What happens when you mash together a hoverboard, a magic sword, and the artistic DNA of Journey and Abzû? You get Sword of the Sea, Giant Squid’s latest work of interactive poetry. This is a game where dunes roll like ocean swells, where you carve across dead landscapes and breathe them back to life, and where every jump, every trick, feels like writing your own stanza in a living poem.
It’s not flawless. It doesn’t always hit the emotional high notes of its predecessors. But when it works, and most of the time, it absolutely does, it’s breathtaking. Let’s dive in.
Flow State
No tutorials. No hand-holding. Just you, a sword that doubles as a hoverboard, and the open horizon. Sword of the Sea doesn’t bother with warm-ups. It just trusts you to play. Within seconds, you’re carving through dunes, chaining spins, and realizing: oh wow, this feels incredible.
And it does. The analog sticks translate movement into pure flow, each carve and jump carrying weight and rhythm. Tricks don’t unlock bonuses, but that’s not the point. They’re joy for joy’s sake. Ramps, rails, half-pipes of sand and snow, it’s like the world itself is begging you to shred across it. Even my spouse, who almost never touches a controller, picked it up and was flying across dunes within minutes. That’s how natural it feels.
Occasionally, Giant Squid toys with arcade-style “Trick Attack” arenas. They’re fine; they’re a bit out of place tonally, but harmless. The real magic is in the biomes themselves: arid deserts, frozen wastes, sunlit seas, each one a stage where you restore water and life. Fail a jump? The game barely scolds you. It pops you right back where you left off, no punishment, no stress. This is exploration as meditation, and it works.
Art in Motion
If Journey was the game I pointed to when someone said, “Games are not art,” then Sword of the Sea is my new rebuttal. The landscapes are staggering. One moment you’re grinding across a whale’s fossilized spine, the next you’re flooding a dead oasis, watching life bloom in real time: fish darting, plants unfurling, water rushing in like rebirth itself. Surreal. Haunting. Beautiful.
It’s almost unfair how good this game looks. Sand ripples like silk. Snow catches light like crystals. Bioluminescent waters glow under your board. Every frame could be a painting, and Giant Squid knows it. They gave us a photo mode, and I used it constantly. This isn’t just art direction; it’s art direction flexing.
Sounds of the Sea
Austin Wintory returns to score the adventure, and his fingerprints are everywhere. The soundtrack shifts from serene piano to soaring choral movements, crescendoing perfectly with major discoveries or narrative beats. What impressed me most was its restraint: the music swells when it should, vanishes when silence carries more weight, and punctuates secret discoveries with subtle motifs that feel like echoes of a lost world asking to be remembered.
Sound design complements the score with tactile detail. The crunch of sand beneath your blade, the rush of water, the cries of dolphins, together, they make surfing across these landscapes feel alive. If Abzû was Wintory’s hymn to the sea, Sword of the Sea is his anthem to freedom.
Sand Stumbling
Not everything is perfect. Platforming sections sometimes kill the flow, forcing clunky climbs that feel at odds with the freedom of surfing. A couple of audio transitions cut awkwardly, like a symphony skipping a note. And, while the story is told more directly than Journey or Abzû, that clarity comes at a cost. It leaves less space for players to project their own meaning. For me, that robbed some of the magic.
The biggest issue for me is that the emotional core doesn’t always land. There are moments of grandeur, yes, but I never felt that gut punch those earlier games delivered. Sword of the Sea is ambitious, and I respect the swings, but not every risk connects.
Final Thoughts
Sword of the Sea is a short game. You can finish it in six hours, eight or more if you chase every collectible. But in this case, I wanted more. And that’s saying something.
Maybe that urgency comes from knowing how close Giant Squid came to not surviving. Creative Director Matt Nava has been candid: without PlayStation Indies support, this game might not exist at all. That makes it feel precious. An experience rescued from the brink, polished into something worth cherishing.
When it’s flowing, Sword of the Sea is unlike anything else this year. It’s part skate park, part dreamscape, part living painting. It stumbles, sure, but when you’re carving down a dune at sunset, music swelling, life blooming in your wake, chances are you won’t care. You’ll just smile.
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