Playback – Hydrophobia: Prophecy

thesixthaxis.com:

Some of you may not remember it, but back in 2010, Hydrophobia was a pretty big deal. Not because it was a well lauded and much loved game, but because it wasn’t. In fact, the original release of Hydrophobia was met with so much negativity that the developers Dark Energy Digital reworked it, changed a voice actor, overhauled levels, and added a final boss. This new package was released in 2011 as Hyrdophobia Prophecy. It was supposed to be the start of a trilogy, but the difficulties the game faced saw Dark Energy Digital go out of business, leaving us with just the first part of this story.

The other reason that Hydrophobia Prophecy was a big story at the time was its water tech, which was the basis of the game’s HydroEngine. This engine allowed water to flow and move just like it does in reality, which really helped the game stand out for at the time. Water is almost ever present throughout Hydrophobia Prophecy, set on the giant city ship The Queen of the World as it comes under attack by the terrorist group the Neo-Malthusians. The world is in an overpopulation crisis, so this group wants to kill off the majority of the human population so the survivors – themselves, of course – can flourish.

Kate Wilson is merely an engineer aboard the ship, but she has to fight back against the Neo-Malthusians in order to save it, the people, and the research being carried out on it. She is joined by Scoot, her manager who is no more than a guiding voice. In the original Hyrdophobia, Scoot had a Scottish accent, but this voice was one of the complaints players of the original release had, so in Prophecy his voice was replaced by a more neutral North American accent. His role is to help guide Kate through the ship, though plenty of waypoints make that easy, as well as to make the occasional quip when Kate kills a Neo-Malthusian.

For a game that’s two generations old, there are still elements of Hydrophobia: Prophecy that feel fresh. The most obvious is how water moves through