ABZU

ABZU is a single-player dive, not a co-op trip: explore vivid marine ecosystems while schools of fish react to you and their surroundings. At Kinguin, it costs ≈ $5.53; that may suit you if a quiet game built around discovery is what you want. The Steam version has full controller support and eight interface languages, including English. A later sale is another option if you are not ready to start this ocean journey now. At $19.99 from Kinguin, you can compare the offer with Steam; the next announced Steam sale window is Dec 17, 2026 – Jan 4, 2027.

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93%Steam Reviews22.1K reviews83Metacritic/10079OpenCritic/100

Released: Aug 2, 2016

Relaxing · Atmospheric · Underwater · Exploration · Great Soundtrack

KinguinABZU PC Steam CD Key·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-20~~~ $22.44~~-75%from~ $5.53(~ €4.93)Save $14.46 vs SteamBuy now

GAMIVOAbzu EN/DE/FR/IT/PT/RU/ZH/ES Global·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-19-71%from~ $5.72(~ €5.10)Buy now

K4GABZU Steam CD Key·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-20~~~ $22.43~~-74%from~ $5.94(~ €5.29)Buy now

GOGABZU·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-20-49%from~ $10.18(~ CN¥68.00)Buy now

Steam·Platform:·United States Steam official price~ $19.99Buy now

Humble BundleABZU·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-20~ $19.99Buy now

Epic Game Store·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-14~ $19.99Buy now

Newegg·Platform:·Checked 2026-10-14~ $19.99Buy now

All-time low ~ $3.76across Steam & third-party stores

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Price History

Past 36 months · Updated daily

Historical Low~ $3.762024-12Current Low Across Stores~ $19.99GameBilletvs. Historical Low+432%

Prices cover Steam and 39 authorized stores; only legitimate offers are counted. The chart shows weekly market-wide lows and Steam's official price across the past 36 months.

01About ABZU

ABZU takes you underwater as a Diver in a vivid ocean world. Swim through detailed ecosystems, perform fluid acrobatics, and encounter schools of fish that respond to you and their surroundings. The descent brings encounters with many species, forgotten secrets, and dangers in the depths. Steam players rate it 93%% positive across 22,071 reviews. Release date: August 2, 2016.

Credits

Composer

Austin Wintory

Developer

Giant Squid

Publisher

505 Games

Steam player reviews

93%positiveVery Positive22,071 Steam reviews

Lowest recorded in 36 months

$3.762024-12-20 · GameBilletBase game · same records as the chart above; USD history, not a regional Steam low.

Language support

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Simplified Chinese	Yes	Yes	—
English	Yes	Yes	—
French	Yes	Yes	—

Show 5 more languages

Language	Interface	Subtitles	Audio
Italian	Yes	Yes	—
German	Yes	Yes	—
Spanish	Yes	Yes	—
Portuguese-Brazil	Yes	Yes	—
Russian	Yes	Yes	—

Steam PC edition data · 2026-10-20

02Before you buy

Play mode and controls

ABZU is listed as a single-player game on Steam and has full controller support. No multiplayer or co-op mode is listed.

Language

The Steam version lists eight interface languages, including English. Subtitles are listed for them; full audio is not listed.

03Frequently asked questions

What do you do in ABZU?

You explore a colorful underwater world, swim through detailed ecosystems, and encounter many species based on real creatures.

Can I play ABZU alone?

Yes. The Steam version is listed as single-player.

How does swimming work?

The Diver can swim gracefully and perform fluid acrobatics. Schools of fish respond to you, one another, and predators.

Popular Steam reviews

Native-language selection · 10 reviews

Selected helpful reviews in this language show both recommendations and criticisms. This selection does not represent the overall positive rating; opinions reflect the version reviewed.

