Naiad reminds me how magical water is

As a child, the woods I lived by had a pond covered in duckweed, and I would go to it and toss rocks into the water. Each time, the stone made a plopping sound and broke the blanket of thousands of tiny green leaves to reveal darkened water. The effect enthralled me, and now, a new game called Naiad somehow captures that childlike bliss that comes with playing in nature’s waters.

Developed by HiWarp, a one-person team based in Spain, Naiad is a game in which I get to play as a forest nymph named Naiad. As Naiad, I navigate through crystalline waters using my control stick and a top-down view. Naiad’s body arches and twirls as I swim through crystalline waters and explore connected streams and ponds. The sound of frogs and splashing water plays, and sticks, logs, flowers, and leaves bobble on top of the water and ornament it with pops of color.

I can interact with my surroundings in the gentlest of ways. A duckling follows me, and I reunite it with its mom. I play hide-and-seek with a tiny cloud. I sing to plants, and they flower. Sometimes I’ll dive under large logs, and other times I’ll move one so a duckling can follow me. I’ll sing to a bird and it’ll fly overhead as I guide it to a perch. I collect fish that follow and swim alongside me.

Often, when I successfully reunite animals, the game thanks me with an onscreen message for taking the time to stop and help. However, now and then, a certain interaction will fill Naiad with warmth, and change the nymph. For example, at one point, Naiad sings to a mystical deer and the deer drinks from the pool of clean water. Afterwards, Naiad’s hair becomes adorned with flowers and she gains the power to swim through obstacles a bit faster. In this way, I watch Naiad slowly grow up as she connects to the world around her.

Water is life, and Naiad is the story of that adage. The game goes light on overt narration and conjures up its tale by showing me all the worlds that water touches. Sometimes, these story beats nourish me, like when I see a giant deer take a sip of water or a human strum an acoustic guitar by the river. But I also see the impacts of human intervention. As Naiad, I ward off loggers who cut down trees and bring light to waters blackened by an active mine.

Naiad was made with a clear sense of reverence towards water, and that makes it special. I see this reverence personified through the little nymph and luxuriate in all that this game’s waters have to offer. Sometimes this is through the joy of splashing around as a forest nymph; other times, it’s taking in the lush visuals of a healthy forest and its flowers. In the same way that splashing around in the water is wonderful, so is Naiad.

Naiad was released Dec. 10 on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows and Mac PCs, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PC using a pre-release download code provided by HiWarp. Vox Media has affiliate partnerships. These do not influence editorial content, though Vox Media may earn commissions for products purchased via affiliate links. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.