Lore: You are working for this company that researches the deep. One day you are given the task to chart any signs of life and during the trip your traveling ship gets taken down by some creature. As you travel deeper in the depths below you find an opening that leads to an interdimensional portal leading to the bottom of the depths. That’s it for now.
Gameplay ideas: Before your ship is taken down, have the player be able to fix and repair any leaks. Also, let the player use a radar that tracks where you are.
As you are returning with your fiends after a successful mining venture, the bridge beneath you gives way. When you wake, you find yourself in a small pool of water, with the corp$e$ of your friends impaled on the rocks around you. With only a small lantern to guide you, you must crawl your way out of this dark abyss, but beware! It is rumored that a undead creature lurks here, the remnant of some forgotten civilization.
Because of this, you stumble through decayed ruins at points in your journey, overgrown with vines that seem to have been c0rrupted by whatever is sustaining the remnants of the city’s people, causing the vines to morph into something vaguely resembling your own form. SIDE QUEST: Following a side passageway revealed by triggering a secret switch hidden in a maze of vines, you discover the embodiment of the c0rruption, at least what is c0rrupting the plants, not the zombies. It is pink with ancient magic, and wields a wand of great power, which it drops when defeated.
As you stumble out of the forgotten citadel, you see a ray of light shining through from above. All that remains in your path is to ascend a decrepit tower that the ancients presumably used to enter the surface world. Yet when you reach the top, gasping after climbing a torturously long stairwell, you find the Decayed Tyrant, who has stalked you and sent his followers to obstruct you throughout the game. He seems to be holding some sort of hourglass, and you can only guess the destruction it will wreak upon your body if a shot lands. With only one way to freedom and the life you knew, you are forced into one final showdown.
You could even have chunks of dynamic gold scattered throughout sections of the game, which the player can mine and use to trade with a Elder Witch, who once lived in the city, and sustains herself with dark magic powered by gold. You could trade for medkits, pickaxe upgrades, or perhaps a key to a hidden chamber in the citadel, which will contain a epic or legendary slingshot.
Thanks! Maybe as a combination of our ideas, you could say that the sub was returning from an underwater mine facility to sell its gold cargo, and decided to take a shortcut through uncharted waters. It was suddenly pulled into a swirling tube of water, and the crew had to trigger emergency systems before the sub crashed. Upon waking up, the player finds themselves the only survivor, and searches for a way to escape, connecting back to my lore. This could also be a way to give the player more futuristic gadgets, like zappers!
Just say KT, that is easier, and most people shorten it to that anyway, to stay on topic, we could even incorporate JJ’s underwater elements further by having the plants become coral/seaweed monsters, and the zombies could be drowned, as global warming flooded their city.