A flood of fresh ideas
By Paul Hunter
DigixArt, the Montpellier studio behind the acclaimed narrative adventure Road 96, is back with something bigger and bolder. Published by THQ Nordic on PS5 (version reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, and PC, Tides of Tomorrow plants you in a plasticpunk post-apocalypse where the world is flooded, colourful, and fighting for survival against the clock.
The game's defining feature is Story-Link, an asynchronous multiplayer system where another real player's past choices physically reshape your version of the game world. It runs roughly 10 to 15 hours depending on how you play, and I found every hour of it worth the time.
Is Tides of Tomorrow the next adventure you should dive into on PS5? Let's find out!
You play as a Tidewalker, an amnesiac protagonist who wakes from beneath the flooded depths with no memory of who they were. The game keeps a live population counter that starts at around 260,000-300,000 survivors and ticks down with each chapter. I focused on that number constantly, and every time it dropped it made my next decision feel more urgent. The adventure starts with basic survival and escalates into a full investigation of The Great Flood's origins and a race to find a Plastemia cure.
Three major factions fill out the world's social structure. The Reclaimers are scavengers who work with whatever remains. The Marauders are a bandit-like criminal operation with their own territory and agenda. The Mystics are old-tech scholars who chase knowledge from before The Great Flood. Eyla, a Reclaimer fighting the advanced stages of Plastemia, is the standout character of the adventure and an emotional anchor in a story full of difficult decisions. Obin, a Marauder mob boss, is the main antagonist and one you're sure to remember. Mereids, cat-like shark creatures immune to Plastemia, are being overhunted as one of the few uncontaminated food sources around, and their situation feeds directly into the game's ecological message.
Dark world-building fills every corner. There are nightclubs built specifically for Plastemia sufferers, spaces where the doomed dance until they collapse and staff deal with the rest. Your choices build five affinities over time. Mankind, Nature, Self-Preservation, Cooperation, and Troublemaker each develop based on how you play and unlock new story paths as they grow. Five major endings with variations mean your moral compass can point somewhere different every run.
All in all, Tides of Tomorrow tells a morally complex story set in one of the most original post-apocalyptic worlds I've ever experienced.
Tides of Time is the mechanic that brings your player connection directly into your world. Pressing the trigger activates a ghost replay of the previous player's movements in the space you're standing in, showing their decisions, their interactions, and even their emote trails. NPCs in your game actively remember that previous player and reference them in dialogue, which means the person you followed is woven into your story whether you like their decisions or not. Each playthrough also generates a Story-Link Seed, an 8-digit code you can share with friends or your community so they can walk your path. You can swap who you follow between story beats, which keeps the experience flexible.
The Ozen system keeps the survival pressure constant. Your health is tracked in Ozen pips, small resource units that deplete as you travel between islands. Two health pips disappear with every crossing, and a single Ozen dose recovers just one pip. Trash scraps scattered across each level can be exchanged for doses, so thoroughly searching each area is key to survival. You'll also meet civilians in need begging for scraps, or you can deposit them in Tidewalker caches, which future players can visit and retrieve your scraps. Those resource decisions also moves your affinities, so every action has outcomes.
Beyond the narrative moment, stealth segments and ship combat keep the gameplay varied. The stealth sections run in first-person and have you moving through guard-heavy warehouses, staying out of sight. Ship combat puts you on the open water between islands with a cannon to fire at pirates and poachers. A racing mini-game even turns the previous player's best time into your benchmark goal, challenging you to race faster and take the Tidewalker crown.
I had a moment midway through one island where I found a Tidewalker cache the previous player had stocked full of scrap and Ozen. I had two health pips left after back-to-back crossings, and those Ozen doses saved the run. Checking back through the Tides of Time visions, I could see them spending extra time collecting Trash scraps specifically to fill the cache for whoever came next. I refilled it before I moved on, to pass it along to the next player. That simple exchange with a stranger I'll never meet is the kind of moment Tides of Tomorrow makes possible, and I loved it.
All considered, the gameplay in Tides of Tomorrow is an effective combination of asynchronous multiplayer ripple effects, past player vision following, resource tension, and action variety that gives the narrative adventure genre a real mechanical backbone.
The floating settlements each carry their own visual personality. Market islands are dense and chaotic, packed with colour and noise. Abandoned research stations built into huge coral formations carry a completely different atmosphere. Mereids are the creature design highlight of the game, their cat-like shark form immediately setting them apart from everything else in the world. Character models are expressive and full of personality. There's an occasional dip in fidelity at range, but it's brief and doesn't pull you out of the experience.
