter-smooth sword surfing. However, they’re brief and visually impressive enough that the temporary awkwardness didn’t bother me to an extreme.
A Canvas in Motion – Far Too Many Times
Visually, Sword of the Sea might be the most beautiful game I’ve played this year, maybe even more than Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Stellar Blade (I know I’m late). It’s another perfect example of how artistic direction matters much more to me than technical realism (even though those games are a beautiful balance between the attempt at blending realism and artistic freedom). Each biome feels unique and mesmerizing. You’ll find golden dunes rippling like silk, frozen peaks glittering in the twilight, and even submerged temples where light filters through the waters. The art direction uses bold, clean geometry and vibrant colors that make every screenshot worth saving.
The real magic happens when you start restoring water to the world. Environments bloom with impossible life that is quite literally out of this world. Fish are seen swimming through air, jellyfish floating past ruins, and whales circling overhead like satellites. The boundaries between air, water, and sand just disappear. It creates this dreamlike logic that I never once questioned because it all feels so right.
There’s one huge area late in the game (not spoiling it) where the frame rate absolutely tanks. It’s the only technical issue in an otherwise perfect presentation, but honestly, what you’re looking at in that moment is so spectacular that the stuttering is moderately acceptable. This game understands how to use scale and beauty to create genuine awe.
The Sound of Transcendence, As Usual
Austin Wintory’s back, and his score here might actually top Journey‘s soundtrack. He mixes orchestral instrumentation with electronic touches in ways that work really well. The London Voices and Phoenix Boys Choir show up for the big moments. Since nobody talks in this game, the music basically becomes the narrator. It carries all the emotional weight and never drops it.
The Familiar Path to Revelation, Like Always
The story unfolds through environmental clues and abstract imagery. Stone tablets, ancient murals, the usual stuff. A great kingdom fell, the ocean disappeared, life died, and now you’re here to fix everything. If this sounds familiar, that’s because Giant Squid has been telling this exact story since Abzû (arguably earlier!).
The environmental themes are there, but never get preachy. A climate allegory wrapped in mythology, more interested in making you feel wonder than guilt. The narrative beats are so predictable I could unfortunately almost time them: tutorial, revelation, new mechanics, fake crisis, big finale. I felt like I knew every single moment before it happened.
And yet, Sword of the Sea still got me. That’s what perfect execution does. The music swells, the camera pulls back to show everything you’ve accomplished. Giant Squid has mastered the emotional crescendo. Even when I know I’m being manipulated, it still works.
The Weight of Expectations Set for Sword of the Sea
I need to be honest here. I spent most of my time playing this, taking it all in, and analyzing the experience for critiques. My feelings of what almost feels like a creative halt at Giant Squid led me to believe there wouldn’t be something here I hadn’t already experienced. The puzzles? Laughably simple. The story? Paper-thin. The whole thing? Done in one evening. The studio’s games have barely changed mechanically in ten years. But then the sun hits the sand at just the right angle, the music kicks in, and suddenly I don’t care anymore. The execution is so confident, so polished, that somehow none of my complaints matter.
I’m confident in saying that this is Giant Squid’s magnum opus. Everything is polished to perfection. The movement, the visuals, the music—all of it better than ever before. They’ve been chasing this exact game since Abzû, and the studio has finally caught it. If you’ve never played one of Giant Squid’s games, start here. If you have, you know exactly what you’re getting—and that’s fine. Sword of the Sea is derivative by design and still one of the best games I’ve played this year. It’s not something that innovates, but it’s an experience even long-time Giant Squid fans will adore.
But please, Giant Squid, make something different next time. I can only hope that the next game from this incredibly talented team will be something no one expects, as I do not think the team can top this formula after Sword of the Sea. This incredibly talented team has proven it can perfect a formula. Now show us what else you can do.
Disclaimer: Giant Squid provided a PlayStation 5 copy of Sword of the Sea for review purposes.
