Echoes of Mora is a first-person narrative adventure that takes players beneath the surface of a flooded Italian village, where a missing boy and the community’s dark folklore form the centre of a mystery spanning two timelines. Developed and published by Selkies Interactive, the game combines underwater exploration with environmental puzzles and a story about family, belonging and the consequences of a community’s prejudices. Rather than turning its submerged setting into a survival challenge, the game focuses on discovery, allowing players to investigate at their own pace. It is an appealing approach for a smaller narrative adventure, although its limited gameplay depth and short runtime mean that the experience relies heavily on the strength of its storytelling.
The story begins with Dario disappearing near a lake believed to be cursed. His younger sister, Mora, refuses to accept that he is gone and sets out to discover what happened, eventually finding herself caught up in the same mystery that swallowed her village. By the time players enter the picture, the settlement lies beneath the water, leaving behind abandoned homes, flooded streets and traces of the people who once lived there. The player takes the role of an unseen presence capable of crossing between the drowned present and the village’s past, helping Mora investigate through clues discovered along the way. It is an effective premise, particularly because the game avoids relying on conventional horror tropes to create tension. Instead, the unsettling setting gradually gives way to a more personal story, with Dario’s disappearance revealing uncomfortable truths about the people around him. The narrative has enough twists to sustain interest, while Mora’s determination makes her an engaging character to follow. However, the story does occasionally lean too heavily on familiar mystery-adventure conventions, and the short runtime leaves limited room for some of its characters and themes to develop fully.
The central mechanic revolves around the Echoes scattered throughout the underwater village. Players collect glowing fragments to activate portals that reveal moments from before the flood, offering glimpses of the settlement when its streets were still populated and its inhabitants were going about their lives. These sequences do more than provide background information: they gradually connect the village’s folklore, the relationships between its residents and the events surrounding Dario’s disappearance. Alongside the Echoes, players can discover Traces that reveal additional memories and everyday details, making exploration worthwhile even when an object does not directly advance the main story. The most interesting element is the opportunity to interact with Mora across time, sharing discoveries and responding to her questions as she pursues her brother. This creates a welcome sense of involvement in a story that might otherwise feel like a series of disconnected flashbacks. Unfortunately, the apparent freedom offered by these interactions is somewhat misleading. Dialogue choices can alter individual exchanges, but their broader consequences are limited, with the ending ultimately determined by a final decision rather than a substantial accumulation of earlier choices. Players looking for a branching narrative may therefore find the promised agency less meaningful than expected.
Outside the Echoes, Echoes of Mora is primarily an exploration game, with swimming replacing the walking found in more conventional walking simulators. The movement system allows players to navigate the submerged environment in multiple directions, searching houses, streets and hidden corners for objects that might unlock the next memory. On PC, keyboard and mouse or a controller can be used, and the generally relaxed pace makes it easy to spend time examining the surroundings. There is no oxygen meter, combat or constant threat of drowning, so the experience never becomes a survival game. That decision works well for the narrative, as players can concentrate on the mystery rather than worrying about resources or enemies. However, the swimming does not always feel particularly engaging, and the act of traveling between objectives can become repetitive. The glowing fish that help guide players towards relevant discoveries are a useful navigational aid, while highlighted objects prevent important clues from disappearing into the murky environment. Yet the guidance can also make exploration feel overly directed, and seeing the fish occasionally behaving erratically suggests that this system could be more reliable. The world encourages curiosity, but not every discovery is rewarding enough to justify the time spent searching.
The puzzles are similarly approachable, favoring straightforward environmental interactions over demanding logical challenges. Players might need to assemble an object from separate pieces, find items hidden around a building or arrange components to unlock a fragment. These activities provide a welcome break from swimming between story sequences, and their rewards usually contribute to the mystery rather than feeling like arbitrary obstacles. Nevertheless, the solutions are often obvious, with little room for experimentation or a genuine sense of accomplishment. The ability to pick up numerous objects, including items that have no practical purpose, adds a playful touch to the exploration, but it also highlights how much of the interaction is there simply because it can be. A deeper set of puzzles could have made better use of the unusual relationship between the present and the past. Likewise, the ability to influence Mora is an intriguing foundation that could have supported more substantial problem-solving. As it stands, the mechanics are accessible but rarely surprising, making Echoes of Mora better suited to players who value narrative progression over intricate gameplay systems.
Visually, the game makes a strong impression. The drowned village has a distinctive, melancholy atmosphere, with its silent buildings, submerged streets and aquatic vegetation creating a convincing sense of a place frozen in time. The contrast between the darker underwater environments and the brightly colored highlights used for interactive objects gives the world a clear visual identity without completely undermining its subdued mood. Returning to the past provides an effective contrast, allowing players to appreciate the life that once filled these spaces and making the disappearance of the village feel more tangible. Small environmental details and unexpected discoveries also reward players who take the time to look around rather than heading straight for the next objective. The presentation is not without limitations, and some environments can feel more like carefully arranged dioramas than a fully realised, interconnected settlement. Even so, the art direction does much of the work in establishing the game’s identity, and the underwater setting remains compelling throughout its relatively brief campaign.
The audio is another important part of the experience, although its effectiveness can vary. The soundtrack helps maintain the subdued, mysterious mood, while the voice performances give the characters a human presence that might otherwise be missing from a story told across fragmented memories. Mora, in particular, benefits from the contrast between her youth and her determination to find her brother. However, some dialogue delivery can feel uneven, and discrepancies between spoken lines and subtitles raise concerns about the consistency of the presentation. Sound mixing also has small issues, with music that is sometimes difficult to hear clearly. These issues are not enough to erase the strengths of the overall atmosphere, but they can weaken moments that depend on emotional delivery. In a game where conversations and environmental storytelling carry so much of the experience, clear dialogue and balanced audio are essential rather than optional refinements.
We also tried out the VR version, which makes sense for a game built around swimming through an abandoned village and physically interacting with objects. Being able to reach out towards the environment and move through the water from a more immersive perspective adds a different dimension to the exploration. The slower pace and uncomplicated puzzles are also a natural fit for virtual reality, where simply inhabiting the space can be part of the appeal. However, our experience suggested that the VR implementation still needs some polish. Swimming and interacting with the world do not feel consistently refined, and we saw some performance fluctuations and a lack of visual sharpness that can interfere with immersion. These are significant concerns for a format in which smooth movement and a stable image are particularly important. The underlying concept works well in VR, but the implementation needs further refinement before the additional immersion can be considered an unqualified advantage.
Ultimately, Echoes of Mora is a promising narrative adventure whose strongest qualities are its setting, its central mystery and the way its two timelines gradually illuminate one another. The flooded village is memorable, the story provides enough surprises to keep players engaged, and the combination of Echoes and Traces encourages a more thoughtful approach to exploration than simply following a sequence of objectives. At the same time, the simplistic puzzles, limited impact of dialogue choices and occasional presentation issues prevent the game from reaching its full potential. Its short campaign, which generally takes around two to three hours to complete, suits the self-contained nature of the story but may leave players wanting more, particularly if they are looking for substantial gameplay alongside the narrative. The VR mode offers an appealing alternative, though its current rough edges make it difficult to recommend without reservations. For players who enjoy atmospheric walking simulators and character-driven mysteries, Echoes of Mora is worth considering; those seeking challenging puzzles, meaningful branching decisions or a longer adventure may find that its strengths do not entirely compensate for its limitations.
Score: 7.0/10