The apocalypse happened, and mankind survived by diving deep, relocating onto a series of enormous submarines known as “Arks.” In tactical indie open worldRPGA Tale of Silent Depths,players take on the role of James Wett, the captain of one of the Arks. Their mission is simple: survive. As James and his crew explore the forbidding post-apocalyptic underwater world ofA Tale of Silent Depths,they will discover lost civilizations, ferocious monsters, and horrors beyond their comprehension.
Game Rant recently spoke to Tavern Tale co-founder andA Tale of Silent Depthslead programmer Eduardo Santos atGamescom LATAM 2025. Santos discussed the ongoing development process of the game, which received two grants from the Brazilian government and is currently planned for a 2026 release. He talked about developing the game’s undersea setting, the inclusion of HP Lovecraft-inspired eldritch horrors, and howA Tale of Silent Depthsblends open-world RPG and roguelike elements to create a unique gameplay experience.This transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Players Explore An Expansive Underwater World
Q: What drew you to the underwater setting ofA Tale of Silent Depths?
A:It’s something quite funny, because of the previous games we made at Tavern Tale. The first game we made was a mobile game about a squid underwater. Very simple, but it was underwater. And we’re like, it would be so interesting if you had something more elaborate, more serious. And we didn’t really like mobile development. It seemed so artificial, you know? So we were like, let’s go think. The first of our concepts wasSilent Depths.It’s so nice, theunderwater set, especially because it’s mysterious. You can’t really know what’s down there.
It started as an idea for something that was a bit more like elder gods. A little bit more horror. At the start, the game was very much a loose concept. We knew we wanted to do underwater. We knew we wanted to do agame about submarines, a post-apocalyptic world underwater, with a whole outer setting. But it was a bit loose on what the game was going to look like. I think that answers the question. There’s a lot to talk about this game.
Q: So the game description mentions you can be a trader, an archaeologist, a pirate, or anything between and beyond. Can you elaborate on that a little bit?
A:The game is very muchan open-world RPG. So the basic mechanic is, you’re on a submarine. You control your submarine, and have characters inside the submarine who are talking, who are exploring the world. They will comment to each other about things that are nearby. There are many rules to follow. At the start, you receive a mission in the complete version. In the demo, these aren’t available, it’s a bit rawer. But when you receive the first mission, it will direct you. Teach you how to play. And then it will say, okay, explore it, do what you want. And there are many routes you can follow.
For example, there are somebosses in the game you can find where you will not be directed to any of them. There is one, for example, that’s the ant queen. There is a giant hive of submarine shrimp ants in the game. And there will be many of them spread across the ocean, gathering resources in small hives. And eventually you discover this big hive, because you will find a great trail of ants that crosses the entire map. You eventually find it by exploring. And the ants will be walking. Where are the ants going? What are they? Where are they taking these resources?
If you follow them, you get to the great ant hive, and there’s a great ant queen there. It’s a very dangerous place, a very high level. But once you explore there, for example, you can kill the ant queen. You can justtry to get resources nearby. And there’s an item that’s called the incubator. It’s one of the directions you can go with the incubator, to take the DNA of creatures you kill, and you can spawn more of them. Can keep spawning them. There are some special incubators, and the incubator will allow you to spawn kills and get EXP. But you can spawn a powerful creature to get powerful drops and trade them. You see where this is going.
There are many options. You can just kill it. You can get the lore that’s in the environment. Many options. You can follow the story that the game has around the main area. The game has biomes. In the current version of the demo, it doesn’t have the biomes yet, but some of them are already ready on our end. The biomes, for example, there’s one that circles the whole world. “The Dark,” we call it. It’s basically an area of the game - have you seen the trailer for the game? The sonar? Well, basically, you have limited visibility in the game, and the sonar helps you deal with it.
Sometimes, you face situations, like in The Dark, where visibility will shrink, and the sonar might not work. Well, this is the idea of this “beyond.” If you go too close to the edge of the world, you face this place full ofeldritch creatures. Like, “you weren’t meant to be here.” You know, there are a lot of biome ideas, like the kelp jungle and the acid wasteland. I could really talk about this for hours.
Q: Overall, what was the design philosophy for the enemies and monsters players face in the ocean?
A:That’s an interesting question. Initially, we very much had an idea of following the lore we are building. So most of them kind of fit this lore. But eventually we got to a situation where, “Okay, we need to do a better progression for the game, and to place these creatures.” We basically thought aboutbuilding the biomesin a way that sort of fits a range-based approach. We initially designed the center of the map, the ruined wasteland, full of dead buildings, sand - a more standard underwater set, you’re able to imagine.
If you start going too far, you start finding other biomes. The hardest biome, the weirdest, is the edge one - “The Dark.” The farther you go from the center, the higher the chance that you will face harder enemies, but there are some twists. There’s aboss you may fight in the starting area, but you get all the hints that it’s coming. For example, it’s a very big boss, so you see the screen shaking. You’ll hear its steps. It’s very much about placing enemies that were first lore-based, then adjusting them to progression around the map. Because it’s an open world, you can’t really control where the player is going.
Combining Open-World Exploration And Roguelike Elements
Q:A Tale of Silent Depthshas some roguelike elements - how do those work in the game with the open world aspect?
