Tides of Tomorrow Hands-On Preview: For Those Who Come After

Asynchronous multiplayer may not be as prominent as real-time multiplayer, but it is nonetheless a unique spin on multiplayer gameplay that can increase immersion, offer assistance, and make players feel like they’re traveling through a massive, shared world with many others. What makes DigixArt’s choose-your-own-adventure game Tides of Tomorrow so different, though, is that, unlike other games with asynchronous multiplayer elements that indirectly affect a player’s gameplay or simply allow for turn-based PvP, it incorporates those elements in a way that actually alters how the story plays out for each individual. It’s ambitious, to say the least, but that’s ultimately what makes it one of the most intriguing narrative-driven multiplayer experiments in recent memory.

Game Rant recently went hands-on with the first two chapters of Tides of Tomorrow, which allowed us to get a good feel for how its asynchronous multiplayer elements play a unique role in its story and gameplay. It should be noted that while Tides of Tomorrow does have regular, albeit simple gameplay, it is primarily played for its story. As such, details shared in this preview will primarily focus on how the game incorporates its most distinctive features into its narrative rather than the narrative itself, to avoid spoiling the whole point of the game.

Following Visions Through Tides of Tomorrow’s Flooded World

Tides of Tomorrow is set on Elynd, a massive ocean planet ravaged by a world-ending flood, where most of civilization has been destroyed and survivors cling to life on floating towns and platforms. In this world, a deadly disease called Plastemia, caused by toxic microplastic pollution, is spreading and threatening all living things. Players step into the shoes of a Tidewalker, an amnesiac survivor awakened with no memory of their past. As they begin their journey, they are tasked with exploring the mysterious, flooded world, gathering resources, interacting with diverse characters, and navigating dangerous threats in their search for a cure to Plastemia.

The whole idea behind Tides of Tomorrow is that you are never truly alone in your journey, even though you are playing by yourself. Instead of experiencing Elynd in a vacuum, you actively choose to follow the path of another real player (or not), and their past decisions ripple forward into your own playthrough. Their choices determine which characters you meet first, how certain situations unfold, and what information or opportunities are available to you, while their presence is felt through brief visions that show how they navigated similar moments. You are free to react differently, make opposing decisions, or follow their lead closely, but the game is constantly framing your story as part of a larger chain, where every Tidewalker leaves behind a trail that others can learn from, build upon, or push against in their own way.

My preview began with some rather atmospheric music reminiscent of Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag, where starting a new game informed me of the asynchronous adventure ahead of me and then took me to the character creation screen where my seemingly lifeless character floated beneath the ocean with many others. There, I was presented with a handful of color schemes for my Tidewalker, as well as the option to choose my gender and voice. Upon creating my character, I was presented with a list of other players to follow, with their location, traits, date of last connection, and their progress listed nearby. I chose to follow a player named AJC, and my journey began.

Floating in the depths of the ocean, I was greeted by a mysterious voice telling me, “It’s time,” and that I needed to make contact with someone. Ahead of me, I saw AJC’s echo swimming toward the surface, and I followed them. Despite a fair bit of struggle and some loss of health along the way, I managed to make it close enough to the surface of the water to be rescued by a character named Nahe, who would play a pivotal role in my introduction to Tides of Tomorrow‘s core survival mechanics.

Tides of Tomorrow‘s primary mechanic is Tides of Time, which allows players to briefly see visions of the player they’re following. It can be triggered at any time, though its only real use is to see those visions and nothing else. It doesn’t highlight items or objectives directly, unless players find themselves at an impasse and a vision of the player they’re following gives them a clue about how to proceed. It works similarly to Dark Souls‘ phantoms (ghosts) mechanic, which temporarily allows players to see translucent silhouettes of others. After my first use of Tides of Tomorrow‘s Tides of Time mechanic, I witnessed a vision of Nahe telling AJC that she had been looking for them her whole life.

