DigixArt, the minds behind the brilliant Road 96, are back. We recently got our hands on an early build of their latest project, Tides of Tomorrow, to see what kind of weird and wonderful experience they’ve cooked up this time. Moving away from dusty highways, the studio is now tossing us into a vast, unforgiving ocean. Here is how the voyage is shaping up so far.
🔑 Core Features
- Asynchronous Multiplayer: Your world state is directly shaped by the consequences of a previous player’s run.
- The Plastemia Crisis: A unique ecological threat where the world’s flora and fauna are literally turning into plastic.
- Visual Echoes: A ghost-data mechanic allowing you to witness the past decisions of the players whose timeline you inhabit.
- Dynamic Faction System: Complex, intertwining relationships with rival survival groups competing for dominance.
- Nautical Survival: Core loops requiring careful navigation, resource scavenging, and inventory management.
A Plastic Fate
Welcome to an ocean world that has seen much better days. Following a massive, planet-flooding catastrophe, the remaining slivers of life are now facing extinction by “plastemia.” It’s a grim, highly contagious disease driven by extreme pollution that slowly calcifies living creatures into solid plastic. Naturally, you are not immune.
You step into the boots of a mysterious nomad, forced to island-hop across floating trash-settlements. Your main objective is to hunt for a cure, all while managing the harsh elements of the open water and dealing with the unpredictable survivors who call it home.
Tracing Footsteps
Tides of Tomorrow ditches traditional co-op for an asynchronous multiplayer system it calls “Story-Link.” Instead of teaming up live, you draft behind a previous player—be it a friend, a favorite streamer, or a complete stranger.
The catch? Their decisions permanently scar the world you inherit. The environments, NPC attitudes, and even branching narrative paths shift dramatically based on whether your predecessor was a saint, a tyrant, or just indifferent. You’re left to navigate the fallout of their choices. To help you anticipate the mess you’re walking into, certain locations feature “echoes”—holographic ghosts that give you a brief glimpse into the previous player’s actions.
Conceptually, it’s fascinating. In practice, it can be a headache if the person ahead of you decided to play like an absolute menace, actively sabotaging relations and making your journey significantly harder. Fortunately, DigixArt has implemented narrative safety nets. If a specific timeline becomes too frustrating, the game offers perspective shifts, or you can simply sever the tie and follow a different player’s wake.
A Fractured Society
Navigating Elynd’s choppy waters means dealing with desperate people pushed to the absolute brink. You’ll encounter various factions fighting tooth and nail for dominance. Some run a ruthless monopoly on medicine and trade, others are blindly optimistic about building a utopian future, and some are zealots obsessed with worshipping the pre-flood past. Every interaction feels tense, and your moral compass will be constantly tested as you decide who to help and who to leave adrift.
💡 DigixArt Fun Facts
- The Valiant Origin: DigixArt was founded in 2015 by Yoan Fanise, the co-director of the BAFTA-winning masterpiece Valiant Hearts: The Great War.
- Music First: The studio’s debut game, Lost in Harmony (2016), was heavily driven by music, featuring collaborations with Wyclef Jean.
- Award Sweepers: Their breakout hit, Road 96, absolutely swept the Pégases Awards (the French equivalent of the video game BAFTAs) in 2022, taking home five trophies including Best Indie Game.
Plasticpunk Vibes
Visually, Tides of Tomorrow strikes a clever balance between the sweeping, melancholic beauty of the ocean and the morbid reality of total ecological collapse. There’s a strange, unsettling charm to the game’s floating shantytowns built entirely from ocean garbage. This “plasticpunk” aesthetic is backed by stellar audio design and a moody soundtrack that perfectly captures the feeling of being completely isolated, yet strangely tethered to the players who came before you.
Leaving a Mark
Tides of Tomorrow has the bones of a standout narrative adventure. DigixArt isn’t afraid to experiment with how we influence each other’s single-player experiences, using its shared-world mechanics to tell a heavy story about environmental ruin and moral ambiguity. Every playthrough promises to be uniquely mutated by the community. We’re eager to see just how chaotic these timelines get once the floodgates open to the public.
📋 The ID Card
- Developer: DigixArt
- Publisher: THQ Nordic
- Engine: Unity
- Platforms: PC (Consoles TBA)
- Release Date: 22 April 2026
- Genre: Narrative Adventure / Asynchronous Survival
Dev & Play Media 
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