The best way to experience Endless ocean shining is just swimming. A continuation of a series of diving games on the Wii, Bright has a story to play through and goals to achieve. But they’re pretty banal. Instead, the game is at its most interesting – and relaxing – when you abandon certain objectives and simply explore for the sake of exploring.
What does Bright What’s so relaxing, at least when doing a solo dive, is that the end is completely open and there are no obstacles. You’ll have the opportunity to explore a huge swath of what’s called the Veiled Sea (the game creates a new map with every dive), and you won’t have to worry about monitoring your oxygen, getting too cold, or encountering a dangerous shark . There is no way to die or even get stuck.
This may be frustrating for people looking for a challenge, but I found it liberating. This allowed me to explore at my own pace without any pressure. And there are a lot of things to find in the game. Bright There are nearly 600 sea creatures to find and scan here, from schools of tuna to spiny starfish to battle-hardened sharks. There are even some prehistoric animals to discover. (Note: This isn’t a particularly realistic game, although you can learn a few quick facts for each creature you scan.) Added to this are strange artifacts and ruins that add a touch of mystery to the world.
From the few dives I’ve explored, the maps also seem to be quite varied. The first one I experienced was extremely diverse, with coral reefs at one end, ice floes at the other, and sunken shipwrecks in the middle. The next one I tried was much more claustrophobic, dominated by a winding cave system in the middle filled with crumbling structures. And while the graphics aren’t particularly impressive – this is Switch, after all, so you can expect blurry textures and jagged edges – the environments are still beautiful in their own way. And they do their job well enough to make certain moments seem surprising; It is particularly pleasant to be surprised by a group of dolphins or to watch a huge whale in the distance slowly swimming towards you.
Now Bright attempts to incorporate some more traditional gameplay elements. There’s a story mode with short, uninteresting missions to play through, as well as mysterious artifacts to uncover that reveal cryptic details about the sea. But I didn’t find either of these to be as engaging as completely searching through a map or trying to find every single living thing.
The downside of BrightThe simple gameplay is that there isn’t much to do other than the thrill of discovery. Most of the time you swim, scan and take pictures. This helped me get into a zen state and just record the underwater scenes, but it’s very likely that some will just find it boring. Your mileage may vary. (The game also includes online play for up to 30 divers, which has potential for a relaxed hangout, but I wasn’t able to test it much before release.)
I caught myself playing Bright in short sessions. Maybe 30 minutes at a time, I’ll dive into a new area, turn off the interface to delve even deeper, and just go and see what I can find. No goals, no rules, just me and a calm water world. In an age of time-consuming live service games and open worlds full of checklists, it’s nice to kick back with something so peaceful and leisurely.
Endless ocean shining will be released on May 2nd on the Nintendo Switch.