Barotrauma

Intense overall intensity
Highest flag: Substances — player uses or trades
HorrorSimulationSurvival

What's in it

Substances player uses or trades
High

Players craft, use, and trade medical and combat drugs such as morphine and stimulants, and alcohol like beer is available and consumed.

Violence realistic
Moderate

Combat against alien deep-sea creatures and human pirates and crew, with blood clouds and gore during fights.

Dark themes intense
Moderate

Bleak survival on a frozen moon with themes of isolation and death, including a parasitic 'husk' infection that overtakes crew members.

Horror & psychological frightening
Moderate

Survival-horror atmosphere of oppressive darkness where unseen monsters rise from the depths to ambush and kill the crew.

Crime & lawlessness player commits crime
Moderate

A hidden 'traitor' role can be assigned to secretly sabotage the submarine or murder fellow crew members.

Mutilation / body horror depicted
Moderate

Limbs can be severed by creatures in combat, and injured crew may be surgically treated or amputated.

Animal combat combat mechanic
Low

Hunting and fighting hostile undersea wildlife is a routine mission and gameplay mechanic.

Language mild
Low

The game's own text is light, but real-time text and voice chat between players commonly carries profanity.

Who can reach your kid

Voice chatChat with strangersUser-created content

What it is

Barotrauma is a two-dimensional cooperative simulator about running a submarine under the ice-covered sea of Europa, one of Jupiter's moons. A team pilots the vessel, manages its reactor and life-support systems, and carries out assigned tasks while contending with dangerous marine life and onboard emergencies. The fighting uses a stylized pixel-art look but shows real gore: crews battle alien ocean creatures, pirates, and at times fellow crew members, and body parts may be torn off during the mayhem. Substances feature directly in play — players can manufacture and take drugs such as stimulants and morphine, and alcohol can be consumed. The atmosphere leans into survival-horror, drawing on solitude, heavy blackness, monsters of the deep, and a parasitic sickness able to convert crewmates into creatures known as 'husks.' In traitor mode, one participant is covertly tasked with undermining or killing the others. Sessions happen online alongside strangers using unfiltered text and voice communication, and the title accepts Steam Workshop modifications. Nothing inside is sold for extra money.

How it's framed

Cooperative endurance and gradually mounting dread shape how the material is delivered: the team is charged with keeping each other going against the ocean depths and against equipment breakdowns, and the mechanics grant their payoff to bravery and collaboration. Bloodshed and narcotics function as pragmatic means of getting through rather than being made to look appealing, and the hidden-traitor role treats deception as a tension-driving element that the remaining participants are tasked with uncovering and halting.

Details

Developer
FakeFish
Publisher
Daedalic Entertainment
Released
Mar 13, 2023
Metacritic 81critic score (third-party) · out of 100

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