Over 300 reviews, 86% positive: New adventure game launches to strong reception on Steam – NotebookCheck.net News
Giant Squid’s Sword of the Sea has officially launched on PC and PS5. The game has a Journey-like ambience with skateboard/snowboard-inspired hoversword movement, short-form exploration, and a “Very Positive” debut on Steam.
Giant Squid’s new surfing game, Sword of the Sea, is out now on PC via Steam and on PlayStation 5. The game had an August 19, 2025 launch date across platforms. On Steam, the store page lists Giant Squid as both developer and publisher and broadly categorizes the game under ‘Adventure’ and ‘Indie’.
Sword of the Sea is designed around fast, traversal-heavy gameplay with a some exploration. Players ride a “Hoversword” that handles like a mix of a snowboard, skateboard, and surfboard. Because of the said “Hoversword”, players can have momentum-building runs, big-air jumps, and trick chains across dunes shaped like waves. The experience comes from the team and creative leadership behind ABZÛ, The Pathless, and Journey. There are painterly environments with a score from longtime collaborator Austin Wintory, according to pre-release materials and reviews.
At launch, Steam lists the overall user sentiment as “Very Positive” – that’s 86% of 312 reviews so far. Third‑party reviews published around launch also praise the game’s short length and striking audiovisual presentation. However, there are occasional performance issues on console in early versions.
SteamDB confirms full controller support on PC. The game should run well on systems with Windows 10, 64‑bit, with at least 8-12GB RAM, modern mid‑range GPUs, and roughly 15GB of storage. Visually, it’s very similar to games like ABZÛ (as mentioned earlier) and Journey. While Sword of the Sea‘s price is slightly higher than what consumers typically pay for other games in this genre, the strong reception is pretty reassuring. It’s priced at $29.99 – there’s no launch discount bundled with this one.
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Anubhav Sharma – Tech Writer – 907 articles published on Notebookcheck since 2024
Fueled by a childhood spent taking apart video game consoles to see how they worked, I turned my passion for tech into writing. I have a double Bachelor’s in Computer Science Engineering (2018) and English (2024). I’ve been writing on a variety of tech topics since 2016, with a particular interest in gaming. When I’m not hunting down the latest tech news, you’ll find me producing music, gaming, or hiking.
Anubhav Sharma, 2025-08-21 (Update: 2025-08-21)
