Project Into the Void

Project Into the Void is a first-person saturation diving simulation, blending realistic deep-sea industrial work with subtle psychological horror. What is saturation diving? It is people who live and work on the bottom of the ocean. This is one of the most extreme jobs on the planet. These commercial divers descend thousands of feet to the ocean floor to do hands-on industrial work — repairing pipelines, maintaining rigs, welding steel — in total darkness, under crushing pressure. But the bottom of the ocean is not meant for human beings. Down here, breathing normal air will kill you. To survive, divers breathe a specialised gas mixture of oxygen and helium (called Heliox or Nitrox, depending on depth). Because of the immense pressure, these gases fully saturate their bodies, enabling them to stay on the ocean floor for weeks at a time — this is also why it's called saturation diving. They live in small, claustrophobic, pressurised steel chambers called diving bells, because returning to the surface and repressurizing can take longer than an astronaut returning from the Moon. Each diver is kept at pressure on the ocean floor for up to four weeks at a time, working continuously, only returning at the end of the shift. Project Into the Void puts you in the boots of one of these divers. Take on commercial contracts from major energy and mining corporations. Study each contract carefully — the pay, the weather report, and the environmental conditions (expected current strength and visibility) — since these directly determine how hard the job ahead will be. Then descend in the diving bell to the ocean floor, check your mission brief, and gear up before stepping out into the black void of the deep ocean. You'll drift down to the seafloor connected only by your umbilical — a cable that supplies your gas mixture, warm water to keep you from freezing, power for your lights and tools, and your radio link back to the surface. It's your lifeline. Once you land, check the compass on your wristwatch to hold your heading, since visibility can drop to zero, then set out on foot, guided only by your torch, until you reach the job site. Throughout, keep an eye on your umbilical — a snag can cut off your gas, warmth, or power in an instant — and monitor your life support on your wristwatch. Down here, the margin for error is incredibly small, and a single mistake can very quickly turn fatal. Complete the job, welding a structural tear, inspecting a pipeline, repairing a valve, then return to the bell before something goes wrong. Success earns you the contract's payment, plus skill points that upgrade your saturation diving license. A higher-tier license unlocks contracts from bigger corporations, better pay, but greater depths, worse conditions, and lower visibility. But the deeper you go, the stranger it gets. Over 95% of the ocean remains unexplored. What we have found down there is pure nightmare fuel: colossal and giant squids with eyes the size of dinner plates, anglerfish luring prey with their own glowing lure, goblin sharks with jaws that snap forward to seize their catch, bristle worms that lie in wait to slice their prey in half. And zombie worms, that survive by devouring the bones of the dead from below. And if this is what we've found in the 5% we've explored imagine what could be lurking in the other 95% of darkness?