Held Breath
Hold to dive and release to surface as you dodge hazards and manage your oxygen in this underwater runner.
How to play
- Touch and hold anywhere on the screen to dive deep underwater.
- Release your touch to float back to the surface and refill your oxygen.
- Avoid mid-depth hazards like sharks, jellyfish, and deep mines.
- Stay clear of surface hazards like patrol boats and floating logs.
- Reach 500-meter milestones to advance the difficulty and earn points for the store.
Controls
- Touch
- Touch and hold the screen to dive, and release to surface.
- Keyboard
- Not supported.
- Mouse
- Click and hold the left mouse button to dive, and release to surface.
More about this game
In Held Breath, your goal is to swim as far as possible, reaching 500-meter milestones while surviving dangerous waters. The core loop revolves around a single input: holding the screen to dive and releasing to surface. You must constantly balance dodging underwater predators like sharks and sailfish with the need to surface for oxygen. As you swim further, your forward speed increases and hazard spacing becomes tighter, making survival much harder. A run ends if you take three hits from obstacles or if your oxygen meter fully depletes while submerged.
Tips
- You have a base of 40 seconds of oxygen underwater, but diving into high-pressure zones will drain it 1.25 times faster.
- You can survive 3 hits per run. Taking damage grants you exactly 5 seconds of invulnerability to recover your position.
- Surface hazards are spaced out with a 1.7x gap multiplier, giving you slightly more room to breathe when you emerge.
Questions
How do I unlock new swimmer outfits?
You earn points based on the total distance you travel in each run. You can spend these points in the main menu store to buy skins like the Neon Runner for 8,000 points or the Phantom Submariner for 20,000 points.
What happens if my oxygen runs out?
If your oxygen meter reaches 0% while you are submerged, your swimmer will pass out and drown. This instantly ends your run, regardless of how many hits you have left.
Does the game ever end?
The difficulty increases in discrete 500-meter steps. If you manage to survive all the way to 5,000 meters, you will trigger a special secret ending.