Looking to join the list of unique immersive survival horror games, Dark Mass is an upcoming title developed by the Spanish-based studio Path Games. Dark Mass invites players to a fully underwater first-person eerie adventure. Fans will play from the perspective of Alice, a deep-sea explorer who finds a sunken manor where a stalking dark presence lurks.
In Dark Mass, players will have to solve disturbing puzzles based on historical torture methods while struggling to deal with enemies, darkness, and moral decisions that will affect Alice’s fate. Because the story of Dark Mass is almost entirely sub-aquatic, the development team at Path Studio had to carefully approach fears like thalassophobia, which is the fear of drowning in deep waters, and claustrophobia. The Best War Games recently spoke with Path Games co-founders and Dark Mass developers Virginia Calvo and Gonzalo G. Luna about what it meant for the team to create a sinister underwater world.
How Path Games Pushed the Boundaries of Deep Sea Phobias in Dark Mass
According to Calvo and Luna, most immersive horror games work in a horizontal plane with X and Z axes. But the team behind Dark Mass opted for a different route to enhance feelings of claustrophobia and used vertical exploration. As the developers explained,
“By introducing verticality, we pushed claustrophobia to a new level. The world isn’t just wide — it’s deep, filled with narrow passages and vertical spaces that heighten the tension.”
Another important theme in Dark Mass is thalassophobia. Calvo and Luna share that “90% of the game takes place underwater,” so they admit that players may have to step into the game with their fear of drowning somewhat tamed. However, the developers detail that Dark Mass seeks to balance eeriness without giving a frustrating experience.
For example, one of Dark Mass’ major gameplay elements is the walkie-talkie system. While exploring, Alice will communicate with her brother Reed, who can advise Alice with puzzles and decision-making. However, Calvo and Luna add that the walkie-talkie not only enhances immersion but also works as a tension-breaker that can alleviate the feeling of being isolated underwater.
The Challenges Behind Dark Mass’ Submarine World
To take the submerged experience further, the development team had to address underwater physics, and Calvo and Luna reveal that this was quite a time-consuming challenge. Still, the team paid close attention to how each object would behave so that players would feel that Dark Mass’ world had “consistent, believable rules.” As the developers explain, horror hits harder with realism present to a certain degree. Handling realistic underwater lighting posed its own difficulties as well, since light behaves very differently under the sea:
“The deeper you go, the less light penetrates, and colors begin to fade into shades of blue and green. This creates a unique challenge when it comes to guiding the player, especially since we can’t rely on vibrant visual cues. But we’ve found workarounds using tools like the walkie-talkie and other techniques to ensure players never feel completely lost.”
Like in most horror games, sound will play a crucial role in Dark Mass’ surrounding gameplay. Calvo and Luna share that they designed different audio layers for each environment to accompany both intense scenes and moments of calm.
When it comes to other immersive gameplay features, Dark Mass’ decision system will lead to multiple endings. However, unlike other decision-based horror games, the developers reveal that “not all decisions are text-based” in Dark Mass. Instead, some decisions will relate to how much players have explored the manor or whether they have discovered certain items or not. On the other hand, Calvo and Luna add that replayability isn’t really a main goal for the team as much as it is that players can fully relate to their first playthrough.
Dark Mass’ first trailer showed a particular corpse-like enemy inside the eerie manor. Calvo and Luna reveal that players can look forward to even more creatures in future trailers, as well as more interactive gameplay elements.
Dark Mass is in development for PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S, with a release window planned for fall 2026.