Game Review: They Breathe (Nintendo Switch)

A short and unusual game, what They Breathe lacks in length, it makes up for with its surreal and fascinating tale.

From The Working Parts, you take control of a frog as it descends into the depths of a flooded forest. How did it flood? That’s just one of the many questions you’ll be looking for as you swim deeper and deeper.

The further you head downwards, the stranger this world becomes and the more tragedy is revealed. It’s a bizarre universe, creepy and cold, empty and sad…it chills. The goal is simply to make your way to the very bottom.

Simple visuals, haunting music and straight-forward controls. It may have been originally released in 2011 but it doesn’t feel like an aged game.

To begin with you’ll simply swim down and grab air bubbles. Then, you’ll start to see other frogs appear and you’ll need to push them into air bubbles to save them. The first point of when They Breathe shows it’s not as simple as you might think.

Deeper and deeper, the strangeness really takes hold when steer like creatures appear. Touch them and you’ll be electrocuted (like a jellyfish) so you need to avoid them all while grabbing the air bubbles so the creatures can’t. Each new area becomes a race to consume air so the creatures can’t. A race to ensure they drown. Dark.

Where do these things come from? That will be revealed when you reach the bottom and the game’s shocking conclusion.

A classy atmospheric game with slight horror elements and a thick vein of tension running through it. It might only be around 30 minutes long but in that short time, They Breathe leaves an impression.