I used to play a lot of Scuba Dive on the ZX Spectrum back in the day. It was great fun but I often wondered what a modern take on the concept would be like. Enter Mintrocket with Dave the Diver.

“Dave the Diver is a casual, singleplayer adventure RPG featuring deep-sea exploration and fishing during the day and sushi restaurant management at night. Join Dave and his quirky friends as they seek to uncover the secrets of the mysterious Blue Hole.”

Dave the Diver isn’t a new title, it was first released in 2023 on PC. Since then it has seen a release on the Switch and PlayStation over the years. Finally, Dave the Diver has made its way to the Xbox and I’ve been playing it… a lot. Before I get into this, please allow me to give you a little behind-the-scenes info on how I construct my reviews. I follow my own flexible template whenever I do a review. I’ll play the game for a few hours, depending on the type of game and how big it is, let’s say I play for around four to six hours. As I do this, I make some general notes on the game and things that I want to address. Then, I’ll play the game “properly”, without thinking about the review and just to experience the game as is. After which, I play the game with my blog open and write the review as I play. Then there is editing and such before the review is finally published.

Different games take different lengths of time. As an example, I have recently played and reviewed a short title that took me no longer than six hours to do from start to finish. Other games can take much longer, several days to cover, depending on the game and it’s content. However, regardless of how big or small a game is, my reviews always begin with that initial play for a few hours and note making. With Dave the Diver, that initial play and note making didn’t take a few hours, it took four days. Honestly, I really should’ve had this review done a week or so ago, but I kind of got stuck in that middle bit on my review template where I just play the game without thinking about the review, just to experience the game… for over a week. Dave the Diver has sucked me into its charm and really impressive gameplay like no other game has done for such a long time.

Let me just cover the basics first. You play as Dave, and he’s a diver. During the day, Dave dives into the Blue Hole, a very, very deep segment of the sea that houses a lot of secrets and surprises. While under water, you do a spot of exploration and fishing. Using his trusty harpoon, Dave can shoot at fish and pull them in. Under the sea, you’ll find numerous fish from tiny little seahorses, to big sharks, and even massive boss fights with a giant squid and such. Along with his harpoon, Dave can find a selection of other weapons. Knives, swords, pickaxes, rubber chickens (don’t ask) that can be used for close combat melee attacks. There are also guns, underwater rifles, sniper rifles, and more, for longer range attacks.

Anyway, playing as Dave, the general idea is for you to gather fish and take them up to your boat. You can dive twice during the day, once in the morning and once in the afternoon. When night comes, you take all of those fish that you have gathered and use them as ingredients to help run a sushi restaurant. This is the basic gameplay loop. You dive, fish, sell sushi.

Yet, as simple as this basic gameplay loop is, Dave the Diver is brilliantly deep (no pun intended). There’s so much going on here that this is going to have to be quite a lengthy review. The two distinct parts of the game, diving/fishing and selling sushi, offer very different gameplay mechanics, but they meld together perfectly and the more you play, the more the game opens up, and this offers more and more gameplay mechanics and content to enjoy. There is an ongoing story, that I’m not going to spoil here, but it does involve discovering a race of long forgotten sea people. Think the lost city of Atlantis kind of thing. It’s a really great story that is told well with humour and a little pathos. What is so damn great about Dave the Diver is that, you don’t have to follow the story if you don’t want to. You will have to stick to the main plot to unlock some elements of the game, but you are free to explore at will. Even though the game is split into days and time does advance whenever you dive, you can still ignore the main plot if you wish and take in some of the other aspects that the game offers… which I will get into soon enough.

For the diving, you have four basic pieces of equipment (though others can be unlocked later). First is your air tank. As you’ll be spending a lot of time underwater, being able to breathe would be nice. Your O² tank will deplete the longer you stay in the Blue Hole. It’ll also deplete if/when you take damage. Think of your air tank as a health bar. No more oxygen and Dave will be in big trouble. You can survive running out of O² and you’ll be pulled out of the sea, but you’ll lose all but one of the items that you picked up. In short, don’t run out of oxygen. Second, you have your diving suit. This really determines nothing more than how deep you can dive, which, starting out, is not very deep at all. The third piece of equipment is your cargo box. Your inventory and how much stuff (by weight) you can carry. Again, this is not much at the start and you will be quite limited with how much you can bring back to the surface. The fourth piece of equipment is your harpoon gun, your main form of attack and what you will use to capture any fish.

