Barotrauma is one of my favorite games I have ever owned. It's a very ambitious project that feels undercooked in certain areas. However, the actual game itself is amazing.

You take the role of a job working on a submarine under the icy crust of the planet Europa. Europa is currently in the midst of a civil war between the autocratic regime known as the Coalition and a smaller group known as the Jovian Separatists that seek to separate themselves from the Coalition. Amidst this is also a natural disaster; radiation from Jupiter is pushing through the ice and pushing the people who live on Europa further and further from under the surface, deeper and deeper into the planet.

You can pick between a captain, engineer, mechanic, security guard, assistant, and medical officer. These professions are good in their specific areas, but this does not prevent said profession from doing what other professions are good at. Any job can do the role of any other job due to the skill system. A security guard will get excellent at medicine if that guard uses medicine often. I quite like this, as this means that even small crews on small submarines can be quite fun. You don't need a few of every role. But that said, everything gets better with teamwork.

Which is why I quite like this game; this game prioritizes communication and teamwork over basically anything else. And that is lovely.

And what can you do? All sorts of stuff from manning turrets, controlling the submarine, repairing broken hulls, repairing devices, leaving the submarine to explore caves, ruins, and wrecks, and also doing a lot of killing.

On top of what you can do in regular gameplay with a submarine, you can also build your own and this is where the game truly shines. You can build practically anything you want, however you want—it's up to you on how you want to play this game, whether that's a very overpowered submarine that makes the game easy or one that makes the game harder or even one that fits nicely with vanilla gameplay.

The game's developers are some of the best in the industry, genuinely. They have a system in place where any player can suggest a fix for the developers to use, and you can also discuss changes in their Discord server, and there's a good chance they will read it; a lot of developers are in that Discord channel chat quite often. The modding scene is quite interesting; I wouldn't recommend it on a first-time playthrough, but it is there to spice up future playthroughs, always. And that's a lot of fun.

Single-player exists, and it's pretty miserable; I would avoid it. However, this game goes on sale quite often (50%), and the price on sale is what you should get this game for. This game is good, but it is not worth 40 euros. But 20 is fine and should be manageable if you want to get your friends this game.

Barotrauma is one of my favorite games I have ever owned. It's a very ambitious project that feels undercooked in certain areas. However, the actual game itself is amazing. You take the role of a job working on a submarine under the icy crust of the planet Europa. Europa is currently in the midst of a civil war between the autocratic regime known as the Coalition and a smaller group known as the Jovian Separatists that seek to separate themselves from the Coalition. Amidst this is also a natural disaster; radiation from Jupiter is pushing through the ice and pushing the people who live on Europa further and further from under the surface, deeper and deeper into the planet. You can pick between a captain, engineer, mechanic, security guard, assistant, and medical officer. These professions are good in their specific areas, but this does not prevent said profession from doing what other professions are good at. Any job can do the role of any other job due to the skill system. A security guard will get excellent at medicine if that guard uses medicine often. I quite like this, as this means that even small crews on small submarines can be quite fun. You don't need a few of every role. But that said, everything gets better with teamwork. Which is why I quite like this game; this game prioritizes communication and teamwork over basically anything else. And that is lovely. And what can you do? All sorts of stuff from manning turrets, controlling the submarine, repairing broken hulls, repairing devices, leaving the submarine to explore caves, ruins, and wrecks, and also doing a lot of killing. On top of what you can do in regular gameplay with a submarine, you can also build your own and this is where the game truly shines. You can build practically anything you want, however you want—it's up to you on how you want to play this game, whether that's a very overpowered submarine that makes the game easy or one that makes the game harder or even one that fits nicely with vanilla gameplay. The game's developers are some of the best in the industry, genuinely. They have a system in place where any player can suggest a fix for the developers to use, and you can also discuss changes in their Discord server, and there's a good chance they will read it; a lot of developers are in that Discord channel chat quite often. The modding scene is quite interesting; I wouldn't recommend it on a first-time playthrough, but it is there to spice up future playthroughs, always. And that's a lot of fun. Single-player exists, and it's pretty miserable; I would avoid it. However, this game goes on sale quite often (50%), and the price on sale is what you should get this game for. This game is good, but it is not worth 40 euros. But 20 is fine and should be manageable if you want to get your friends this game.