PlayStation 5 Critic Reviews

Highwater is definitely one for fans of Demagog Studio's other work, presenting yet another distinct gameplay experience set in the shared world. It's also a great little game in its own right with fun turn-based strategy encounters and charming characters.

I would recommend that you buy Highwater for the soundtrack alone if anything else. The moments I got to sail around and just listen and take in what was happening around me were fabulous. If you can get past the very sobering fact that we are currently dealing with a climate crisis in real-time, I would give this one a try.

Highwater is an effective and essential video game, well written and with a confident plot and a context capable of hitting the mark. It is a prequel that manages to fit uniquely into the experiences of the past, with the team having embraced a turn-based combat system that is excellently implemented but not so deep. It is a dynamic adventure that bases its total focus on narrative.

Highwater is a well-made turn-based battler set in the same scenario as Demagog’s other games Golf Club: Wasteland and The Cub. Sadly, it’s a bit short and it could do with collectible tracking. We really enjoyed ourselves despite that.

Highwater from developer Demagog Studio is a powerful and cautionary tale of environmental damage and how people have to survive it when the world collapses. The game hits all the right notes with the story it wants to tell, while not letting the turn-based backbone and strategy steal the story’s spotlight.

There are moments of beauty in Highwater, most of it instigated by environmental design – I loved coming across surprises and marvelling at how even after catastrophe, human beings continue to do their thing. But unfortunately, as much as I love the game’s aesthetics and very competent turn-based combat, it doesn’t have all that much to say about its complex themes, and finishing it felt like a relief.

Highwater could be the dictionary example of an indie game: it is based on a trending topic with social implications, it marches to its own tune without trying to fit into one specific genre, it has a distinctive visual and musical style that build a great atmosphere, and the developers cannot be bothered to fix the bugs they left in the game. It is an artistic production and a social statement that would badly need some polishing and fixing to be a completely enjoyable video game. By smoothing down the edges it can become the atmospheric trip the developers imagined, and the magic wouldn’t be broken by the hiccups.

Highwater understands its limitations. It’s not a game that tries to do too much and fails. Some aspects work well, like the world-building, premise, and combat. But I wanted to be told less, and discover more. Given a bigger budget and less restrictive, more open-ended gameplay, Highwater could be a standout in a crowded field. Highwater has good intentions, but it needs a team of writers who understand character and dialogue a little better, and that showing is better than telling.

Highwater tells a fairly interesting story about a planet on the brink and offers solid, if simple, tactical gameplay, which I mostly enjoyed. Add in a great art style and a winning soundtrack, and there’s a lot to interest fans of the strategy genre. The rest of the world around all of this largely lets the game down but the players Highwater grabs will get lost in the beautiful tragedy of it all.

Highwater is an adventure with a heavy focus on its narrative, and a turn-based combat system that presents its battles as puzzles. It is a modest but correct game in its technical aspects and the music is frankly spectacular, but each of its goals runs out of steam halfway.