Following Nahe up to the deck of her boat, she began to fill me in on the threat of Plastemia and how plastic had infected my brain, causing regular Plastemia attacks where my Tidewalker momentarily appeared to struggle breathing. After having one of those attacks in the middle of my conversation with her, I used Tides of Time to see a vision of her offering AJC a bottle of Ozen, which she said would help reduce their symptoms for the time being. Unfortunately, the bottle she gave to AJC was her only bottle, meaning she had none left for me. Soon after, I had another attack and passed out, after which I awakened on her boat at Scrap Harbour. From there, she encouraged me to follow in AJC’s footsteps, as they would lead me to safety, and Tides of Tomorrow‘s post-apocalyptic story was officially underway.

Tides of Tomorrow’s Star Mechanic Drives Its Asynchronous Multiplayer

As previously intimated, the main draw of Tides of Tomorrow is its Tides of Time mechanic. As it is a choose-your-own-adventure game, players are frequently presented with dialogue choices that impact how they are treated by characters and how the narrative unfolds. However, occasionally, new options can be added when players use Tides of Time to witness a Major Vision. In these cases, players might be having a conversation with an NPC where “Undiscovered Vision” is listed as a dialogue choice. Temporarily breaking away from the conversation and using Tides of Time can then unlock this option, as they witness a key event from the previous player’s journey.

Major Visions don’t only contribute to dialogue options, though, as they can assist players in overcoming obstacles as well. For example, one of the first times a Major Vision assisted me in Tides of Tomorrow was when I needed to get from one platform to another by crossing the water that divided them. In the vision, I saw AJC using a movable platform to cross the water, and even though it was a simple enough solution already, it still offered a unique way of preventing me from getting stuck in a problem. Plus, using Tides of Time is entirely optional, so players who want to preserve the game’s challenge or be entirely unaffected by the previous player’s choices can avoid using it.

Because Tides of Time is an optional feature, I found using Major Visions to be, for the most part, more of a bonus to the experience than a necessary part of it. Even after learning what AJC had chosen to do in a key story moment, I would still sometimes choose other dialogue options, simply because choosing the option influenced by the previous player almost felt like cheating. Maybe that’s the point, but as the game already severely lacks challenge in its gameplay, taking the mystery out of its outcomes reduced that challenge even more.

Tides of Time can also be used to witness Minor Visions, although I found these largely unhelpful and more or less just a way to keep Tides of Tomorrow‘s asynchronous multiplayer at the forefront. Minor Visions are almost identical to Dark Souls phantoms, in that they often show little more than the previous character moving in a certain direction or performing an emote. During the preview, Minor Visions also occasionally broke my immersion, as I would see AJC’s echo moving around on my screen (sometimes right in my face) during pivotal cinematic and dialogue sequences. Bugs are expected in a preview, but I couldn’t decide whether this was a bug or the game’s core systems just working against it.

The ingenuity of Tides of Time does shine in certain moments of Tides of Tomorrow‘s gameplay, even if those moments are few and far between. For example, during Act 1, I was tasked with fist-fighting another NPC, and the game gave me an opportunity to use Tides of Time in order to see which way the NPC would dodge. Then, just as one would when playing Simon, I memorized his moves and reacted accordingly. That was probably the height of gameplay for me in my Tides of Tomorrow preview, as I got to see Tides of Time influence more than dialogue and simple puzzle solutions.

It’s also interesting that your playthrough in Tides of Tomorrow is not only directly influenced by the previous player’s but also does the same for any players that follow you. Any major choices you make can change your traits, which ultimately give other players an idea of who they’re choosing to follow. A player who is Pro-Mankind, for instance, will have left behind a world that has a positive disposition toward Tidewalkers and is also healthier and more prosperous. A Troublemaker, on the other hand, will have done the opposite.

The only hangup I have with this system is that players can’t fully appreciate how their actions affect other players without knowing those other players and sharing their seed with them (which allows players to follow one another directly without choosing a player at random). In a way, this causes Tides of Tomorrow to almost work against itself because, unless players are being followed by someone that matters to them—like a friend or a content creator they enjoy—they are less likely to care about how their actions affect others. As a result, there is an increased likelihood that players will act selfishly, like taking Ozen and scrap from a shared chest rather than leaving some behind for future Tidewalkers. If a player’s traits actually affected gameplay rather than merely giving other players an idea of who they’re following, then it would matter regardless, but that’s not the case.