The first time I came face to face with an NPC in the late stages of Plastemia, their skin was so bright and saturated it looked almost painted, artificial colour spreading up their neck and across their face. I already knew what Plastemia was from the opening, but seeing it this advanced was something else entirely. The visual design communicates exactly what the disease is and how bad things have gotten before any character speaks a word.
Turning our attention to audio, the voice cast across Tides of Tomorrow is excellent from start to finish. Every major character sounds grounded and credible in the world, and the performances hold through the story's most emotionally demanding moments. The soundtrack is also a standout. It shifts between something exploratory and contemplative during traversal between islands and something harder and more percussive during stealth segments and ship combat. I caught myself during a crossing just listening as the score shifted under me, which is exactly what a great game soundtrack should do.
PS5 performance ran smooth across my playthrough. I was playing before the a day-one stability patch as well, which should improve performance further. First-person controls are tight and responsive, and that responsiveness matters in the racing and stealth sections where precise movement is key to winning.
All in all, the presentation in Tides of Tomorrow is excellent from top to bottom, with a visual style and score that make the plasticpunk world really come to life.
Final Score: 8/10 - Great
Developer: DigixArt
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genre: Adventure
Modes: Single-player
By Paul Hunter
DigixArt, the Montpellier studio behind the acclaimed narrative adventure Road 96, is back with something bigger and bolder. Published by THQ Nordic on PS5 (version reviewed), Xbox Series X|S, and PC, Tides of Tomorrow plants you in a plasticpunk post-apocalypse where the world is flooded, colourful, and fighting for survival against the clock.
The game's defining feature is Story-Link, an asynchronous multiplayer system where another real player's past choices physically reshape your version of the game world. It runs roughly 10 to 15 hours depending on how you play, and I found every hour of it worth the time.
Is Tides of Tomorrow the next adventure you should dive into on PS5? Let's find out!
Story and Narrative
The world in Tides of Tomorrow is one of the most original post-apocalyptic settings I've spent time in. The Great Flood has swallowed everything, leaving floating settlements scattered across a vast, deep blue ocean. Look closer, though, and that same ocean is packed with plastic waste. Humanity is losing a slow battle with Plastemia, a microplastic disease that hardens the skin and turns it vivid, unnatural colours before converting the victim into a permanent plastic statue. Ozen is the only medication that slows Plastemia's progression, and it's scarce, politically controlled, and impossible to rely on for long. You arrive in this world already behind.You play as a Tidewalker, an amnesiac protagonist who wakes from beneath the flooded depths with no memory of who they were. The game keeps a live population counter that starts at around 260,000-300,000 survivors and ticks down with each chapter. I focused on that number constantly, and every time it dropped it made my next decision feel more urgent. The adventure starts with basic survival and escalates into a full investigation of The Great Flood's origins and a race to find a Plastemia cure.
Three major factions fill out the world's social structure. The Reclaimers are scavengers who work with whatever remains. The Marauders are a bandit-like criminal operation with their own territory and agenda. The Mystics are old-tech scholars who chase knowledge from before The Great Flood. Eyla, a Reclaimer fighting the advanced stages of Plastemia, is the standout character of the adventure and an emotional anchor in a story full of difficult decisions. Obin, a Marauder mob boss, is the main antagonist and one you're sure to remember. Mereids, cat-like shark creatures immune to Plastemia, are being overhunted as one of the few uncontaminated food sources around, and their situation feeds directly into the game's ecological message.
Dark world-building fills every corner. There are nightclubs built specifically for Plastemia sufferers, spaces where the doomed dance until they collapse and staff deal with the rest. Your choices build five affinities over time. Mankind, Nature, Self-Preservation, Cooperation, and Troublemaker each develop based on how you play and unlock new story paths as they grow. Five major endings with variations mean your moral compass can point somewhere different every run.
All in all, Tides of Tomorrow tells a morally complex story set in one of the most original post-apocalyptic worlds I've ever experienced.
Gameplay and Mechanics
The Story-Link system is the centrepiece of Tides of Tomorrow, and it delivers on everything it promises. At the start of the game, you choose a player to follow. That can be a PSN friend, a random stranger, a popular streamer, or a pre-built offline seed. From the very first level, their past choices begin reshaping your version of the game. Story situations change, and the characters you encounter can differ entirely based on what the previous player did.Tides of Time is the mechanic that brings your player connection directly into your world. Pressing the trigger activates a ghost replay of the previous player's movements in the space you're standing in, showing their decisions, their interactions, and even their emote trails. NPCs in your game actively remember that previous player and reference them in dialogue, which means the person you followed is woven into your story whether you like their decisions or not. Each playthrough also generates a Story-Link Seed, an 8-digit code you can share with friends or your community so they can walk your path. You can swap who you follow between story beats, which keeps the experience flexible.