RecommendedSteam player

06/03/2017

This is not really a game, it's an experience... Or is there something more? The game is tagged as 'Story-rich', so I was a bit bewildered when I started the game, and found no story at all. We're in the water, and we're told how to interact with the environment, and that is all. ie. Here's how to dive, click button X here... So where's the story? It took me a while to realize that I needed to slow down, to take the time to really look at my environment, to just... relax. This game is a dream come true for someone like me who loves to just enjoy the surroundings and take lots of screens - there are PLENTY photo of opportunities! Some of the things you can do to really connect with the environment: - Swim and explore - Latch on to larger aquatic life and "ride" with them - you can even steer them! - Flip, twirl, and glide through the water as you swim - Meditate Ahh, I should explain how the meditation works, shouldn't I. There are "meditation statues" scattered throughout the regions you will explore, and when you get close, you can sit on top of them and just... meditate. When you do so, you take on the perspective on a fish or school of fish, and just see what they see. You can jump about from one species to the next with ease, and take on new sights as you do so. Once you've unlocked a meditation spot, you can access it from the main menu if you'd like to revisit the area. In addition to enjoying the environs, you can also pursue: - 12 Achievements - 12 Meditation Statues - 20 Hidden Pools - 19 Secret Shells As you really delve into the depths, you'll find that there's more to the game than just relaxing and enjoying, but I don't want to spoil anything for you. As I mentioned, this is an experience. I will tell you that there were a couple of shocking moments, and a few moments of the purest awe for me. The way I felt when I was swimming with the humpback whales was indescribable. The majesty of some of these creatures was truly humbling, even in game form. Once you finish the game, you can replay any chapter you wish - especially nice if you want to find the things you've missed without replaying the whole thing. In the end, I discovered that there really IS a story to all of this, and I love that it wasn't at all what I was expecting. This is a game to take your time in and just enjoy. It's not a terribly long foray into the deep, but it is a beautiful and moving one. I'll definitely be revisiting this one. Highly recommended!Show moreShow less

5.4 hours at review622 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

09/07/2019

I really don't know what happened here. Am I missing something? This game seems pretty much universally praised, but it's... not good at pretty much anything it tries to do. For starters, the store page really wants to convince you that this is a very different game to Journey. It talks about the mysteries and the fish and the ocean. But the basic structure of the game is taken straight from Journey, the pacing of the game is pretty much exactly the same, and even many of the game's scenes are blatantly trying to recreate iconic scenes from Journey. But really, the biggest problem with the game is the utter lack of player involvement. The store page talks about the fish behavior, but there's no meaningful interaction you can have with the fish. You can ride some of the big ones, but there's no point to it. There's so much to look at, but nothing to see. The game is pretty much always propelling you to the next area, and never gives you any reason whatsoever to stop and look around. And frankly, when I did stop to look around, I mostly just saw a lot of sealife clipping into the geometry. The game also lacks any sense of motivation. Journey begins by giving you a beautiful shot of a mountain in the distance, and the game is also named "Journey." There's no ambiguity there as to what the game is about. What's the goal in Abzu? I've beaten the game twice and I still couldn't tell you in words. What are the stakes? I don't have the slightest idea. Even when the game introduces a "threat," you quickly find out that it can't actually kill you, so it immediately stops being threatening and just becomes annoying. The music in the game is pretty good, but that leads to borderline hilarious situations where the music does a great job of conveying how the game wants you to feel, while the game itself utterly fails to make you feel that way. For me, the one scene in the game that embodies everything wrong with it is the scene where the shark dies. Dramatic, sad music swells as your character solemnly runs their hand over the dying creature. The game clearly assumes you've developed a 'powerful connection' with the shark, as advertised on the store page. In reality, there are only two times you interact with the shark: in the very beginning when it destroys a companion drone of yours, and shortly before it dies, you save it from being crushed, and it swims away immediately after. I actually completely forgot about that second interaction during the death scene, and I can guess as to why: you acquire said companion drone by finding it buried in the sand, and then it follows you around. You need it to open up the path to progress, and it stays with you until the shark eventually eats it. I was significantly more upset at the drone's death than I was at the shark's, for the simple reason that I actually got to interact with it for a time. For the shark's death, the game is trying to capitalize on an emotional connection it never actually formed. I'll cap off my review by reminding everyone of the time Call of Duty: Ghosts was mocked for advertising its advanced fish AI as a selling feature, in no small part because "fish AI" is such an incredibly low bar. We've had "fish AI" in otherwise non-fish-related games for decades. I find it rather baffling that this game sells itself on, and receives so much praise for, the exact same thing we collectively mocked other games for bragging about. If the game really wanted to make a big deal out of the fish, why aren't the fish a core gameplay mechanic? Maybe base the game less off of Journey, and more off of something like Waking Mars, which has a very similar theme, but actually supports that theme through game mechanics. Or even base it off of flOw, which is another previous game by thatgamecompany (who made Journey). Instead, ABZÛ bases every aspect of itself off of Journey, while also seemingly not wanting to be Journey.Show moreShow less

