PlayStation Showcase 2023 revealed quite a lot of games incoming for the PS5, but there’s just something about Sword of the Sea. Something nautically magical, really. Which is quite fitting for developer Giant Squid, since they were responsible for giving us Abzû and The Pathless. What, you don’t know what I’m talking about? Then why not watch the game’s announcement trailer for yourself below, and see the surfing journey that this game promises to be?

Sword of the Sea Trailer: Analysis

I don’t know which is more gorgeous: the visuals or the music.

PlayStation and Giant Squid (Abzû, The Pathless) are proud to announce Sword of the Sea with that announcement trailer above on YouTube. As you can see, the trailer is rather spectacular not only musically but also visually. It make sense considering that Giant Squid’s founder, Matt Nava, was previously the art director at thatgamecompany. You might recognize those devs from their very artsy hit games such as Flower (2009) and Journey (2012). Yeah, Nava was the art director for both games, and it shows in this trailer.

Speaking of: this trailer for Sword of the Sea shows off its core gameplay mechanic, which basically consists of surfing. It seems that the nameless main character has something called the Hoversword as their main piece of equipment/vehicle, allowing them to surf their way across a vast desert littered with the ruins of an ancient civilization. How, you might ask? Well, it appears that this Hoversword makes the sand behave like water, allowing the main character to surf across it. The surfing metaphor only gets more prominent when the main character somehow turns the desert into ocean teeming with life. I have no idea what’s going on, but it all looks beautiful. I guess that’s basically the theme of this trailer, making it very similar to Abzû.

Unfortunately, the one thing this trailer doesn’t show off is a release date for Sword of the Sea. All we know is that it’s coming exclusively to the PS5, and that’s it. Tune back in to THS later for more Sword of the Sea news when we get it.