Hydrophobia is the first game to use Dark Energy's 'HydroEngine' water tech, which it describes as "a true physics simulation with emergent behavior which affects objects and characters in the scene with jaw-dropping authenticity." Procedural generation tech is also used, to keep the download size small.

The game is set aboard a city-sized cruise ship for the wealthy in an over-populated future world. As watery cities and socio-political theories go hand-in-hand, Hydrophobia takes a few cues from Thomas Malthus--an 18th century scholar who proposed several solutions to over-population--for elements of its backstory.

Neither a release date nor price are known yet.