3.5 hours at review158 people found this helpful

RecommendedSteam player

08/02/2016

beautiful. short but worth it. now we need journey and flower for pc.Show moreShow less

3.8 hours at review417 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

06/02/2017

While the game was beautiful and relaxing, and the story captivating I cannot recommend this for the current price. The game is too short. The game would get boring if it were longer, but it's too expensive for such a short game. So if it's on sale I recommend it, but not for full price.Show moreShow less

2.1 hours at review138 people found this helpful

Not recommendedSteam player

03/08/2017

Apparently "Abzu" (which is Sumerian for "Ocean of Wisdom") was developed in part by the art-director behind the PS3-exclusive "Journey", which I played a few years back. Both games share a similarity in style and tone, but where Abzu fails is in its gameplay and character. Abzu has you take on the role of a nameless and faceless diver (as opposed to Journey's nameless and faceless wanderer) as s/he/it traverses the wilderness and ancient ruins of beneath the sea after some unmentioned apocalypse (Journey was similar, except its environ was the desert). Both games lacked any conventional storytelling, relying only on un-translated pictograms scribbled on the walls of the aforementioned ruins, leaving it to the player to decide what it all meant at the end. Environmental effects - fish and currents in Abzu, wind and sand in Journey - are major components of the game, although both are more about the, well, journey than any struggle against monsters or puzzles. But there the similarities end. Abzu lacks in direction and character. In Journey, it immediately becomes evident what your goal is; there's a giant mountain in front of you and it is clear that the point of the game is to reach the top of this peak and - by doing so - discover something of the history of the world. There's no such driving force in Abzu; you eventually stumble across some giant doors and game-logic dictates that's you are probably expected to open them (because that's what you do in games) but there is little pushing you forward beyond that. Similarly, your diver avatar emits none of the same charm - evidenced through its animation and sounds - as the robed wanderer of Journey, resulting in far less attachment to the character. Simply stated, I was given no reason to care whether or not my avatar succeeded at its goal, which made it hard to keep playing the game to the end. The developers obviously hoped that the wonder of the environment would replace this lack, and admittedly the giant schools of fish were impressive... but only briefly. There's only so long that you can watch virtual fish swarm around before the excitement dims; for me, it took about ten minutes. The variety of fish might have been more impressive except for the fact that most fish look like other fish, and the few exceptions - the blue whales, the ichthyosaurus - just didn't offer enough in the way of interaction to keep up the required level of interest. The end result was another fairly dull "walking sim" that once again hoped that its environment could make up for its lack of story or gameplay. Once again, it could not. It's a game that - beyond its momentary and initial moment of colorful wonder - was a dull and purposeless trek through an unimaginative world.Show moreShow less

2.2 hours at review130 people found this helpful

Source: original Steam user reviews. Helpful votes are an archived snapshot, not live data. Last collected: 08/15/2026.