The free-to-play ‘zombie’ shooter arrives on iOS bringing some very pretty graphics and a pretty unique control scheme.
Set after a ‘global catastrophe’, DeNA’s The Drowning sets players on a quest in a broken world against creatures spawned from toxic oil spills. That’s a pretty unique take on the now familiar ‘zombie’ villain, but it’s nothing compared to the control scheme.
DeNA has actually crafted a first-person control setup that only takes two fingers (on the same hand) to operate. Eschewing the familiar (and often times hard to use) ‘virtual sticks’ configuration that many iOS FPS’ use, The Drowning has bumped itself over to a multitouch control system that hopes to better make use of the native touch sensitivity of devices like smartphones and tablets.
“iOS is a spectacularly powerful gaming platform that is always accessible, and The Drowning was created from the ground up for core gamers who want a console-quality experience wherever they are,” said Ben Cousins, head of DeNA’s European studio operations and general manager of the Scattered Entertainment studio. “Our veteran development team set out to make The Drowning a platform-defining gaming experience with unmatched console-quality graphics combined with a new revolutionary control system that utilizes familiar Multi-Touch gestures. By using just two fingers on one hand, players can shoot, look, move and zoom with the same precision and control as they can with a console game controller.”
Personally, I have yet to play The Drowning, but the new control system sounds fantastic (on paper at least) and it’s certainly a very good looking game. If you’re at all interested, grabbing it off of the App Store isn’t exactly something that you’d really have to mull over either thanks to it being a free download. There are in-app purchases in The Drowning, so just be aware of that, but you definitely don’t have to make any to try out the control scheme.