Tides of Tomorrow Review Summary

Tides of Tomorrow launches today on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S, and the first round of reviews is out. Tides of Tomorrow varies quite a bit, but at the time of writing, the game has earned a “Strong” rating on OpenCritic based on 29 critic reviews.

First announced in June 2024, Tides of Tomorrow is an asynchronous multiplayer first-person adventure game in which players take on the role of Tidewalker, a survivor of a cataclysmic flood who suffers from a condition that soon turns their flesh into plastic. As players search this aquatic world for a cure, they encounter visions of how other players from the real world interacted with the environment and its inhabitants. These interactions can then affect the player's experience, with mission conditions potentially changing and NPC behavior changing based on the previous player's actions. Tides of Tomorrow was developed by DigixArt, the studio behind games like Lost in harmony, 11-11: Retold memoriesand Route 96.

Tides of Tomorrow hands-on preview

Game Rant sat down with Tides of Tomorrow to see how its asynchronous multiplayer allows players to shape stories for those who come after.

What Tides of Tomorrow Reviews Are Saying

Tides of Tomorrow Tidewalker arriving at Pleasureland

There are currently 29 pro critics Tides of Tomorrow on OpenCritic. These ratings range from 6/10 all the way up to 9/10, resulting in a top critic average of 77 and a critic recommendation score of 61%. While more reviews may be added to the pool in the coming days, this is unlikely to change Tides of TomorrowThe OpenCritic score is too high.

Stevivor (Steve Wright) — Score: 9/10

Managing your own personal health can be quite stressful, not to mention the state of the world around you. This is where Tides of Tomorrow excels, providing some choice in how its narrative unfolds but creating a much tighter, much more polished experience compared to Road 96. It's a fantastic development.

DualShockers (Shane Limbaugh) — Score: 8/10

With some interesting world building and phenomenal choices, Tides of Tomorrow is a game that deserves a real investment. It's not perfect by any metric, but it's good enough to keep you interested and worth your time. Seeing everything, even if it's hard, gives you a sense of completion that very few games can achieve. With the innovative Social-Link system, there is a real opportunity to create a new way for players to interact, but it has yet to be perfected.

TechRaptor (Ashleigh Klein) — Score: 8/10

Overall, my time with Tides of Tomorrow was a really refreshing experience as I was hooked on the story once the pace started to escalate. The Tides of Time mechanic is a pretty innovative way to create a unique shared multiplayer experience with others, while maintaining player autonomy and allowing us freedom of choice in creating our story… The problem is that it can be a concern for players with visual impairments, and aside from color vision settings, it doesn't have extensive accessibility features to tone it down a notch.

TheGamer (Harry Alston) — Score: 7/10

I enjoyed my 15 or so hours with Tides Of Tomorrow, but I won't be playing it again. It's a game you could definitely play again if you vibe with it, as there are a lot of different options that you – and anyone in front of you – can do, but I feel like I've had my fill of the world and was overall happy with the outcome of my narrative. Although I heard most of it before I got there.

GameSpew (Kim Snaith) — Score: 7/10

Do I wish Tides of Tomorrow was a straightforward single player game without any of its online story mirages? Probably yes. But while I have some gripes, there's no denying that beneath its unique, sometimes misguided choices, there's a fantastic story that kept me gripped.

Loot Level Chill (Kieran Singh) — Score: 6/10

Linking your gameplay in Tides of Tomorrow directly to the gameplay of the player in front of you is an undeniably clever way to suggest that we all need to think about preserving the planet for future generations. That doesn't change the fact that Tides of Tomorrow unfortunately left me feeling frustrated at times due to the clunky storytelling, simplistic mechanics, and loss of immersion caused by its own excellent mechanics.

Based on these early reviews, it appears so Tides of TomorrowIts strongest quality is its overarching narrative. While Loot Level Chill claimed the game featured “heavy storytelling”, the vast majority of other reviews praised Tides of Tomorrowstory and his natural sense of pace. Many reviews were also laudatory Tides of Tomorrow's world-building, introducing unique concepts such as the disease “Plastemia” and incorporating it into immediate gameplay through environment and character design.

However, the element that proves to be a bit more divisive is Tides of TomorrowStory-Link mechanic. This is a mechanic that allows players to see the previous actions of another player in the real world, and is probably one of the core elements that sets Tides of Tomorrow except the crowd. While some critics have heralded this Story-Link mechanism as innovative, others have argued that it actively interferes with the game's story and spoils possible area choices long before the player encounters them themselves.

Arrange the covers in the correct US release order.

Easy (5) Medium (7) Hard (10)

Tides of TomorrowThe accessibility features were also criticized by at least one outlet, with TechRaptor stating that the visuals of player “ghosts” in the game that appear through the Story-Link mechanic could be cause for concern for the visually impaired. In the end it sounds like Tides of Tomorrow it features strong storytelling and an interesting central premise that doesn't always hit the mark.