Hydrophobia flooding retailer shelves as well as XBLA

by Ben Gilbert { Oct 10th 2009 at 5:00AM }

As details slowly drip out of Xbox World 360's recent hands-on with upcoming water-based puzzler Hydrophobia, the game's developer, Dark Energy Digital, is putting Internet-less Xbox 360 owners' fears to rest. In addition to releasing the game as three chapters on Xbox Live Marketplace, Hydrophobia will be getting a disc release at the end of next year.

Also of note, despite the game's grandiose scale, it weighs in at under 250MB -- well under the allowed 2GB file size for XBLA releases that Microsoft recently increased. We've reached out to Dark Energy Digital to nail down some of the more slippery details on Hydrophobia and will update you as soon as we hear more.

Gallery: Hydrophobia (XBLA)

Tags: dark-energy-digital, digital-distribution, hydrophobia, retail-release, xbla, xblm, xbox-world-360

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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)

Psycho2 @ Oct 10th 2009 5:23AM

Not sure if wan't...

CH3BURASHKA @ Oct 10th 2009 5:26AM

There's been a sudden influx of Russian-developed games coming out. All of them are fucking crazy. This one looks cool, and pretty crazy as well.

bVork @ Oct 10th 2009 6:31AM

Um, this is being developed by a UK-based studio. Are you perhaps mixing it up with Cryostasis?

At any rate, you are correct - there a lot of really interesting Eastern European games coming out. This just doesn't happen to be one of them.

t_m @ Oct 10th 2009 7:02AM

The PC at least is essentially being sustained by obscure russian developers. All the big studios have either moved over to consoles, or become rather stuck in a rut.

Of course, many of the russian developed games are bugged as hell, have terrible translations, or are just flat out bonkers... but they sure don't lack ambition.

Seems like most of the games i play recently are russian...

Fuze9 @ Oct 10th 2009 9:27AM

In Soviet Russia, game develops you.

CH3BURASHKA @ Oct 10th 2009 3:31PM

FUCK! I was talking about Cryostasis. I has a PCGamer with an entire article about Russian games, with Cryostasis and the recent strategy game in it, and I could swear I read something about Hydrophobia in it.

Filthy Assistant @ Oct 10th 2009 5:58AM

Huh... It looks like it would be much bigger. In fact I thought it was a retail game until now. The water tech looks really impressive. I'll give it a shot if it's not absurdly overpriced.

nackenstützkissen @ Oct 10th 2009 7:35AM

Hydrophobia is also a term for the symptoms of rabbies, and although Aquaphobia is the technical term for a morbid fear of water, Hydrophobia is sometimes used instead.I think I’ll reserve judgment on this until I get to play it. Blade, formerly Mirage, the guys behind Rise of the Robots have a history of bigging up games purely on graphics alone, and we know how many people were fooled on that one.
nackenstützkissen

Whocares @ Oct 10th 2009 8:39AM

Why dont they just release it as one game instead of chapters if its only 250MB?
I'm thinking more money but I can imagine alot of people will only buy one chapter, maybe its not finnished and they need to get it out....feck knows.

Durden @ Oct 10th 2009 10:31AM

I'm always so amazed by good water in video games. There's no telling how many times I've gotten killed on Valhalla (Halo 3) because I decide to stop and play with the water in the creek.

Games with good water (I know this is sad): Crysis, Dirt 2 (probably the best I have seen), Halo 3, Killzone 2, Gears of War 2, Wave Race 64, GTA4, Resident Evil Code Veronica (first game I saw where water reacts to people/zombies moving through it), and you can't forget the beautiful Bioshock.