A:The world is randomly generated. It’s permadeath - you die, you must restart. But it has someroguelite elements. For example, you unlock characters through some missions in the game that you’re able to play later. The first character, James Wett, is the main character. He’s the captain. He explores the world. He’s a very standard ship captain. Then, you have the High Priestess, Wilhelmine Brooks. She’s from the religious faction that tried to convert the whole ocean. When you meet her for the first time and defeat her with James, you unlock her as a playable character for future runs. Same thing for Malik, who is a trader, exploring the ocean, and trying to trade. His whole combat philosophy is about not directly attacking, but placing traps, trying to do some crowd control.
You have thisroguelike elementof unlocking characters, but there’s more, like the progression of upgrades. You get EXP from combat and from some trades, and there are some places where you’re able to exchange items for EXP. For example, there’s a priest who collects religious data about this faction I mentioned, and if you get the religious data to the priest, you get EXP. If you get enough EXP, you level up. Once you level up, your status will grow a little overall, and you’ll get a draft of upgrades. Depending on the level, you’re presented with either a game-changing upgrade, or an upgrade with some synergies, or just a stat change or attribute change. There’s a draft of upgrades, a randomly generated world, and permadeath, but meta-progression.
Q: How challenging would you say the game is designed to be overall, with its turn-based tactics?
A:It is meant to be challenging. We tried to make it in a way that it’s not hard to play, but it’s hard to master. We always had a focus, at Tavern Tale, on accessibility. We always try to placesupportive features, so players can customize how it plays. It’s very important that people are able to play every game. People like to play hard games. Play the game as hard as you want, but if you want to play a little easier, you’re able to. Why not? You bought the game.
We try to place as many features as possible. You can see, in the current demo, we don’t have these features applied, but in the next update, we will add some. The game was designed so you don’t need so much dexterity to play. Thecombat’s turn based. Even though the open world is not turn-based while exploring, the fiends are very slow. You can try to dodge, not engage. You can flee combat. The overall design was made to not be exclusive. Overall, the game is meant to be challenging if you want, but can be played a little bit easier.
A Tale Of Silent Depths’Continuing Development Journey
Q: What does the journey of getting the game to release look like for you right now?
A:We are looking for a publisher and investors. We are also looking for more government grants. It’s important to say thatA Tale of Silent Depthspassed through two government grants, public government grants from Brazil, that allowed it to get to its current state. If you go to theSteam page, there are two awards on the site. That’s based on those grants. So yeah, we are looking for more government grants. If everything goes correctly, we will probably be releasing next year.
Q: What does the work you have left to do on the actual game look like?
A:It’s basically content and polish. When you play the game, there might be some UX hiccups, and that’s what we’re working on right now in the game. But after that it’s basically content, content, and more content, because the base mechanics are all there. We have movement, we have upgrades, everything’s basically there. So it’s just more. More enemies, more items, that stuff, because thegame is an RPG, and there are a lot of things like that.
Q: Is there anything else you’d like to add aboutA Tale of Silent Depths?
A:Yeah, as I mentioned, the game went through two government grants. It’s a great experience.Brazilis working with many government grants. It depends on which state you’re in. I’m from Brasilia, in the Distrito Federal, the capital of Brazil. I am part of the game developer association and also a volunteer professor at the university. So I’m always very close to people who are joining the market and people who are building games. Some have been working for some time, and some are building their first game in a game jam.
And it’s good to see. You can imagine that it’s very nice to see how things are evolving. Because there were some challenges at first, especially because sometimes the government sector would not see games as culture or as startups. But eventually that started to be reversed, and we started to get much more support. I know that was a reality in other cities and states of the country, but I was very close with the development of things in Brasilia. It’s kind of part of the story the game went through.
We were approved for the first grant in 2021. Since then, we’ve been on and off on the game, always feeling like “Okay, we want to make this game great, but we need to survive as a studio.” So something we did was release some smaller horror games, trying to get a stable income. Working for hire, you know. [A Tale of Silent Depths]was our first project, but, since then, we have released five projects. So it’s a very interesting story. It’s a game that has evolved closely with us, in terms of design, programming, and experience. It’s a game we really love.
Q: Could you tell me a little bit about the five other projects you have released?
A:The first one wasMace: Mapinguari’s Temple.It’s amultiplayerAmong Us-like gamewith a twist. There’s a monster you’re going to encounter, and the impostor can control the monster. The second game wasOni Station.It’s actually a horror roguelike arcade game, where you are building a train. You need to get - suppose trains use gas, they don’t, but suppose they do - gas at stations, and you must keep going forward, because there’s a monster trying to get you.And you must get a higher score.
There wasAfterlight Catacombs,which was very similar toOni Station,but it wasn’t infinite. It was also procedurally generated. It’s a game about delving into a dungeon with just a torch, and there’s a creep that’s hunting you, but the creep doesn’t come near the torch. Essentially, that’sAfterlight Catacombs.Then there wasSpacepunk Survival,which we published with our partners from Nejcraft and First Peoples' Digital. It’s a boomer shooter multiplayer co-op game, kind oflikeCOD: Zombies,but with aliens and set on a space station.
The fifth game wasLittle Eden.A very simple game, started for Ludum Dare [game jam]. The theme of the Ludum Dare was “harvest.” We were like, “Okay, let’s create a game. What’s going to be the game? We don’t know. Oh, let’s make a game about a flying ship that’s a farm. That’s a good idea.” So, it’s atwin-stick shooterwith a spaceship. Then, you zoom in and there’s a farm on the spaceship where you create your ammo and stuff.
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A Tale of Silent Depthscurrently has a demo available on Steam.
