They Breathe Anew — They Breathe News

Five years on from its Steam release, They Breathe is still dear to our hearts. Without giving away too much, it does things in its 30 minute runtime that no other game has done, probably things no game will ever do again. To honor those things, The Working Parts have been preparing a remaster over the past year, rebuilt from the ground up in Unity and featuring scores of tweaks and improvements that we hope warrant a return trip to the bottom.

The remaster is headed for new platforms like Mac, iOS and Android, but for this Environment Day we are kicking things off where it all started, featuring the new version as a totally free update to the Steam game on Windows! You can still choose to launch the Classic version when you start the game, but then you'll miss out on all of the below. Okay, let's see if we can do this without spoilers...

Updated artwork, effects and ”3D” lighting for a slicker and more chilling look
Retooled backgrounds and foregrounds
The game can be played entirely with the mouse
Support for vertical screens (looks so good we actually made this the default on phones)
Largely reworked progression of creature encounters
Major changes to behaviour of ”green” creatures, creating fresh gameplay situations
New effects clarifying the electric nature of certain creatures
New effects that make it much easier to gauge creatures' oxygen levels
Reworked frog behaviours to make saving them fairer (but still not necessarily a realistic undertaking...)
Reworked control restrictions when player oxygen runs out – more in line with other frogs
Tiny bubbles from the screen edge give away the position of upcoming air bubbles, making planning easier
Overly flashy new intro screen
We do a small new thing with legs
Tweens, tweens, tweens – the remaster is all about soft, smooth movement, and the sudden pops that marred the original's animation are a thing of the past
Overall tweaks of random factors that you'll never notice, but greatly reduce the risk of boring, confusing and overly unfair things happening. As a result, the difficulty level is more consistent, and generally a bit easier.
Plus tons of other minor surprises

See it in action in the new trailer here.

If you've descended into the forest before, we hope you'll take this free opportunity to see this old gem in a new light. And as always, take care to let the newcomers discover the world beneath the surface for themselves. If this is your first time making the plunge, then, well...

The Working Parts wish you good luck!

This announcement was written and published by the developers/publisher of They Breathe on Steam; it is mirrored here unedited for readability, with full credit and a link to the original above. © the respective rights holders. Rights holder and want it removed? Email us — we take it down promptly.