Tides of Tomorrow Review Roundup

Tomorrow's tide launches today on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S, and the first round of reviews is in. Initial review results for Tomorrow's tide varies quite a bit, but at the time of writing the game has a “strong” rating on OpenCritic based on 29 critic reviews.

First announced in June 2024, Tomorrow's tide is an asynchronous multiplayer first-person adventure game that sees players assume the role of a Tidewalker, a survivor of a catastrophic flood suffering from a condition that will soon turn their flesh into plastic. As players search for a cure in this watery world, they will encounter visions of how other real players interacted with the environment and its inhabitants. These interactions can then affect the player's experience, with quest conditions potentially changing and NPC behavior changing based on the previous player's actions. Tomorrow's tide has been developed by DigixArt, the studio behind games that Lost in Harmony, 11-11: Retold memoriesand Road 96.

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Tides of Tomorrow Hands-On Preview

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What Tides of Tomorrow reviews say

Tides of Tomorrow Tidewalker arrives at Pleasureland

There are currently 29 critic reviews for Tomorrow's tide on OpenCritic. These reviews range from 6/10 all the way up to 9/10, leading to a top critic average of 77 and a critic recommendation score of 61%. Although additional reviews may be added to the pool in the coming days, it is unlikely to change Tomorrow's tides OpenCritic scores too much.

Stevivor (Steve Wright) — Score: 9/10

Managing your own personal health can be quite stressful, let alone the state of the outside world. This is where Tides of Tomorrow excels, giving some choice in how its story unfolds, but creating a much tighter, much more polished experience compared to Road 96. It's a great development.

DualShockers (Shane Limbaugh) — Score: 8/10

With some exciting world-building and phenomenal choices, Tides of Tomorrow is a game that demands a real investment. It's not perfect by any standard, but it's good enough to draw you in and reward your time. Seeing everything through, even when it's tough, gives you a sense of accomplishment 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 not been perfected yet.

TechRaptor (Ashleigh Klein) — Score: 8/10

Overall, my time with Tides of Tomorrow was a truly refreshing experience, as the story kept me hooked as the pace began 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 by giving us freedom of choice when crafting our story… Where the problem lies is that it can be a cause for concern for players with visual impairments, and outside of its color vision settings, it doesn't have expansive accessibility features to tone it down.

TheGamer (Harry Alston) — Score: 7/10

I enjoyed my 15 or so hours with Tides Of Tomorrow, but I won't be replaying it. It's a game you could definitely replay if you're into it, because there are a lot of different choices you – and whoever goes before you – can make, but I feel like I've had my fill of the world and was generally happy with the outcome of my story. 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 some of its online story links? Probably, yes. But while I have a few annoyances, there's no denying that behind its unique, sometimes misguided, choices, there's a great story here that has kept me hooked.

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

Linking your playthrough in Tides of Tomorrow directly to the player before 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 heavy-handed storytelling, simplistic mechanics, and a loss of immersion caused by its own standout mechanic.

Based on these initial reviews, it seems Tomorrow's tideIts strongest feature is its overarching narrative. While Loot Level Chill claimed that the game featured “heavy-handed storytelling”, the vast majority of other reviews praised it Tomorrow's tides story and its natural sense of pace. Many reviews also praise Tomorrow's tides world-building, with it bringing forth unique concepts such as the “Plastemia” disease and turning it into the gameplay from moment to moment via environment and character design.

One element that, however, proves to be a bit more divisive is Tomorrow's tides Story-Link mechanic. This is the mechanic that allows players to see the past actions of another real player, and it is arguably one of the central elements that set Tomorrow's tide apart from the quantity. While some critics have heralded this Story-Link mechanic as innovative, others have said that it actively gets in the way of the game's narrative, ruining the possible choices in an area long before the player will encounter them themselves.

Rearrange the cases in the correct US release order.

Light (5)Medium (7)Hard (10)

Tomorrow's tideThe accessibility features have also been criticized by at least one outlet, with TechRaptor saying that the images of the player's “ghosts” displayed via the Story-Link mechanic could be a cause for concern for those with visual impairments. In the end, it sounds like it Tomorrow's tide has a strong narrative and an exciting central premise that doesn't always come through.