SEA OF SOLITUDE BLIND PLAY THROUGH CHAPTER ONE PART ONE BACK TO BLACK
1Sea of Solitude is an adventure video game developed by German[2] studio Jo-Mei Games and published by Electronic Arts. The player controls a young woman named Kay who suffers from such strong loneliness that her inner feelings of hopelessness, anger and worthlessness turn to the outside and she becomes a monster. As Kay the player explores a seemingly empty, flooded city and its scaly red-eyed creatures in order to reveal why Kay herself has turned into a monster. The emotions of her manifest into giant monsters standing in her way, trying to help but also destroy her. Kay needs to interact with and understand their underlying intentions in order to overcome the negative effects of those emotions. The game is in the core an inner dialogue of a person trying to come to terms with their own shortcomings.[3]
The quarrels between her parents, the emotional isolation of a friend and the terrible experiences of her brother being bullied are presented on a metaphorical level - the experiences hunt her as enormous monsters she now has to face, representing feelings like loneliness, depression, as well as fear and loss of attachment.[4] The city where the game takes place is based on Berlin. The developers announced the game online in February 2015. Its creative director, Cornelia Geppert, described the project, even though several parts of the game are not from her own past, as her most personal and artistic, in how it led her to probe her own fears and emotions following an emotional abusive relationship from 2014 to 2017.[5]
In March 2019, The New York Times highlighted the game as part of a growing trend in the video game industry towards tackling mental health issues.[5] Sea of Solitude is not meant to be fun in the classical meaning, its focus is on letting players experience what it feels like to be affected by loneliness, bullying, toxic relationships, depression and a troubling past. Gamers are put in the midst of the conflict, with a call to not only feel the effects but also to influence and change the actions.[6]
Electronic Arts published the game under its indie game program EA Originals.[3][7][8][9] The game's release was postponed from spring to summer of 2019[10] before having a set release date of July 5, 2019.[11]