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The idea of a story focused single player game with asynchronous multiplayer is not an easy one to grasp. Which is why we recently sat down with Tides of Tomorrow game director Adrien Poncet so he could better explain more about how it all works.
"The core idea of the game is 'what will you leave behind?'," explains Poncet, adding that Tides of Tomorrow is "a narrative 'choices matter' kind of game, but where other players will have an influence on your adventure".
When you start, you pick a player who has already played the game and, when you play, you'll follow in their footsteps. You'll see all their actions - the things they did and the choices they made before you, and experience the lasting impact of it. Which is pretty incredible to experience.
The story focuses on a post-apocalyptic tale of pollution and the climate crisis. Something Poncet and his team at Digixart, the developer of Road 96, have coined "Plasticpunk". Instead of the usual dusty wasteland you'd expect, this is a more colourful, plasticky take on the idea. It's still bad - the world has flooded, pollution has destroyed everything, but the look of it all is defined by brightly coloured, non-biodegradable bottles, packaging and so on.
You arrive in this world dead. Sort of. Afflicted with a disease called Plastemia and fished out of the water by a friendly character called Nahe to become a 'Tidewalker'. It doesn't talk long to get an example of how asynchronous multiplayer affects this single player game, when Nahe explains she has one dose of a Plastemia cure - you can take it and get an easier start but, if you do, the next player to come along won't be able to get the same help...
Cleaning up other people's mess
It's a lot like playing a single-player game that someone else has already finished, leaving you to deal with the consequences of the choices they made. At the same time you also need to be aware of the repercussions of what you do for anyone coming after you. It's not always black and white, either, like the more obvious option of taking or leaving the medicine. Without spoiling anything, it's possible to do bad things that will actually help later players, or good things that make it worse.
You can get some idea of what to expect before you even start as you browse other Tidewalkers to follow with traits like 'Troublemaker' or 'Survivalist'. A Survivalist might take resources to help themselves survive, but make things harder for people coming after by leaving less for them. While a Troublemaker might steal, cause trouble and leave everyone on alert, creating a completely different experiences for anyone coming into that world. Characters in your game will remember what a previous player did before you arrived and react accordingly. So you might arrive at an island and everyone hates Tidewalkers because something the previous one did, leaving you with a new challenge to overcome or avoid.
As a 'Tidewalker', you're able to enter 'The Tides of Time' to see the actions of previous players, as well as emotes, how they died, or even how certain story events played out for them. So, as well as dealing with the fallout of what they did and the world they created, you're able to use this information to do everything from solving puzzles to gaining extra information about events and characters to inform your own choices. Your journey might be completely different as a result of other players' choices, or the information you can learn could completely change your view of characters, situations, who you help and more.
It's a fascinating idea, so watch the full video to see how it works, and get more insight into the thinking behind the concept from Poncet. Tides of Tomorrow is out now to buy on Steam, PS5 and Xbox Series X, and there's even a demo you can try out first.
