Do you do not forget that part-catchy, part-obnoxious “Make it Loud” trailer that aired through the Summer season Sport Fest important stage present? That was for NetEase’s upcoming free-to-play seafaring journey RPG sport Sea of Remnants. Actually, many of the sport’s trailers since its announcement in 2025 have been like this, normally that includes an upbeat vocal monitor backing fast cutscene and vista clips, with possibly just a little gameplay.
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Primarily based on what NetEase has stated about it prior to now, I’ve a normal concept of what the sport is meant to be. It’s an “ocean-fantasy open-world RPG”. In response to a press launch, “the sport’s core expertise is constructed round a compelling ‘Set Sail—Discover—Extract—Return’ loop, leveraging mechanics with rogue components to create a dynamic open world.” That appears to make sense on paper so far as what a gameplay loop would possibly appear to be. Head out on expeditions, return to house base, progress within the sport’s presumably quite a few development techniques, put together, and set out once more.
NetEase additionally says, “Gamers will probably be immersed in weird and wondrous nautical discoveries, witnessing the world’s transformation via themes of oblivion and reconstruction, and fascinating in a compelling pursuit of the world’s underlying fact.” That one I am much less sure about its which means.
In any case, a demo of Sea of Remnants was accessible to play at this 12 months’s Summer season Sport Fest Play Days. Having principally solely seen music video trailers and a few press launch phrases in my inbox, I used to be curious to see what the sport itself truly performed like. How did the demo introduce its world, characters, and gameplay techniques?
The demo began with a gradual, somber part the place I moved a small rowboat to a lightweight within the far distance. This was instantly adopted up with a dramatic naval encounter the place I managed a big galleon ship towards a kraken-like creature, adorned with crimson lighting, thunderstorms, and a high-energy soundtrack. I do not totally perceive how we moved from scene 1 to scene 2, however I rolled with it. To be sincere, whereas I used to be ostensibly in command of the ship, I do not know if my actions throughout this sequence mattered in any respect, or if it was all scripted.
After this, the anonymous important character awakened in a scientist’s lab. He is unsure how he obtained there, and I wasn’t certain both. Right here I left and entered the port city of Orbtopia, which is presumably the sport’s important hub. Undecided what I used to be presupposed to do, I wandered a bit, chased a hen for some motive, and entered an area bar. There was undoubtedly a whirlwind tempo to the demo’s opening sections, and I felt like I used to be getting tugged in a number of instructions earlier than I used to be in a position to plant my ft wherever.
All through all of this, by the way in which, the sport’s voiced dialogue (in English) continuously didn’t match the subtitles. It wasn’t simply small phrase variations both between subtitle and voiced scripts; generally the subject was totally different completely. Lots of the numerous menus additionally featured unkempt formatting and semi-translated English textual content that made it troublesome to parse at occasions. I perceive this was a non-final construct of the sport, and I’d assume these kinds of elements could be polished up earlier than launch, but it surely definitely did not assist in leaving a constructive impression on the demo.
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The demo’s most gratifying second got here on the bar from the introduction of R.S., an brisk girl pirate obsessive about treasure. It looks like she’s going to act as a form of mascot to the sport, as your character is in any other case player-created, and she or he’s even featured on the sport’s retailer web page artwork. In any case, she’s inflicting mischief at an area bar, full with cartoony hijinks. Her introduction trailer provides a great illustration of what you may anticipate from her.
It was in her introduction that I believe Sea of Remnants’ type actually got here into focus, with its wooden-puppet characters and slapstick comedy, whereas comic-book-like prospers and onomatopoeia dotted the display screen at occasions (Bang, Woosh, and all that). Your character barely speaks, however don’t fret, R.S. greater than makes up for it.
It was right here that I lastly obtained to see the sport’s turn-based battle system, or at the least a really fast glimpse of it. Moreover the standard standard-fare turn-based mechanics, there gave the impression to be a system considerably just like Octopath Traveler‘s “Increase” system, the place a useful resource may very well be spent to energy up assaults through the current flip. There’s additionally some form of dice-roll mechanic the place, for those who roll the suitable quantity throughout an motion, you may get some form of ‘fortunate’ reward, corresponding to a bonus assault motion. All of this was dressed with flashy, comic-book-like animations.
After escaping from the bar with R.S., extra hijinks ensue, and earlier than I spotted what we had been doing, we grabbed a ship and headed to her hideout. It was right here that I used to be launched to a flurry of mechanics in fast succession. There was the sport’s turn-based fight, in fact. There was boat crusing, loot grabbing and transportation, character recruitment (which options one thing akin to a gacha system, though I wasn’t in a position to dive deeper into this). There may be ship-building, crew favor, and homestead creation. There are a ton of minigames, at the least mahjong, consuming, roulette, racing, fishing, and cooking. I noticed a menu that cataloged the sport’s lots of of collectible objects, together with Encounters, Insights, Oddities, and Upkeep – no matter these are.
After 90 minutes with the demo, by far the longest at Summer season Sport Fest, I felt like the sport was nonetheless throwing new techniques at me, all whereas chaotically leaping from one part to the following, full with partially translated textual content and menus. The sport, or at the least the demo model that I performed, by no means took a breath nor discovered its footing.
I got here into the Summer season Sport Fest demo hoping to get a greater really feel for what Sea of Remnants truly is, however I am not sure I used to be in a position to obtain that even after greater than an hour on the demo station.
It’s extremely attainable that this sport simply does not demo effectively. Or maybe the demo was simply poorly constructed in selecting the best way to symbolize a fancy sport in a brief slice. If I used to be in a position to spend extra time with it, possibly the density and number of techniques would begin to coalesce into an intricate and cohesive sport. In the end, I am within the concept of Sea of Remnants, and I am keen on its distinctive, comic-booky wooden-puppet artwork course. We’ll see how the sport takes form when it launches later this 12 months for PlayStation 5, Xbox Sequence X|S, and PC (Steam).