Sword of the Sea

A hoversword across an ocean of sand

Sword of the Sea's premise is simple and immediately legible without a single line of dialogue: a resurrected Wraith rides a hoversword — equal parts skateboard, snowboard and surfboard — across shifting deserts and glacial mountains, gradually transforming the arid landscape back into glistening water as an ancient, buried sea returns to the world. That wordless approach to storytelling is exactly the register Matt Nava and Giant Squid built their reputation on with Journey and ABZÛ, and reviewers overwhelmingly say this entry earns its place alongside those predecessors — the movement itself draws the strongest praise in the entire corpus, with reviewers describing pulling off flips, grabs and wall-rides across dunes and halfpipe-like ruins as both exhilarating and, paradoxically, meditative depending on how fast you choose to move.

A performance problem too widespread to ignore

Set against that acclaim is a technical story too consistent to treat as isolated hardware trouble. An unusually large share of the review corpus — appearing in both explicitly negative reviews and inside otherwise glowing positive ones — reports serious frame-pacing and stability problems, with multiple reviewers specifically naming capable, modern GPUs like the RTX 3080 as insufficient for a smooth experience regardless of graphics settings chosen. That's a genuinely damaging problem for this specific game in a way it might not be for others: the entire appeal of Sword of the Sea rests on fluid, flow-state momentum, and reviewers are explicit that choppy playback undermines exactly that feeling. Several reviewers go further than simply complaining — they explicitly recommend other prospective buyers wait for a patch before purchasing, a specific, actionable piece of advice that recurs independently across many different accounts rather than coming from one unusually affected player. Steam Deck owners report the problem is especially pronounced on handheld hardware, a disappointing result for a game whose meditative pacing would otherwise suit portable play well.

Short, and not cheap

A second, smaller complaint concerns length relative to price. Multiple reviewers report finishing the entire game in under three hours — one clocks in precisely at 2 hours 47 minutes — and argue that a NZ$43.59 asking price is difficult to justify for an experience that short, regardless of its quality. This isn't a universal complaint; several reviewers who took their time exploring each environment describe feeling satisfied with the length for what the game is trying to achieve. But it's raised often enough, including by reviewers who otherwise rate the game highly, to be a real factor in the value calculation rather than a minority nitpick.

A smaller, more specific critique comes from longtime fans of the studio's earlier catalogue: a detailed minority argues Sword of the Sea plays it safer than Journey, ABZÛ or The Pathless, one reviewer specifically describing the design choices as "Easy Mode" relative to what came before. That's a harder claim for a broader audience to evaluate without direct familiarity with those earlier games, but it's worth noting as a specific, informed critique rather than generic disappointment.

Standing alongside Journey and ABZÛ

The comparisons reviewers reach for aren't casual name-dropping — they're specific and considered. One reviewer frames an annual craving for exactly this kind of game, naming last year's Jusant as the prior entry in a personal tradition before crediting Sword of the Sea as this year's answer: "no cutscenes, no dialogue," just gliding through non-verbal storytelling "like it's a beautiful dream you don't want to wake up from." Another draws a more topical parallel to Flow, the acclaimed 2025 animated film about animals surviving a rising flood without a word of dialogue between them, suggesting Sword of the Sea is tapping into a wider cultural moment for wordless, atmosphere-first storytelling rather than working in isolation. That kind of cross-medium comparison is a meaningfully stronger endorsement than simple genre praise — reviewers are placing this game alongside work they consider among the best non-verbal storytelling of the year, not just the best in its own niche.

The restoration theme itself — transforming a barren, sand-buried world back into glistening water as you progress — gives the wordless narrative a clear emotional throughline even without any explicit text, and reviewers consistently describe understanding the story's shape and stakes purely through the changing environment around them. That's a difficult trick to pull off well, and it's the clearest throughline connecting this entry to Journey and ABZÛ's own reputations for environmental storytelling done right.

The verdict

Sword of the Sea delivers exactly the kind of wordless, painterly, movement-driven experience Giant Squid's reputation promises, and the praise for its art, music and hoversword feel is both broad and specific enough to trust. What keeps this review from a stronger recommendation is a performance problem too widespread, too consistently reported by hardware that should easily handle a stylised, non-photorealistic game like this, to treat as an edge case — and a short runtime that a meaningful share of buyers feel doesn't match the asking price. The most honest advice this review can offer, echoing many of the game's own admirers: wait for the technical issues to be patched, then experience what by most accounts is a genuinely worthwhile few hours in Giant Squid's most visually ambitious world yet — one that a growing number of reviewers are already placing alongside the year's best wordless storytelling, technical hiccups and all — provided the studio gets those hiccups sorted before too much of that goodwill erodes.