t1z4l

Cozy gets tossed around a lot in the gaming sphere recently as both a genre and a vibe. However, I often find it is better to hear a group of players or community refer to a title a such, rather than the developer itself. This is especially true when it comes to Wanderstop, which Ivy Road and Annapurna make sure to describe as “cozy” whenever possible. It’s a fascinating exploration of an individual who is going through a lot and I think its message is an important one to put out there, but many story beats and gameplay elements kept it from feeling “cozy” and “comfortable” for me. Worse, I experienced many bugs, one of which proved gamebreaking, on the PS5.

Alta is a warrior who’s just experienced some major setbacks. She’s tasted defeat. However, she’s not giving up. She wants to be the best. She wants to be unbeatable. She heard the legendary Master Winters headed into a certain forest to retire, and so she dashes in to hopefully find her and train under her. Except… once she gets inside… she hits a wall. It’s like a crushing weight hits her. She can’t lift her sword, so she’s forced to drop it. She collapses. She wakes at Wanderstop, a tea house where a man named Boro works. He found her and her sword, and tells her that she’s just exhausted. She can keep trying to run into the forest, or she can take some time to just be and slowly recover while working at Wanderstop. Since she collapses the second she runs back into the forest, it seems like the only thing to do is try this alternative.

I have a lot of feelings about Wanderstop’s story. When it comes to the the forest, shop, and some ing cast , I absolutely loved it. The mysterious nature of things and these folks could be fascinating and funny. I absolutely was curious about what was going on with Alta. However, there are a lot of times when I don’t think certain concepts were handled as well. Like there could be some moments in the script when I felt Boro, who would normally be super kind and sweet, almost came across a bit out of character and condescending. It also felt like Ivy Road really wanted to hammer some points and concepts home about the nature of accepting things, forcibly taking a break, and dealing with certain situations. While some of these moments are handled pretty well, there are others that fall flat because it just… constantly keeps coming up in early parts. I wished I had a little more time to breathe. I get what Ivy Road is trying to do, but this is a game I am playing for escapism and entertainment, not a therapy session, and I almost felt a bit uncomfortable at how often I was being told to “take it easy,” “perhaps do nothing,” “relax,” “recover,” and “savor the moment.” By the time I finished the second season of time, it felt more like preaching than a more natural, relaxed narrative designed to allow me to enjoy myself. This does pull back a bit after certain events happen, but then new issues arrive to interrupt the “coziness.”

Once Alta actually starts working at the tea shop, things fall into a certain pattern. You get tools off of the wall for each season and the tea gathering basket. You plant seeds in certain patterns to generate more seeds or larger plants that bear fruits that will flavor the drink. Tea bushes will automatically grow at the outskirts of the clearing. Typically, a few customers will show up per season, and you’ll talk to them multiple times and take them tea to meet their needs. After they tell you the kind of drink that they want, you go to the machine in the center of the shop to pour water, pump bellows to heat it, empty that into another pot, add ingredients, then dispense it into cups for visitors (or Alta herself) upon request. 

I honestly found it clunky, especially when compared to other farming and shop management. Alta only has so much room in her pockets. The mechanics for pulling out specific equipment and putting it away feels more tedious than necessary. The watering can empties incredibly quickly. The tea brewing process started out novel, but turned tedious. Particularly, two elements started to annoy me. One was the part involving hitting the bellows repeatedly while keeping an icon in a certain region as water boils, because button-mashing like that repeatedly felt unnecessary. The other involved the adding of ingredients, as the most efficient process involves basically staying on the ladder to reach certain checkpoints, then hopping off briefly to sort through Alta’s pockets to check the right ingredients and throw them into the pot. I found if I didn’t position her correctly, she’d sometimes just hop on the ladder again. In some cases, the ingredients didn’t properly or even toss into the inf, though the latter issue did seem to be fixed in a pre-launch patch.

It’s because of things like this that, while I like the concept behind Wanderstop, I don’t always feel like it is “cozy” or “convenient” in the way that many other games in this style are. Alta is a fascinating and troubled protagonist. However, when it comes to the way she interacts with and responds to the world, I feel stressed. She’s a damaged individual who is experiencing burnout and a breakdown. I feel like the portrayal of her suggests severe PSTD as well. As a result, it can often feel like even her most kind responses are sharp, curt, or even undeservedly mean at points. It set me on edge a bit when I was forced to choose replies I didn’t want to, even though I completely get and understand why the character would choose one of those options. But the fact that these can be apathetic, sarcastic, or mean at certain points of the story would get to me, even more so than discovering that my responses didn’t really matter. 

