Drowned Lake Demo Surfaces At Tokyo Game Show 2026
The demo shows a horror game built around slow observation on dark water rather than sudden shocks, and the handson account suggests the fishing and map systems are already playable.
Reporting from 1 source: Game Spark.
PUBLISHER CRITICAL REFLEX presented a demo of Drowned Lake, a survival horror game about fishing, at Tokyo Game Show 2026. Players choose among journalist Carolina, rescuer Rafael, and fisherman Leopoldo, who search the Drowned Lake for a missing documentary writer named Bent. Developer Ana Vitoria Leao Machado spoke with the outlet about the game's design.
The demo opens with a character select screen offering three backstories: journalist Carolina, rescuer Rafael, and fisherman Leopoldo. Carolina carries a video camera, and her route begins as footage of events at the lake.
Boating switches to a top-down view where the boat carries inertia, and collisions fill an obstruction gauge. Examining certain objects consumes a unit of the eye icon gauge, and parameters for body, sanity, and emotion can drop to zero if play is careless. A public telephone rings on its own to deliver hints and let players save.
- Journalist Carolina: Holds a video camera and appears to be recording events at the lake
- Rescuer Rafael: One of three selectable characters
- Fisherman Leopoldo: One of three selectable characters
- Lake Map: Appears in the character's hand after the church video ends
- Eye icon gauge: Consumed one unit when examining certain objects
- Obstruction gauge: Fills when the boat collides with houses and barricades
- Body, sanity, and emotion parameters: Must not reach zero
- Public telephone: Rings on its own, provides hints, and saves the game
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.