There are a lot of very well-established pop cultural ideas that haven’t seen much adaptation into the MMO space; we’ve never had a real western MMO, for example, and there are very few that qualify as “cyberpunk” in any serious fashion. But it occurred to me that there’s an obvious area ripe for exploration that we’ve seen nothing but snippets of in various games – heading underwater completely, into a world of strange sea life.
A few games have gone underwater for brief stretches, like in World of Warcraft‘s oft-reviled Vashj’ir, but we haven’t seen a full game set there. The funny thing is, there’s so much to be done with it – players could be exploring Earth’s oceans or those of an alien world, dealing not only with hazardous life but the natural struggle to survive in a space inhospitable to air-breathing races. There are so many directions to go with it, from building underwater habitats to surviving hostile conditions to simple exploration.
Of course, the lack of a whole lot of pop culture media to use as a basis doesn’t help matters, but I think there’s space for the idea to float on. What about you, dear reader? Would you play an underwater MMO?
Every morning, the Massively Overpowered writers team up with mascot Mo to ask MMORPG players pointed questions about the massively multiplayer online roleplaying genre. Grab a mug of your preferred beverage and take a stab at answering the question posed in today’s Daily Grind!
