Barotrauma is one of those games that has a very unique feel to it. It invokes a feeling of constant tension as you walk around the sub or look at the sonar, waiting for whatever lives in those depths to come and try to destroy your vessel. Along with traitors that have missions that handicap the effectiveness of a crew and with how many things can go wrong on the ship, you can expect pure chaos to come to the ship eventually. This is the main difficulty of the game, keeping chaos to a minimal while maintaining a ship and completing the mission at hand. Now with the introduction done, I'll move on to the setting of the game and the role you play in it.

The Story and your Role: The game takes place on Jupiter's Moon Europa in the future. Humanity has fled Earth and decided to Colonize under the Moon's ice, using the resources deep below to survive. However, they discover that not only does the moon have life, but that the ecosystem is very alive and very deadly, with creatures ranging from semi-aquatic raptors to a parasite that takes over the human body. It is your job to work with the crew you have joined to pilot a sub through the depths and complete missions to keep humanity surviving on this moon. However, you are only a single role on the ship with a specific job which makes teamwork vital to survive and complete your tasks. These roles are electrical Engineer. Mechanic, Doctor, Captain, and Security guard. While you don't need all roles filled, it is vital people do all the maintenance and pick up the slack of missing roles. This includes keeping tabs on electrical devices working, ship armaments stay loaded, fixing leaks, and many more. All this paired with the fact you will be attacked by vicious wildlife, potential crew mutiny, and you have a mission that needs to be completed shows that any slight slip up can lead to the sub getting stuck at the bottom of the sea.

Why do I like this game: First, the artwork is very well done with everything looking rough and realistic. The creatures themselves look like monsters, yet also like living creatures in an alien world that we have no comprehension of what evolution was like for them to get this way. The second thing I really like is how the game plays out during playtime. The steady descent of the sub as you walk around and check if everything is working right keeps you on your toes when disaster will finally strike. During the chaos, it becomes tense with hallways flooding, people screaming, and the sounds of horrid monsters trying to break in and eviscerate any living human in the sub. alarms blare and it seems hope is lost til the guns stop firing. The captain gives the all clear and tells the crew to focus on any repairs that were missed during the attack. Then you continue on, with nothing but ice in your veins as you're glad you survived another attack, with the only sound in your ears the sonar beeping. Which brings me to my next point, this game is cooperatively satisfying. Working with friends and people in this game is fantastic. It leaves a feeling of great satisfaction when you complete a mission or survive an attack with a crew of other people or friends. It's also nice to see how people interact on the sub with some playing around with instruments or just kinda chatting with others to pass time til they need to do something. Gives a sense of how casual things are until the sub gains three new holes and a person overloads the reactor. However, I must now talk about some problems with the game.

What are some problems: First I must say is random servers on the game can be very hit or miss. Sometimes you find a server with a great crew with only a little tomfoolery. Other times you'll find one where two people blow themselves up and the captain then commits mass genocide of the crew. It can be very frustrating when you're trying to do a serious game then this happens. Also sometimes you might find those people who do nothing but scream orders or just kill you constantly cause you did a little thing wrong. The other problem I have is that it's no secret that there isn't a lot of content at this time. However, they do have a pretty good update schedule and not only bring in new stuff, but old stuff from when it was legacy all touched up and made for the new version of the game. So with time there'll definitely be more content ( In which case, I'll update this review to reflect the game in full)

Conclusion: This game is something that you never really see in today besides Pulsar Lost Colony and Space Station 13. Yet this one balances everything greatly with nothing being too complex and nothing being pointless either. Everything has it's own role and everyone has their own job, which if done properly can make an amazing crew to fight against the horrors of Europa. The chilling dread of something coming to kill you makes everything so tense along with the eerie ambiance and tight corridors of the sub. Yet it's worth it all to feel the satisfaction of fighting off the terror of the depths and the intense action you feel during such events. The crazy scenarios in ways that you got to the bottom of the ocean or barely survived also give such a thrill to the game and I will never forget all the events I've seen happen in this game. It's honestly one of my favorite cooperative games to play with friends due to all the laughter, horror, and cheers that happen during and after a mission. If you have a few friends that are looking for a cooperative game to play or a game in where you don't mind facing some chaos on random servers, then I fully recommend this game. (I must point out that there is a single player side of the game, however I did not go into this due to this review being more into the multiplayer side of things since that is the major part of the game.)

All in all, I give this game a 9/10