Close Menu
  • Login
  • Support Us
  • Newsletter
  • News
  • Features
  • Interviews
  • Reviews
    • Video Games
      • Previews
      • PC
      • PS5
      • Xbox Series X/S
      • Nintendo Switch
      • Xbox One
      • PS4
      • Tabletop
    • Film
    • TV
    • Anime
    • Comics
      • BOOM! Studios
      • Dark Horse Comics
      • DC Comics
      • IDW Publishing
      • Image Comics
      • Indie Comics
      • Marvel Comics
      • Oni-Lion Forge
      • Valiant Comics
      • Vault Comics
  • Podcast
  • More
    • Event Coverage
    • BWT Recommends
    • RSS Feeds
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram
Support Us
But Why Tho?
RSS Facebook X (Twitter) YouTube
Trending:
  • Features
    Momo and Okarun share a close moment in Dandadan

    Momo And Okarun: The Gold Standard For Shonen Romance

    07/03/2025
    Ironheart Episodes 4 6 But Why Tho 1

    ‘Ironheart’ Explained: Explore MCU’s Bold New Chapter

    07/01/2025
    Buck in 9-1-1

    ‘9-1-1’ Has To Let Buck Say Bisexual

    06/29/2025
    Nintendo Welcome Tour promotional image of the maraca mini-game

    The One “Game” That Justifies The Nintendo Switch 2 Purchase

    06/25/2025
    Destiel Confession in Supernatural - Castiel (Misha Collins) and Dean (Jensen Ackles)

    The Destiel Confession: The Lasting Importance Of Supernatural’s Greatest Ship

    06/22/2025
  • Squid Game
  • K-Dramas
  • Netflix
  • Switch 2 Games
  • Summer Game Fest
But Why Tho?
Home » PC » REVIEW: ‘FAR: Changing Tides’ Nearly Nails It (PC)

REVIEW: ‘FAR: Changing Tides’ Nearly Nails It (PC)

Arron KluzBy Arron Kluz02/21/20225 Mins ReadUpdated:05/25/2022
FAR Changing Tides Review 1
Share
Facebook Twitter Pinterest Reddit WhatsApp Email

FAR Changing Tides Review 1

FAR: Changing Tides is a new adventure game developed by Okomotive and published by Frontier Foundry. It is a sequel to 2018’s FAR: Lone Sails and follows a child exploring a flooded world in a steampunk ship. To survive and complete your journey, you have to solve puzzles, gather fuel to keep your engine running, make repairs, and upgrade your ship as you explore and find symbols and stories left behind.

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here

The main attraction of Changing Tides is its atmosphere. A culmination of visual and audio design, the solitude of experiencing the journey is sublimely desolate. Calming music underscores a muted color palette of rolling waves, raining skies, and the ruins of the old civilization that brought about the death of the world. There are prolonged moments of silence to reflect on the state of the game’s world and the remnants of civilization you discover along the way. 

The motifs of Changing Tides are by far its biggest success. It perfectly encapsulates the anxiety that many people currently feel regarding the ever-present threat of climate change. For millennials and younger generations, there is an accurate feeling of helplessness. In the real world, greed drove those that came before to pursue profit regardless of the consequences, and those who have to bear the impact of the consequences the most have the least amount of power to change it or improve things. 

Changing Tides is completely void of dialogue, instead its delivering its narrative through murals. Yet, despite the lack of dialogue, it communicates helplessness with amazing accuracy. You can’t help but confront the collapsed state of the world as you quietly pass through it, a tourist in the waste left behind.

Your time sailing isn’t always spent in reflection, however. At first, your ship is equipped with only a sail, but it eventually receives numerous upgrades that give it different abilities like an engine and a crane to grab objects from underwater. To keep these running, you have to manage your fuel resources and the state of your ship. You gather fuel outside of your boat and can use that to power it, but you also have to manage things like its positioning, keeping the engines cool, and repairing any parts that break. 

Throughout the journey, you also encounter numerous puzzles requiring you to manipulate rusted machinery and structures. You’ll open gates by charging systems, navigate underwater tunnels, and even destroy buildings to continue progressing. These puzzles are a great way to mix up the pacing of Changing Tides, and they serve as the primary way for the game to detail what brought the world to flooding through cryptic clues. 

However, some of the puzzles can be too obtuse. The game doesn’t have tutorials beyond a few subtle messages telling you the controls early on. This sparsity continues into the puzzles and learning each of your ship’s new systems and upgrades, which really helps the game’s progression feel rewarding and natural. However, when it comes to the puzzles, this oftentimes results in only finding the solution by just trying every available option. For example, rather than knowing that your ship needed to go fast enough to ram through the obstacle, I found myself trying it simply because I had already tried everything else. 