Yup, from what I can tell, your choices in dialogue don’t affect the story aside from perhaps one critical moment near the end. This sometimes comes up with the actual drinks served too, at least in the earliest parts. If what you gave the person isn’t 100% right, you can offer to rebrew it or often force them to accept what you made. The story continues regardless. There are exceptions later in the latter half of the story, but typically there’s no issue giving them what they didn’t ask for. And if there is a request from a customer you find frustrating to make, it might be possible to even skip it and push forward in the story if it didn’t come from certain people.

There are other elements that keep Wanderstop from being relaxing or soothing in the way I like my “cozy” games to be. It’s very easy for Alta’s pockets to fill up. I found myself stressing out because I had picked something, but then the game kept telling me that designated inventory section was full. I would have to go to a table or inside the shop to place it somewhere. The concept of hybrids when gardening and planting in specific patterns is fascinating, but I stressed out about finding the right seeds and making sure I wasn’t over-harvesting since said plants only are good for getting seeds or fruits for a limited number of times. It felt like even though Boro was telling me to take my time, relax, and live in the moment, there were these inconveniences that kept me from doing exactly that. Especially since minor design changes like no inventory limitations or plant lifespans not being limited would have helped eliminate those issues. 

I also got a bit frustrated when it came to certain ingredients and elements. When it comes to Alta drinking the tea, only the base flavor seems to count and adding extras, such as Timothy’s Jam, doesn’t result in a new memory due to the extra ingredient. There’s another element of it tied to the trinkets Alta might collect from tidying up the clearing and those disappearing that disappointed me, as I was hoping they’d remain decorative milestones to make the shop more homey. I honestly despise the pluffin birds too! Sometimes, I would leave an item somewhere on purpose, only to look down when I'm somewhere else and see one of the birds following me, carrying it. That wasn't what I needed! My pockets were full and I wanted that item left where it was! Worse, at one point I made a complicated cup of coffee for a customer. Part of that involved multi-step brewing. I took the cup out from under the dispenser and put it on a table next to me for a few minutes to drain the machine so I could start the second spot. I turned back around and... the drink was gone and cup dirty. I actually checked with the developer to report this as a bug, like I had many other issues that arose during my playtime. It turns out that is intended. If you put down a drink for a second, something you might need to do since you can't pocket it like other items, a pluffin might just appear out of nowhere, drink it, and potentially force you to rebrew a cup depending on how much you have left or its complexity.

Of course, what made me most uncomfortable is that Wanderstop is one of those games that made me inexplicably motion sick. Which is weird, since that usually doesn’t happen when I play third-person perspective games. It’s something about the camera direction and angle, especially when you go inside the tea shop to brew tea or do various tidying up options. It made me uncomfortable and dread heading inside to accomplish some tasks, and like I’d need to make Alta move slower to better deal with it.

There are some minor and major technical problems to consider with Wanderstop at launch, at least on the PS5. Starting in what I can best describe as the second season, whenever I’d give tea or an item to someone, Alta would turn around so she wasn’t facing them. It was really quite strange, especially since the story segment might start with her facing them, then she’d immediately turn around. If she was talking to someone who was able to just wander about, this also would lead to glitches that had character models getting too close. Whenever I’d try to play flowers in the hanging pots, even if transplanted from a mini pot, Alta would just end up hitting it instead. The weirdest issue is sometimes the ladder would “get away from me” if Alta was on the second floor, finished tossing stuff in the pot, and was going to hop on to rotate and head to open the valve to let the tea flow into the final pot. If you shake a bird to get the item it is holding, sometimes that item will just… be floating in midair once the bird drops it. One time, I had to go down to the first floor and climb up from there. But another, the ladder actually rotated back to where it was supposed to be after it happened? It was a weird bug.

Wanderstop tells a fascinating story and very much captures the stress, anxiety, and pressures that come from being trying to meet all these expectations and not fail. Especially when you try to stop doing that. However, I often found myself wishing this was a short animated series or movie, rather than a game. Alta’s journey and many of the characters around her are fascinating, and I love watching them. But this ended up being an unexpectedly stressful, inconvenient, and broken sim at some times, and that got in the way of my enjoying everything. I believe there are many people who will love and identify with Wanderstop! I just found it clunky, broken on the PS5 at launch, and far from cozy.