All of your equipment can be upgraded using money that you make from the sushi restaurant. The air tank can be made bigger to hold more O², meaning you can stay underwater longer and take more damage. Your diving suit can be upgraded to allow you to dive deeper. At first, you’ll only be able to dive a few feet, then a few dozen feet, then a few hundred feet. The deeper you dive, the rarer and more interesting the fish you will find, along with more dangers. This gives the game a bit of a risk vs reward angle as the rarer and better the fish, the better sushi it’ll make and the more money you have to spend on upgrades. The cargo box can be upgraded to hold more weight, meaning that you can bring much more to the surface. Then there’s the harpoon gun, that you can upgrade to do more and more damage, making it easier to catch the fish.

And that’s just the four basic pieces of equipment, there’s so much more that Dave the Diver has to offer. As you play, more game options and mechanics are introduced (like night diving), and it’s not just all about diving and fishing, let’s not forget that sushi restaurant. You have to help run it. You set the menus based on what ingredients you have in stock. The better the dishes, the more money they will make, which will help to build your reputation. You don’t have to do any of the cooking, you have a very talented chef to do that, but you will have to serve the customers. As your restaurant grows, you can hire and train staff to keep up with demand. There’s a ton of cosmetics that you can use to change the décor and improve the look of the place too. Attract more customers, sell better and better food, make more money.

That is how the diving/fishing and restaurant management works. But Dave the Diver has a ton more going on than just those two elements. As you play and progress through the story, you’ll meet new characters. Each of these characters will offer a new gameplay mechanic or element. You meet a guy who can craft weapons and eventually, upgrade them. There’s another who wants you to take photos of any interesting and amazing underwater creatures. You’ll be tasked to gathering things like shells and coral for research purposes by another character. Eventually, you’ll oversee and manage a fish farm and a normal farm where you can grow vegetables and rice in a rice paddy, which can then be used to improve your sushi. I wrote “normal farm” there because you’ll also have an underwater farm.

V.I.Ps will turn up at the sushi restaurant and want a very special meal that you’ll have to source ingredients for. You’ll be tasked with hunting down a great white shark called Klaus that killed someone’s husband many years ago (I wonder what that is in reference to?). More and more, Dave the Diver just keeps giving you more to see and do. Don’t forget, this is on top of the main story and I’ve still not covered everything that the game has to offer, I’ve not covered the seahorse racing, the poker inspired card game that is massively addictive and immense fun, or that Godzilla is in the game (not a spoiler, it’s a free DLC) and more. Oh, and another free DLC with a Dredge crossover. There’s so much to do and yet, everything is brilliantly designed so that you never feel overwhelmed. Because there’s no real time limit, you can just chill out and take on any of the many, many tasks at your own leisure. You can just stick to the main story and ignore all of the side-quests and such, or you can ignore the main story and enjoy everything else that the game has to offer.

Then there’s the graphics and presentation. The pixel art is fantastic and highly detailed. Just swimming around in the Blue Hole is a joy in itself. Seeing all of the different species of fish, tiny little swimmers to big sharks and whales… to gigantic bosses. Looking at the underwater plant life and seeing how it reacts to you and the environment. There are the cinematics, wonderfully over-the-top, and humorous animations when something major happens in the story, or when your sushi chefs comes up with a new dish and such. Coupled with plenty of humour, Dave the Diver will have you laughing… a lot. There’s one character you meet who is supposed to be a conversationist who thinks that you are damaging the underwater environment. Yet, every time you meet (which is several times) he does more damage than you do.

Dave the Diver is out now and depending on which version you go for (PC, Switch, PlayStation or Xbox) you can pick it up at a decent price if you shop around. This game is stuffed with content and gameplay, so much so that even the end credits are a mini-game, and I think that this little indie game puts a lot of massive AAA titles to shame with how damn great it is. I got to the end credits with a total playtime of 1 day, 19 hours and 27 minutes and there were still several side-quests that I didn’t see through to the end. Even though the game lets you play after the credits to mop up anything you may have missed, I decided to start another playthrough instead to go for 100% completion. Almost 2 days of total playtime the first time around, and I want to do it all again.

If you pushed me to find a flaw, like really pushed me, I would highlight the aiming mechanics. The aiming does work fine in the game, it’s just a wee bit fiddly. You have to hold down a button to use the weapon (harpoon or gun) and this brings up an aiming reticule. You can’t aim directly above or bellow Dave (slightly annoying), just at, roughly, 45° angles to the left or right of Dave, above or below. Then, while still holding down the button, you move the left stick up and down to aim, this means that you can’t move while aiming. Finally, you have to press another button, while still holding the first button and aiming, to fire the weapon. All the while, the right stick is sitting there doing nothing. I just think it would make more sense to use a twin-stick aiming mechanic to be much smother… and you could move while aiming. Still, this is only a minor niggle that I personally have and I never came across anything major that needs bringing up.

All games are developed, some are lovingly crafted. Dave the Diver falls into the latter. This game is so beautifully, lovingly designed and put together that this indie title from 2023 is my favourite game of 2025. Bring on the jungle DLC next year.