[2022] Claustrophobia and fun on Earth and Europa

A lil somethin somethin: You can find the details for this event on the announcement page here.

Hello everyone!

Before we write more about upcoming Barotrauma updates, we wanted to lend a hand to fellow indie developer Cogwheel Software and their debut Hidden Deep, which begins its Early Access journey today.

You may know already that Hidden Deep is published by Daedalic Entertainment just like Barotrauma… and you may also know that our two games look uncannily similar at a glance! So what’s the deal with that?

Are Hidden Deep and Barotrauma made by the same people, or inspired by each other? Short answer: no. Long answer: also no, mostly – we have the same publisher, but both games are developed independently by people who are not in regular contact with each other. We’ve said hi to each other on Discord (and our official servers are known to have many of the same people).

There are many similarities in our games’ lifespans, though: Where Barotrauma began as a one-man project, Hidden Deep has also largely remained a solo developer’s endeavor. Other things both games share are a custom engine, simulated physics, a development history spanning a number of years before being released on Steam and an ambitious roadmap ahead of them. As we’re further along on that road, we wish Hidden Deep tons of luck and can’t wait to see how it will evolve following its release today!

So how come they look so similar? Are they set in the same world? The similar look is simple coincidence (and in large part probably also due to the constraints of both being third-person side-view two-dimensional horror-esque games set in an environment devoid of sunlight), and today not even quite as striking as it was when we first discovered Hidden Deep in 2018.

At that time we seriously worried we’d stumbled on a direct competitor for the then-unreleased Barotrauma, but looking into it a little more, we discovered that the setting, premise and gameplay are hardly identical with ours… but as you can guess if you’re still reading, there are indeed many similarities. If you like Barotrauma, you should definitely give Hidden Deep a try!

Since you have the same publisher and are so alike, is there going to be a crossover? Considering that Barotrauma and Hidden Deep take place a couple of hundred years and approximately 628.3 million kilometers apart, a crossover might be tricky to arrange, but you never know.

Last but not least To celebrate Hidden Deep's release, we are offering a limited time bundle deal starting tomorrow, 25 January – get the Supporter editions of both Barotrauma and Hidden Deep in one go. Without further ado, check out Hidden Deep's release trailer below, and get ready for a thrilling, sunless adventure on both Earth and Europa!