Wanderstop will come to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC on March 11, 2025. A demo is available on Steam. 

The post Review: Wanderstop’s Strongest Feature Is Its Story appeared first on Siliconera.

We won’t need to wait too long for the new Keita Takahashi game, as To a T will launch on May 28, 2025. A new trailer showed off an additional song for the title alongside gameplay highlighting how the simulation will work. Annapurna will be the publisher.

In To a T, players follow a customizable lead character named Teen who is shaped like a T. Their arms are constantly out at their sides, and they’re accompanied by a pet dog that acts as an assistant. The game follows them as they go through days of their lives, and we see how the unique shape can help and hinder daily activities. There are also a number of minigames, some of which are tied to the character’s pose. 

The new trailer focuses on gameplay, but pairs that with a new song from the title featuring a chef named Giraffe. The giraffe, voiced by Steven Universe creator and Adventure Time contributor Rebecca Sugar, sings a song about what made them decide to pursue their career.

While this Keita Takahashi game is entirely new and original, it features a similar style as past titles from the developer. Some of his past works include the first two Katamari Damacy entries, Noby Noby Boy, Wattam, and Crankin's Time Travel Adventure.

To a T will come to the PS5, Xbox Series X, and PC. 

The post Keita Takahashi Game To a T Debuts in May appeared first on Siliconera.

Back in 2022, Annapurna, Konami, and No Code announced the three were working on a new Silent Hill: Townfall game was in development. However, we haven’t heard much about the project since then. Now, following the Annapurna resignations, the official social media confirmed the game is still in development.

There is no update on the progress of the game. We don’t know how it looks or when it will be expected to appear. However, it is still in the works. It is going to be a spin-off, rather than a mainline entry. There are no gameplay trailers or details about any potential stories. Only a logo and teaser appeared since the 2022 announcement.

Here’s the official announcement confirming that Silent Hill: Townfall will be made despite the resignations at Annapurna.

In case you need a reminder of what to expect from the series, here is the teaser video from 2022. It featured a person discussing things that had been done, while an electronic device in the background starts going haywire. As a reminder, in the Silent Hill series different types of technology will malfunction and behave that way when the monsters are lurking about.

This is one of multiple Silent Hill games on the way. We’ll see the Bloober Team remake of Silent Hill 2 at the beginning of October 2024. Silent Hill f is also in development, and Ryukishi07 is working on the script for it. We also saw the spin-off Silent Hill: The Short Message appear on the PS5 earlier in 2024.

Silent Hill: Townfall is in development, though there is no release window for the spin-off game in the series still.

The post Annapurna Says Silent Hill: Townfall Game Still Happening appeared first on Siliconera.

Annapurna Interactive’s entire gaming staff resigned from the company. They did so collectively following a leadership dispute. [Thanks, Bloomberg!]

According to Bloomberg (and with confirmation from IGN), Annapurna Interactive President Nathan Gary had been in negotiations with Megan Ellison, the founder of Annapurna Pictures. Annapurna Interactive is a division of Annapurna Pictures. So Gary and the rest of the team had been trying to spin off the video game division as an independent entity. Ellison pulled out of the negotiations and in response, Gary and some other executives resigned. Almost immediately afterwards, over two dozen employees ed them. In a t statement to Bloomberg, Gary and the rest of the resigned staff said that it was one of the hardest decisions they ever made.

This departure has thrown some game developers into chaos, as now they’re unclear of who they should in regards to game publishing. Hector Sanchez, the new President of Interactive and New Media at Annapurna and formerly a co-founder of the division, said that the company will “honor existing contracts” and that it will hire new staff to replace those who resigned.

Annapurna Interactive has published many critically-acclaimed games since it started in 2017. This includes What Remains of Edith Finch, Flower, Outer Wilds, Stray, Thirsty Suitors, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, and more. games include Morsels, Silent Hill: Townfall, and Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth.

The post Entire Gaming Staff of Annapurna Interactive Resigned appeared first on Siliconera.

Remedy Entertainment has partnered with Annapurna, with a goal of potentially producing Alan Wake and Control movies and TV shows. In addition, Annapurna will be co-financing the development of Control 2, which is currently in production.

