This comes down to the feelings of grief she is experiencing due to the loss of connection to her grandmother. Though 16 year old me missed out on the opportunity to see how creative science can be, hopefully Beyond Blue will entice young people to see science as a field brimming with opportunities for creativity and exploration.Įven though Mirai is a strong, female protagonist with an amazing job, she is also someone who is relatable. I would have liked for the narrative to dive a little deeper into this, as a lot was left unanswered. I looked forward to time spent in the sub so that I could continue these conversations with Ren and slowly piecing together their relationship. You can hear the frustration in Ren’s voice when Mirai brings up school and I had a feeling Ren was walking in the shadow of her big sister’s footsteps. These conversations with Ren are tense and hint at old scars. She was also a diver and stoked Mirai’s passion for diving and the ocean. Their grandmother is important to both Mirai and Ren as she raised them after the death of their parents. You can also talk to Mirai’s sister, Ren, who is caring for their grandmother who is suffering from Alzheimer’s. These interactions, like the conversations during the dives, were intriguing as they showed the different emotional reactions each character had about the information garnered from the dive. From here you are prompted to call André and Irina to discuss discoveries post dive. In-between dives Mirai spends her time in her submarine. They also hold further insight into who these other scientists are and where their passion for the ocean lies. Their conversations with Mirai are bubbly and break up some of the monotony of your dive. Whilst you are on your dive, André and Irina have a watchful eye on you via a live stream feed. Sharks, turtles and octopus, among many others, are all there for you to scan and swim with. I can also see her being amazed by the gigantic and colourful creatures that traverse around you. I can see my five year old niece easily getting a hang of scanning and floating around the ocean. The gameplay is super easy, which has obviously been a decision made by E-Line so that younger players won’t have an issue. Once she has picked up the sound, markers are set and you swim up to these and scan the creatures to expand on the research of your team. Mirai’s job is to find the buoys placed in the ocean and track the sounds of sea creatures around her. Irina is more focused on what the miracles of the ocean can do in regards to advancing medicine to help mankind. André wears his heart on his sleeve, is extremely passionate about turtles and and conserving the ocean. Along for the ride are André and Irina, two scientists who don’t really see eye-to-eye. You play as deep-diver and scientist Mirai, a young woman who is passionate about her job but also has a lot of issues on the home front. The game includes footage from and was inspired by the documentary series. The setting is made even more spectacular due to E-Line’s collaboration with BBC’s Blue Planet II. Now E-Line have swapped the freezing snow for the freezing deeps of the ocean. Set in North Alaska, it is all about exploring the landscape and restoring balance to nature. Never Alone was also the first video game to tell the story from an Indigenous person’s perspective. They published Never Alone in 2014 a game that was developed by Upper One Games, the first indigenous-owned game developer/publisher in the US. E-Line Media, the publisher and developer of Beyond Blue, have a history of making creative games based on exploration. Education and learning new things should not be boring. The main reason why this game was successful for me is that it follows a mantra I have as a teacher. If I’d played this back when I was 16, science would have been much more appealing.
Therefore, it may surprise you, as it did me, that Beyond Blue is now my favourite of all the games I’ve reviewed this year for Checkpoint. Also, I mainly play RPGs or looter shooters, not slow paced narrative adventures. Me, an artsy book worm, didn’t love the whole practical element of science classes.
I literally nearly failed science in high school.
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