The Black Whale
A short first-person psychological horror about a factory worker who will sell anything for a drug that lets them ride flying whales.
Links go to the official store or developer page. Last verified Nov 3, 2026.
Steam lists Frequent Violence or Gore and General Mature Content. The developer's note: “The game contains images of death, suicide, mentions of snuff films, and drug use.” (Steam)
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Where to play
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Desktop · Steam
About The Black Whale
The Black Whale is a short first-person psychological horror game, about 20 minutes long, set in a dystopian future of all-consuming poverty. You work at the “White Whale” factory with a chip implanted in your brain to automate your work; when it starts to malfunction, the headaches become unbearable and no one will help. The only relief is a drug called “The Black Whale”, which also takes you to another world where you ride flying black whales, but it is expensive, so you must find money anywhere you can: first by selling your belongings and, when nothing is left, by stealing. Play is linear: over several in-game days you explore locations, read notes, talk to NPCs, find the items you need and complete simple objectives, watching the main character's moral and physical fall. In a Steam post the developer says the game began as a 2D point-and-click game made for a game jam and published on itch.io, co-developed with three others, and grew into a short 3D adventure. The Steam AI disclosure says Claude wrote the game's code and that all other aspects are human-made. Free on Steam for Windows since 13 Mar 2026, in English and Russian; Steam lists mature content, including images of death and suicide, mentions of snuff films and drug use.
Screenshots and art
The Black Whale key art · Steam store artwork
How it was built
Partially verifiedThe developer's Steam AI disclosure, in full: “Claude wrote the game's code. All other aspects are human-made.” It does not name a product (Claude Code or the chat app) or a model.
Per the Steam disclosure, Claude wrote the code and everything else (writing, art, sound) is human-made. The developer's Steam post says the original was a 2D point-and-click game made for a game jam on itch.io, with art, code and music by three co-developers, and that the Steam game is a short 3D version of the same, somewhat expanded, story.
- Engine / framework
- Not disclosed
- Languages
- Not disclosed
- Team size
- Not disclosed
- Development time
- Not disclosed
- Development cost
- Not disclosed
- AI-written code
- Not disclosed
“Claude wrote the game's code. All other aspects are human-made.”Verification notes: The AI claim rests on the developer-written AI disclosure on the game's Steam page (re-read on 4 Nov 2026): Claude wrote the game's code and everything else is human-made. When the disclosure was written is not known. The developer's post of 3 Jul 2026 says the earlier 2D game-jam version was co-developed with Sonya Borderguard (art), Ichit (code) and RaisinRiot (music); the disclosure covers the Steam game, which the developer calls a short 3D adventure, and the jam version is not listed here. The post of 26 Sep 2026 says the game has been played by more than 2,000 people; that is developer-reported and kept in the history, not recorded as a metric. Release date, price, Windows only and the two languages from the Steam store API; Russian was added on 9 Apr 2026, per the developer's post. Review figures from the store page on 4 Nov 2026. Steam lists Frequent Violence or Gore and General Mature Content with the developer's note, recorded as maturity. Same developer as THE WELL.
Development history
Announced on THE WELL's Steam news as the developer's next short horror game.
DeveloperSteam (THE WELL news)Released free on Steam for Windows.
OfficialSteamUpdate adds a Russian translation and fixes frequent freezes on the first playthrough.
OfficialSteam (The Black Whale news)The developer marks 100 Steam reviews and says the game has been played by more than 2,000 people.
DeveloperSteam (The Black Whale news)
Game performance
Each figure measures something different — concurrent players, owners, downloads and sales are never interchangeable and are never added together. Labels show where each number comes from.
Steam
Free on the Steam store API on 4 Nov 2026; no in-app purchases listed. Windows only.
As shown on the store page (“85% of the 106 user reviews for this game are positive”, “Very Positive”) on 4 Nov 2026.
Not publicly available: Concurrent players, Estimated owners, Copies sold, Gross revenue.
Reviews & rankings
Not yet reviewed by our editors.
Sources
| Source | Type | Published | Accessed |
|---|---|---|---|
| The Black Whale on Steam (store page incl. AI Generated Content Disclosure) Steam | Store page | Not confirmed | Nov 3, 2026 |
| “The Black Whale” is announced! Steam (THE WELL news) | Devlog | Feb 10, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| RUSSIAN LOCALIZATION + FREEZE FIXES! Steam (The Black Whale news) | Devlog | Apr 9, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| The original version of The Black Whale Steam (The Black Whale news) | Devlog | Jul 3, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
| 100 reviews + a new game release Steam (The Black Whale news) | Devlog | Sep 26, 2026 | Nov 3, 2026 |