While no concrete announcements have been made for Alan Wake or Control movies or TV shows, the announcement of the partnership confirmed an interest in expanding the IPs into other mediums. In addition, Annapurna will be helping to finance and publish the sequel to Control. The sequel has been in production for a while, although Remedy have yet to release any specific details. The news comes after Epic Games executive Hector Sanchez made a move to Annapurna. Epic previously worked with Remedy on publishing Alan Wake 2.

Annapurna is an ideal partner for Remedy to cover both their goals. While Control 2 will be self-published by Remedy, funding and additional is likely to come from the Annapurna Interactive division. The publisher is best known for releasing projects such as Stray, What Remains of Edith Finch and Outer Wilds. Most recently they’ve released Lorelei and the Laser Eyes, Flock and Open Roads. Meanwhile, the Alan Wake and Control movies and TV shows will likely be produced under Annapurna Pictures, the film division that produced Nimona, Her and Zero Dark Thirty.

Remedy are working on a number of projects including Control 2. They are also working with Rockstar on remakes of the first two Max Payne games, along with a co-op multiplayer game known as Condor. The second DLC expansion for Alan Wake 2 is also on the way, following the release of the Night Springs DLC in June 2024.

Control and Alan Wake 2 are out now, and movies and TV shows of both are in the works. Control is available for PS4, PS5, PC, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S, while Alan Wake 2 is available for PC, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

The post Alan Wake and Control Could Become Movies or TV Shows appeared first on Siliconera.

Happinet announced a new line of capsule toys featuring cat figures from the indie game Stray. These gacha toys will be available starting in November 2024 at capsule toy stores nationwide in Japan for 500 yen (~$3.30) each.

The collection captures the various poses of the game's feline protagonist, including the cat walking, sitting, and stretching/yawning. In each one, the character has the signature pack on as well.

You can view the official announcement post below, which included a look at the four items someone could possibly get.

In addition to the cat figures, the lineup will also include the cat's companion B-12 as a keychain. This partnership is a key part of the game's narrative. These Stray cat figures, along with the B-12 keychain, will be available randomly. That means you won't know which one you'll get when you pull on the machine.

Stray received several nominations at the 2023 Game Developers Choice Awards, including Best Debut, Best Audio, Best Design, Best Visual Art, and Game of the Year. A Switch version is also in development. However, there's no release date for it yet.

Stray is available on the PS4, PS5, and PC, the cat figures will appear in Japan in November 2024, and the game will also come to the Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.

The post Stray Cat Figures Arrive in November appeared first on Siliconera.

There aren’t many games out there like Flock. It’s a flight sim. It’s a creature collector. It’s a mystery game. It’s a puzzle game. All of these descriptions apply, but not exactly. Flock is a strange beast, which is appropriate when it’s a game all about finding strange beasts.

You play as a bird rider heading to visit their zoology professor aunt Jane, who has a task for you. She wants you to document the creatures of the land around her home and lower the cloud level in the process. You achieve this through observation, documentation and a system of whistles.

Gameplay in Flock is simple. You fly around a small open world, on the lookout for creatures hopping around the land. You fly close to them, observe them and use Jane’s notes to determine which creature you’re looking at, gradually filling up a creature book with details. In addition, you can find whistles for different types of creature, allowing you to charm them and get them to follow you around, which is the flock of the game’s title.

That’s it. That’s the game. It’s the most basic of mechanics and yet Flock manages to be delightfully compelling. Flying around the world feels good, for a start. The lack of friction to the movement makes it feel playful. This is enhanced by ring structures that can be dashed through and chained together for a satisfying drift through the skies. You’ll be swooping, drifting and coasting around to your heart’s content and loving every minute of it.

Seeking out creatures is also a joy. Flock doesn’t openly point them out to you. Instead, you have to listen out for any noises they might be making while staying vigilant for movement in the grass or in the trees. A glow in the woods at night could be something, while careful examination of a lakebed might reveal a pair of eyes peering out of the sand. Flock wants you to stop and carefully examine your surroundings, leave no stone unturned and keep making new discoveries.

This is the main draw of Flock, in fact. Because you have to make all these discoveries yourself, using only single line clues in the guide along with your own intuition, it’s extremely rewarding to find new creatures. You’ll see something wiggle in a rock formation and immediately work out out the correct distance to observe without spooking it. You’ll hear persistently loud chirping from tall grass and delight to find a weird duck in there. You’ll peer into a rock and be surprised to see something peering back.

