Acuatico takes you into the depths of the ocean to save the human race by strategically building an underwater city. Aquatico has a unique vertical layered construction system which you don’t see often in city builders. It also features regional-based biomes with various temperatures and depth levels that impact how players build their underwater civilization. Published by Overseer Games and developed by Digital Reef Games Aquatico dropped its 1.0 release on January 12th2023, at $24.99.
I absolutely love the aesthetics of this game; it creates a vibe like no other. I do wish there was a bit more ocean life roaming around to make things more exciting, but you can’t have it all. The textures and design of the maps, buildings, and other elements are on point. I do feel super immersed in this world I am creating. It has a minimalistic sound package that sets the deep underwater ambiance which will make you lose track of time easily.
We started the review at version 1.0 on normal difficulty but there have been 2 small patches up to the point of this review. Early through mid-game is definitely missing some action. We could really use more special events, disasters, or objectives to help pass the time in between our research. I felt like I was caught in a loop at times due to constantly being gated by research when nothing else was going on. By year 9 we had only had a few shark attacks which were easily repelled by the defensive buildings.
I did enjoy the level of sub-management that some of the buildings feature. If you are really into crunching numbers, you will like this game. The dynamic between the trading post and trading company allows you to min-max your resources and make the game move much quicker once they are pumping. Buildings like the cage and underwater field allow you to harvest different types of food you can use to trade. It gets much deeper as you go (Puns)!
Your houses create the vertical layered construction experience which has the illusion of playing two games. Outside the houses, you’re essentially building an underwater machine designed to be efficient and produce. Inside the houses, you are building a livable city where your citizens gather and enjoy their lives. It’s a really good feeling when you switch building modes, the drastic change in styles keeps your attention on the game.
A lot of the small bugs we encountered early on but were patched by the end of the first week. After this, we experienced a very smooth gameplay experience for the most part. We did run into some small issues here and there but nothing game-breaking. Cheers to having ultrawide monitor support!
If you are in it for the management aspect of min-maxing and watching it all grow, this game is ready for you today. If you enjoy the special events and narrative aspects of city builders then you might not enjoy this game so much at this moment. I do think the game is in a great place at the moment and I am hopeful that future updates will add some of the exciting content it is missing. As it stands today the game is definitely worth the $24.99.