Try To Reach The Abyss Locations Guide: Underwater Areas and Outposts

Quick answer

Try To Reach The Abyss lists six named underwater regions in the PETS collection panel — Reef Shallows, Kelp Forest, Azure Mesa, Glowcap Forest, Luminous Caverns and Forgotten Valley — and you reach them by descending through the outpost chain, with some regions locked until you reach a specific outpost.

Try To Reach The Abyss names its underwater areas in two places: the PETS collection panel, which lists six regions from Reef Shallows down to Forgotten Valley, and the official game description, which describes piloting your submarine from colorful reefs into darker, stranger waters while discovering glowing caves, forgotten valleys, and dangerous sea monsters. The areas are not free-roam zones you visit on a whim — the descent is structured around outposts, and some regions only open once you have pushed your run far enough to reach a specific outpost marker.

The named underwater regions

The in-game PETS collection panel lists six region names, which is the most concrete area list the game shows:

These match the categories in the official description: colorful reefs at the start, darker stranger waters as you descend, glowing caves, and forgotten valleys. The panel order runs from the shallow reef areas toward the deep, strange zones, but it is a collection list, not a confirmed complete route map of the descent.

How areas tie into the outpost descent

Progression through these regions runs through outposts. You spawn your submarine, hop in, and follow the outpost marker. Stepping out of your submarine at an outpost earns Speed, and reaching the next outpost gives you safety and a free upgrade point. Those points are spent at the outpost store on three tracks: UPGRADE RATE ("Earn Speed more often"), HULL ("More health for your submarine"), and TORPEDO DAMAGE ("Each torpedo hits harder"). At Mesa Outpost 9, for example, the store showed one available point with a hull preview of MAX HEALTH 225 to 250.

So the relationship is: outposts are the waypoints of the descent, each one anchors the area you are passing through, and the outpost chain is what carries you from the colorful reefs into the deeper regions. The route is marked directly in the world — in Forgotten Valley, the route marker reads "OUTPOST 19" with a region strip headed "LIVING DEPTHS", tying that high-danger area to a specific outpost milestone.

Locked regions and danger levels

Two regions in the panel carry explicit outpost locks:

• Forgotten Valley — locked until you "Reach Outpost 19". When you get there, expect a harder environment: its location badge reads "Danger: High", unlike the safer shallower zones.
• Rootvaults — locked until you "Reach Outpost 23". Rootvaults appears as a lock label in the collection panel beyond Forgotten Valley, indicating the descent continues past Outpost 19.

By contrast, Glowcap Forest shows "Danger: Safe" on its location badge, so danger labels are displayed per area and vary as you descend. Read the badge at each outpost to gauge how risky the surrounding region is before pushing onward.

Recovery while exploring

If a run goes wrong mid-descent, the game offers a recovery prompt: "E RETURN TO OUTPOST" appears during gameplay, letting you return to an outpost with a key press. The exact trigger conditions are not fully spelled out on screen, but the prompt itself gives you a fallback point in the outpost chain when you need it.

Putting it together

Treat the region list as your map of the descent and the outposts as its checkpoints: spawn, follow the outpost marker, step out to earn Speed, bank your free upgrade point at each new outpost, and use those upgrades to survive the transition from safe shallower areas like Glowcap Forest into the high-danger deep zones like Forgotten Valley. For the fuller route beyond the areas covered here, see the guide on how to reach the abyss, and the outposts guide for waypoint details.