Tides of Tomorrow Puts More Emphasis on Story, Less on Gameplay

Tides of Tomorrow is, when it all boils down to it, a narrative that players can not only shape for themselves but for those who come after them as well. As a result, its gameplay is immensely simplistic, with heavy restrictions on exploration, limited combat encounters, and very little space between story beats. With Tides of Tomorrow seemingly going for a story to be told rather than a game to be played, that formula works, but anyone looking for deep, engaging gameplay will likely be disappointed.

Upon arriving at Scrap Harbour, for instance, the game presents the location as this immersive world filled with opportunities. On the one hand, there are NPCs everywhere that looked like they were genuinely living in this world—like dancers going wild in a club, a barkeeper tending to customers, and residents waiting in line for Ozen. This isolated zone (and the world of Tides of Tomorrow in general) is coated in beautiful, vibrant colors, and the scattered neon lights really accentuate Scrap Harbour’s rebellious personality. However, upon wandering the area, I began to discover just how shallow it actually is.

Very few of the NPCs I encountered during my preview of the game could be interacted with, and they rarely reacted to my presence. From what I played, there is very little reason to explore off the beaten path, apart from occasional lore bits found on tablets and negligible amounts of scrap, Tides of Tomorrow‘s currency. Even when traveling between zones by boat, the game almost teases you with full control over your boat, but rather than letting you freely explore the ocean, these sequences act as glorified loading screens similar to Starfield‘s that end once you’ve traveled a certain distance. You’re then teleported to the location you chose to go to, even if you didn’t reach it before the loading ended.

There are occasional optional Ocean Events you can complete in Tides of Tomorrow for bonus scrap, Ozen, and lore, and their fast-paced nature makes their gameplay a bit more exciting. One might be gathering a ship’s loot before it sinks or outrunning a storm through a minefield. Unfortunately, these events feel like they end almost as quickly as they begin, and you’re pulled back into normalcy with no choice but to advance the story.

There are also stealth sections in Tides of Tomorrow that were very janky during the preview and, once again, exceedingly simple. In these sequences, enemies patrol areas with bright red cones of light in front of them that indicate their detection radius. The only problem is that not only are they incredibly easy to avoid, but the time it takes them to detect you makes sneaking past them even easier. To top it all off, Tides of Tomorrow‘s stealth sections are extremely short, with many of them lasting no longer than a minute due to their simplicity and the distance between their start and end.

Tides of Tomorrow leaning more on its story than gameplay also comes with the major downside of its poor voice acting. Some of its most prominent characters offer decent performances, but I found the vast majority of the game’s NPCs to be unbelievable during the preview. Generally, if a game has solid gameplay, it’s much easier to ignore rough or inconsistent voice work, but in a game where nearly every interaction, choice, and moment of progression is delivered through dialogue, those shortcomings become far more difficult to overlook.

Tides of Tomorrow Hands-On Preview: Final Thoughts

Despite some setbacks at the moment, Tides of Tomorrow still feels like a solid game made for players who care far more about narrative experimentation than mechanical depth. If you enjoy story-driven experiences where choice, perspective, and consequence matter more than combat systems or open exploration, there’s a lot here to be curious about. The idea of following different players and seeing how their decisions shape your own journey does give the game some inherent replay value, even if that curiosity comes more from wanting to see alternate outcomes than from enjoying the act of replaying its gameplay. How compelling that ends up being long term will likely depend on how invested players become in the stories left behind by others.

With Tides of Tomorrow set to launch on February 24, 2026, DigixArt still has a little over a month to smooth out some of the rough edges present in this preview. Certain issues, like shallow exploration and overly simple stealth, feel baked into the game’s design and may not change much before release. Others, like presentation hiccups and pacing problems, could improve with more polish. Regardless, Tides of Tomorrow stands out for its ambition alone, and whether it ultimately lands will come down to how much players are willing to meet it on its own narrative-focused terms rather than expecting it to behave like a more traditional game.

Released

February 24, 2026

ESRB

Teen / Violence, Blood, Language

Developer(s)

DigixArt

Multiplayer

Online Multiplayer

Tides of Tomorrow launches on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S on February 24, 2026. Game Rant was provided with a PC game code for the purposes of this preview.