After the prolonged and acutely painful development woes that befell Thatgamecompany's Journey, it's not at all surprising that the game's art director - Matt Nava - chose to jump ship and start his own Giant Squid company - with initial set up costs provided by London based movie studio Ink Factory, before 505 Games stepped in to offer publishing support on the Santa Monica studio's first in-house developed title. In this context, and whilst Abzu parlays Matt Nava's previous industry lineage and development experience with Journey to become a springboard for the ambitious creative director to build "experimental, narrative and meaningful games", it's unfortunate that Abzu truncates these expectations by failing to find its own identity, instead opting to double down on the ex-Thatgamecompany staff's professional legacy in order to become "Journey underwater".
That's not necessarily a bad thing, as those who enjoyed Journey will find much to appreciate in Giant Squid's deep sea diving effort, as Matt Nava's previous experience on the sand duned masterpiece certainly pays off. But for anyone else, Abzu's rigid adherence to a template that was successfully forged and laid down by Journey, even though it's iterative in execution, act...