The only other issue with the game is its length. FAR: Lone Sails was criticized by some for being too short at only three hours. FAR: Changing Tides addresses this and offers a healthy bit more content, but it doesn’t always justify it. During my playthrough, there was more than one instance where I thought the journey was over and would have been more than satisfied for the game to end, but then it would continue. As the game goes on, new mechanics become more widely spaced apart, information and insights into the setting almost entirely disappear, and the puzzles become much more simple. This results in the game ending on a much more sour note than the earlier content deserves because boredom inevitably starts settling in. 

The appropriate length for video games can be a contentious topic. There is a delicate balance to find between only taking as much time as you need for a game’s journey and offering players enough to get their money’s worth. For many, a game with too short of a runtime simply isn’t worth it, but I am a strong believer that the quality of the time spent with a game is more valuable than the quantity. Much of what is present in Changing Tides is plainly fantastic, but it is a shame that the game goes on for too long until it itself runs out of fuel and sputters across the finish line. 

FAR: Changing Tides releases on March 1 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S. 

FAR: Changing Tides
  • 7/10
    Rating - 7/10
7/10

TL;DR

Much of what is present in Changing Tides is plainly fantastic, but it is a shame that the game goes on for too long until it itself runs out of fuel and sputters across the finish line. 

Share. Facebook Twitter Pinterest LinkedIn WhatsApp Reddit Email
Previous ArticleREVIEW: ‘Bungo Stray Dogs: BEAST,’ Volume 2
Next Article ADVANCED REVIEW: ‘Ghost Rider,’ Issue #1
Arron Kluz

Arron is a writer and video editor for But Why Tho? that is passionate about all things gaming, whether it be on a screen or table. When he isn't writing for the site he's either playing Dungeons & Dragons, watching arthouse movies, or trying to find someone to convince that the shooter Brink was ahead of its time. March 20, 2023

Related Posts

Persona5: The Phantom X promotional image
9.0

REVIEW: ‘Persona 5: The Phantom X’ Captures The Persona Spirit

07/05/2025
Battle Train promo art
8.5

REVIEW: ‘Battle Train’ Provides Laughs and Strategic Wins

06/19/2025
Key art from FBC Firebreak
5.5

REVIEW: ‘FBC: Firebreak’ Is A Good Concept Bogged Down By Tedious Gameplay

06/17/2025
Gundam Seed Battle Destiny Remastered promotional art from Bandai Namco
6.0

REVIEW: ‘Gundam Seed Battle Destiny Remastered’

06/14/2025
The Alters
9.0

REVIEW: ‘The Alters’ Is the Journey of Several Lifetimes

06/12/2025
Date Everything!
7.5

REVIEW: ‘Date Everything!’ Delivers Connections Without Limits

06/12/2025

Get BWT in your inbox!

Subscribe to our weekly newsletter and get the latest and greated in entertainment coverage.
Click Here
TRENDING POSTS
Taecyeon and Seohyun in The First Night With The Duke Episodes 7-8
7.5
TV

REVIEW: ‘The First Night With The Duke’ Episodes 7-8

By Sarah Musnicky07/03/2025

The First Night With The Duke Episodes 7-8 spends welcome time in pre-domestic bliss before new developments stir up trouble.

The Terminal List: Dark Wolf trailer First Look Image From Prime Video News

Prime Video Unleashes Teaser for Prequel Series The Terminal List: Dark Wolf

By Kate Sánchez07/04/2025

The first Terminal List: Dark Wolf trailer was released today by Prime Video. The series…

Together (2025) still from Sundance
8.0
Film

REVIEW: Have A Grossly Good Time ‘Together’

By Kate Sánchez01/27/2025Updated:07/04/2025

Dave Franco and Alison Brie’s Together (2025) is disgustingly funny, genuinely ugly, and just a good time at the movies.

Black Women Anime — But Why Tho (9) BWT Recommends

10 Black Women in Anime That Made Me Feel Seen

By LaNeysha Campbell11/11/2023Updated:12/03/2024

Black women are some of anime’s most iconic characters, and that has a big impact on Black anime fans. Here are some of our favorites.

But Why Tho?
Facebook X (Twitter) Instagram Pinterest RSS YouTube Twitch
  • CONTACT US
  • ABOUT US
  • PRIVACY POLICY
  • SUBSCRIBE TO OUR NEWSLETTER
  • Review Score Guide
Sometimes we include links to online retail stores. If you click on one and make a purchase we may receive a small contribution.
Written Content is Copyright © 2025 But Why Tho? A Geek Community

Type above and press Enter to search. Press Esc to cancel.

But Why Tho Logo

Support Us!

We're able to keep making content thanks to readers like YOU!
Support independent media today with
Click Here