I never thought I’d play a game that would prompt me to “choose a real-life player to stalk,” but here we are. Tides of Tomorrow is an apocalyptic, narrative-driven adventure game with a unique twist: the story is shaped by its players. No, not in the usual “my actions influence the outcome” sense, but in the “my actions can royally fuck things up for the next player” sense.
Tides of Tomorrow is a semi-single-player game about water, plastic, and difficult decisions. A “Great Flood” has turned the world into a giant ocean, forcing the remainder of humanity to live on boats and tiny islands, the latter of which are occupied by oddball factions including the rowdy Reclaimers, the merciless Marauders, and the spiritual Mystics. Combined with Tides of Tomorrow‘s vibrant, cartoon visuals and groovy soundtrack, it’s quite the holiday paradise — too bad the plastic waste is slowly killing everyone.
My first task, as I began my Tides of Tomorrow adventure, was to pick a player to follow. Yes, a living, breathing, real-world human who’s played Tides of Tomorrow before me. The actions they’d taken in their adventure would influence mine; if this chosen player had repaired a bridge, I would be able to cross it, but if they had destroyed that bridge, I would find it broken.
Scrolling through a list of options, I decided to go with “TideLover,” who was described as a survivalist with an affinity for mankind and sounded more reliable than “troublemaker” FraudulentBaguette. The game then dropped me in the ocean, where I was rescued by a woman called Nahe. She promptly informed me that I was a so-called “Tidewalker” afflicted with plastic disease, which would prove fatal without the frequent consumption of a substance called “ozen.” This all sounded very intriguing — though, as someone living in a PFAS-heavy area, slightly disconcerting.
I wasn’t given much time to recover before the ghost of TideLover materialized in front of me. It was a vision of the past, in which Nahe told TideLover the same thing she’d told me: That Tidewalkers can use their “tides of time” ability to view the actions of the Tidewalker they’re following — actions which have shaped your current world. Apparently, TideLover had refused to take Nahe’s last bottle of ozen, and now she offered it to me… But if I took it, the next player, the unfortunate soul who’d chosen to follow in my footsteps, would have none. Nice guilt trip, Nahe!
I, a true humanitarian, decided to refuse the ozen and find some myself. Nahe dropped me off on a floating slum called Scrap Harbor, which, thanks to my Tidewalker visions, was surprisingly easy to navigate. How do I operate the moving platform? Just watch TideLover push the right button. Bouncer being difficult? Just say you’re with TideLover. Need scrap (Tide of Tomorrow‘s valuta)? Just watch where TideLover got it. No matter which obstacle I ran into, TideLover showed me the way. It was incredibly handy… perhaps a bit too handy.
Just as I got tired of copying TideLover’s every move, thankfully, our paths diverged. In the vision, TideLover befriended a guard, but that same guard was nowhere to be found in my world. Left to fend for myself, I decided to nick some ozen and escape Scrap Harbor. Just as I did, TideLover’s friend showed up behind me. Now, I may or may not have killed TideLover’s buddy in the process, but I escaped Scrap Harbor on my own merits — with a stolen boat and a much-needed bottle of ozen.
The incident with the guard perfectly shows why Tides of Tomorrow‘s formula works so well; the visions can be helpful, but more often than not, they only serve to show the ways in which your experience diverges. When I followed TideLover to another island, for example, I discovered that they’d been denied entrance due to the disgraceful actions of their predecessor. However, TideLover had set things right, so I was welcomed with open arms. As I leisurely strolled through a market, chitchatting with the locals, I kept seeing visions of poor TideLover sneaking from stall to stall. Imagine my even greater delight when I discovered that TideLover’s righteousness had reduced the number of guards, thus making it much easier for me to rob the place. No, my own follower won’t receive a warm welcome here, but in my defense, I did hide plenty of ozen for them to find.
While the vision system, officially called the “online story-link” feature, can feel like handholding at times, it’s often open to interpretation. As I was sneaking past a bunch of guards, for example, one of them walked over to a hiding spot, sniffed, and said it smelled “funny.” When I looked for a vision, I saw my predecessor hiding there. Later on, when I accidentally alerted this guard, I had to find a hiding spot opposite the one my stinky predecessor used, as the guard was immediately suspicious of the smelly area.
Besides such “passive” visions, players can actively cooperate with their followers through shops and treasure chests, where they may leave scrap and ozen donations for the next player or accept a previous player’s charity. Thanks to an extensive emote wheel, I found I could point to nearby loot or treat the next player to a silly dance. When I visited a lady who kept a “mereid” whale as a pet, I discovered a lever that allowed me to release the whale, and I left an emote pointing it out for the next player. Free Willy!
I’ve taken care, however, not to leave too many emotes. Depending on the player you’re following (you can change them between island visits), Tides of Tomorrow‘s difficulty level varies greatly. After I’d swapped TideLover for CrustyCrab, I found that the latter had taken it upon themself to highlight every object, and even worse, they’d left me tons of free goodies. Sure, their wonderful personality warmed my heart, but it also made the game quite boring, so I had to discard them in favor of someone with a more sociopathic nature. Luckily, I made the extremely poor decision to bet a ton of money that I could beat said sociopath in a race, lost the race, and successfully intensified my “struggle to survive” — just as I’d hoped!
Being truly “evil” in Tides of Tomorrow is hard, as many choices don’t seem to have a significant impact on the story. I got to decide who lived and who died at times, but despite haunting my dreams for years to come, such decisions never caused my narrative path to move in a completely different direction. For example, I betrayed a local leader only to find that he was neutral towards me on my next visit; he’d met another (perhaps more decent) Tidewalker in the meantime. Later on, I tried being mean to a key NPC, only to find that they still wanted to take me on their secret submarine mission. The first highlights the natural limits of the social-link system (you feel the impact of others’ decisions more than your own), while the second shows a mostly linear narrative that takes all players through a long list of the same “stages” before, eventually, arriving at different endings.
Do I care, though? Not really, for I’m absolutely enamored with Tides of Tomorrow‘s concept. Usually, I only play multiplayer games in two ways: Intense teamplay using voice chat, or completely anonymous and silent. The first is reserved for real-life friends, and the second is every other multiplayer session. Tides of Tomorrow shattered my reluctance to interact with strangers, and even better, it made me think of TideLover and co. as my friends, despite the lack of direct interactions. I’ve enjoyed Tides of Tomorrow‘s story my own way, at my own pace, yet it still feels like a shared experience. It’s genius, really.
Tides of Tomorrow will be released April 22 on PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on Windows PC using a pre-release download code provided by THQ Nordic. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
