I’m not often drawn to the city builders, i.e. the virtual ones. Not because I don’t want to! Most of the time I just don’t have the time. But every once in a while I watch a game because it has something that makes me curious. And in this case, that’s the seabed where you settle in Aquatico. That’s where humanity ends up when the earth’s surface is uninhabitable after an asteroid impact.
So you start with a few credits as StartWASWASWAS, creating industry and living space and researching new buildings. After all, the underwater metropolis is supposed to grow – not only in width, but also in height. Because that’s what I think is so cool here: If you place current power plants, oxygen production, concrete factories, resource procurement and other industry directly on the ground, you build domes for your population, which are enthroned on high stilts maybe 50 meters above the sea floor.
I just fell in love with this dreamy romance. At least it looks very chic when looking down on the domes from above, while the lights of active buildings and busy drones glimmer in the distance below. This view is most beautiful when you build in a deep-sea scenario, where the sun has barely reached it yet, but the outlines of the waves still waft in a network of luminous threads on the seabed, only to get lost among imaginatively glittering plants.
And there are actually only 13 ready-made scenarios, but basically they are all an open game without a specific goal. Aquatico is a manageable title both in terms of scope and depth of play and does not require voice output or even narrative elements. There are only occasional events where you have to make a decision: do you want to give the base (christened New Atlantis) a few drones and batteries, or do you need them yourself right now?
Basically, the loop of researching and building new facilities and simultaneously securing the resources necessary for the maintenance of all buildings and residents is correct. You search for survivors to increase your population, build defenses against sharks and other threats, send a submarine to distress signals or potential storage locations for valuable materials, and improve the efficiency of all production facilities – unfortunately this is not reflected in their appearance and beyond Stretching is more of a necessary click evil than an interesting urban development decision anyway. At the very least, you have to make sure that there are always enough drones or staff, depending on the type of building. Otherwise, you should sometimes assign the workers manually.
Apart from that, the research is carried out in a very straightforward way, so that the settlements are ultimately all the same. Activate a very limited set of political doctrines to levy taxes or reduce fees for buying and selling selected products. However, there is no strong individualization, especially since there is no interaction with the base or even other cities apart from anonymous trading and the event screens.
I’d have to play quite a while longer to tell you if the economy is perfectly balanced. Whether different scenarios differ more than in relatively few topographical details. And whether you can continue to expand later as relaxed as in the first few hours. So this is not a test with a rating.
So far, however, one thing is clear to me: If you accept the manageable framework, you will turn enough screws to feel like a busy mayor. I like the separation of living environment and industry in a playful way. After all, only dwellings, restaurants and shops are placed in the domes and decorative plants or statues are placed to increase the quality of life. Then you watch how the residents travel between the domes by cable car – that’s something!
Last but not least, I like the menu navigation because it allows you to edit individual buildings as well as manage the entire settlement from a distance. Here and there the perfect overview is missing, but all in all you click your way through the water in Aquatico pleasantly quickly.
Only on the Steam Deck do I prefer not to do this, because although this is basically possible with the excellently adjustable controls on the handheld, the game runs there even in the lowest setting for long stretches at well below 30 frames per second.
Aquatico is currently available in the following stores. A publication on GOG will follow later.
- Epic Games Store (19.99 euros)
- Steam (currently 22.49 euros, normally 24.99 euros)
