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Dry Drowning Keeping Above Water Until The Q1 2021 Release Date

Jeitaro

Jeitaro

— 2 min read
Dry Drowning Keeping Above Water Until The Q1 2021 Release Date
Source: Steam

It’s such a treat to see such variety on the Switch. It’s no longer the platform to dump mobile games or pixel art titles without substance, but an opportunity to reach new audiences such as detective-like titles such as Dry Drowning.

Already released on Steam, developer Studio V and VLG Publishing (Twitter) (behind the brilliant Willy Morgan and the Curse of Bone Town), Dry Drowning will come to the Switch in Q! 2021 with an overhauled English localisation version and improved UI.

As P.I. Mordred Foley, you track down a serial killer set in a dystopian future. I’m not a fan of visual novels; the root cause is usually poor writing, character development and sometimes interactivity. However, in this game, the subject matter takes a mature approach with ‘racism, immigration, political extremism, and sexism and plays out in a multi-branching story made up of 150 different threads’. 

Dry Drowning - Dialogue
Enter the dialogue. Source: Steam

This is very appealing, if done correctly, and the noir-like setting works in its favour too, having a hint of Blade Runner, which is a good thing, naturally. But it’s the fact that your actions mean something which is the biggest lure, depicting multiple endings.

With over 150 narrative threads and three completely unique endings to unlock, players will find themselves glued to their screens longer than any show they’ve streamed in recent memory.

Daniele Falcone, General Manager at Leonardo Interactive

Key features in Dry Drowning include:

  • Choices that really matter: More than 150 story branches and three completely different endings.
  • Moral choices that impact character relationships and the game environment across a potential 20 hours of gameplay.
  • Elaborate clue system for investigations: Learn about the city of Nova Polemos and its citizens through dialogue, evidence, items, and character biographies.
  • Horror style interrogations: Use evidence to reconstruct cases, break people’s masks of deception, and uncover the truth with Dry Drowning’s “Living Nightmare” system.
  • Explore flashbacks and past cases to solve new ones.
  • Dynamic soundtrack with more than 40 dramatic and emotional tracks.
  • A balanced mix of Western and Eastern visual arts, casting light on a grim futuristic setting where cyberpunk and retro elements harmoniously coexist.

Sound good? Here’s a trailer:

Dry Drowning is available on Steam, GOG, and itch.io now, including a playable demo. As for the Nintendo Switch version, you can expect to see that in Q1 2021.

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