The Ozen system keeps the survival pressure constant. Your health is tracked in Ozen pips, small resource units that deplete as you travel between islands. Two health pips disappear with every crossing, and a single Ozen dose recovers just one pip. Trash scraps scattered across each level can be exchanged for doses, so thoroughly searching each area is key to survival. You'll also meet civilians in need begging for scraps, or you can deposit them in Tidewalker caches, which future players can visit and retrieve your scraps. Those resource decisions also moves your affinities, so every action has outcomes.
Beyond the narrative moment, stealth segments and ship combat keep the gameplay varied. The stealth sections run in first-person and have you moving through guard-heavy warehouses, staying out of sight. Ship combat puts you on the open water between islands with a cannon to fire at pirates and poachers. A racing mini-game even turns the previous player's best time into your benchmark goal, challenging you to race faster and take the Tidewalker crown.
I had a moment midway through one island where I found a Tidewalker cache the previous player had stocked full of scrap and Ozen. I had two health pips left after back-to-back crossings, and those Ozen doses saved the run. Checking back through the Tides of Time visions, I could see them spending extra time collecting Trash scraps specifically to fill the cache for whoever came next. I refilled it before I moved on, to pass it along to the next player. That simple exchange with a stranger I'll never meet is the kind of moment Tides of Tomorrow makes possible, and I loved it.
All considered, the gameplay in Tides of Tomorrow is an effective combination of asynchronous multiplayer ripple effects, past player vision following, resource tension, and action variety that gives the narrative adventure genre a real mechanical backbone.
Presentation and Audio
The plasticpunk art direction in Tides of Tomorrow is striking from the first moment and doesn't let up. The ocean is a deep, vivid blue, and the world above it is saturated with colour that looks almost festive from a distance. The catch is that almost all of that colour is a deadly plastic. Plastemia's physical effects are visible on character models across the game, with skin hardening and shifting into bright, unnatural tones the further the disease has progressed. It's one of the most purposeful pieces of visual design I've seen in a narrative adventure, and it makes the world's crisis stark without a single line of explanation.The floating settlements each carry their own visual personality. Market islands are dense and chaotic, packed with colour and noise. Abandoned research stations built into huge coral formations carry a completely different atmosphere. Mereids are the creature design highlight of the game, their cat-like shark form immediately setting them apart from everything else in the world. Character models are expressive and full of personality. There's an occasional dip in fidelity at range, but it's brief and doesn't pull you out of the experience.
The first time I came face to face with an NPC in the late stages of Plastemia, their skin was so bright and saturated it looked almost painted, artificial colour spreading up their neck and across their face. I already knew what Plastemia was from the opening, but seeing it this advanced was something else entirely. The visual design communicates exactly what the disease is and how bad things have gotten before any character speaks a word.
Turning our attention to audio, the voice cast across Tides of Tomorrow is excellent from start to finish. Every major character sounds grounded and credible in the world, and the performances hold through the story's most emotionally demanding moments. The soundtrack is also a standout. It shifts between something exploratory and contemplative during traversal between islands and something harder and more percussive during stealth segments and ship combat. I caught myself during a crossing just listening as the score shifted under me, which is exactly what a great game soundtrack should do.
PS5 performance ran smooth across my playthrough. I was playing before the a day-one stability patch as well, which should improve performance further. First-person controls are tight and responsive, and that responsiveness matters in the racing and stealth sections where precise movement is key to winning.
All in all, the presentation in Tides of Tomorrow is excellent from top to bottom, with a visual style and score that make the plasticpunk world really come to life.
The Verdict
Tides of Tomorrow is one of the most original narrative adventures I've played in years. The Story-Link asynchronous multiplayer concept is unlike anything else I've seen before, building real human connection into a single-player framework, which you can then pass along your own choices to the next player. The story has real moral depth, the plasticpunk world is visually striking, and the soundtrack is excellent from start to finish. DigixArt has delivered one of the year's best narrative adventures, and if you like these types of games on PS5, this one shouldn't wait.Final Score: 8/10 - Great
Tides of Tomorrow details
Platform: PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PCDeveloper: DigixArt
Publisher: THQ Nordic
Genre: Adventure
Modes: Single-player