The vagueness of these clues may be maddening to more impatient completionists, however. Some creatures require some meticulous searching, while the hints can sometimes be too vague for their own good. It’s a huge appeal for someone like me, with my love of slowly figuring out puzzles, but it may not be to everyone’s taste.

The vibes are immaculate for this gentle kind of experience though. The visual style is all bold colors and pastel shades, which means every part of this game is gorgeous to look at. The character designs are charming too. The creatures are all bizarre little hybrids based on various fish and birds, all marked by big eyes and pronounced features. Some have goofy little beaks, some are tiny beans that are mostly all eye, and some are whale-like beasts with huge maws. One creature, the Gormless Skyfish, is a happily clueless, bug-eyed fish identified by it being “no thoughts head empty”, and I love it so much.

These adorable designs even extend to the few human characters, including your own avatar. They remind me of Muppets, all big faces and noodly limbs. You can even get very silly with your characters, dressing them in a poncho and wading tros, among other things. The silliness of these character designs is enhanced by the writing, which fills the dialogue with a ton of charm and humor. Your uncle Reg, for instance, is single-mindedly into sheep, where he’ll dismiss any earth-shattering natural discoveries you make simply because he can’t shear them for wool.

Sheep are also a mechanic in Flock, but they’re one of the parts that don’t feel fully realized. You can collect a flock of sheep in addition to the regular beasties, and their role is to graze on overgrown meadows. This reveals Burgling Bewls that have stolen the various whistles you need to charm creatures, as well as new clothes and space for more creatures. But they can’t be used for anything else and you can’t spread multiple sheep onto multiple meadows at once. They feel like they were added simply to have a collectible system on top of the standard creature collecting, and it doesn’t feel fully fleshed out as an idea.

That said, this minor use is a step-up from how limited the actual flock of the title feels. As you find creatures, you can use the various whistles to initiate a mini-game where you must blow the whistle at the appropriate distance to charm them into following you. As the game progresses, you become a full-fledged Pied Piper, with everything you’ve charmed following you in a big group.

However, they do nothing. They don’t help search for more creatures, they can’t be sent into crevices to pull out other friends and they can’t help chase down the faster beasts. They just sit there behind your bird, looking pretty and making noises if you press the right button to squawk at them. I feel it would add so much to the game if different creatures had different uses that aided in your search for the final entries. Despite the game being named after it, this flock doesn’t do much of anything, and that’s disappointing.

This feeling of ideas not being fully realized adds to a general feeling of repetition that runs through the game. The gameplay loop is very much swooping around, marking creatures in your book and heading off to do the next one. As a low-stakes game for short chillout gameplay sessions, this is perfect, but it does make the game feel a little tedious if you play for too long in one sitting.

However, most of these criticisms are nitpicks. If you’re willing to approach Flock on its own , most of this washes away. It lulls you into its atmosphere with ease. It's also designed to be played co-op, as you and your fellow bird riders can soar around together. I never got to experience this aspect of the game, but I imagine it adds a lot.

Flock is a comfort blanket of a game. Its simplicity isn’t for everyone but it’s hard to deny its charm. If you’re looking for something cozy to kick back with at the end of a long day, Flock is exactly what you need.

Flock is available now for the PC, PS5, PS4, Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.

The post Review: Flock Is a Delightful and Cozy Flight appeared first on Siliconera.

During the June 18, 2024 Nintendo Direct stream, Nintendo revealed a trailer for the Switch version of Stray. It’ll come out during the 2024 holiday season.

You can watch the trailer here:

Stray originally came out in 2022 for the PS4, PS5, and Windows PC. You play as an orange cat who accidentally falls into a city full of robots and machines. In order to help the cat escape and return home, you must explore the world by leaping on platforms or scaling objects. A drone also helps the cat as a sort of inventory, and you can also use it to hack various objects around the map. Though the game features a cute cat, the world is a very hostile one. Part of the game also revolves around escaping various robots who won’t hesitate to kill it.

The game was highly popular for its gameplay and narrative. It also won several awards since it came out. For example, it was the PlayStation Game of the Year during the 2022 Golden Joystick Awards and won Most Innovative Gameplay in The Steam Awards 2023. Though it didn’t win, it got a nomination for Game of the Year in 2022.

Stray will come out on the Nintendo Switch some time during the holiday season of 2024. It is also available on the PS4, PS5, Windows PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and macOS.

The post Stray Will Come Out on Nintendo Switch This Year appeared first on Siliconera.

Picking up Lorelei and the Laser Eyes feels like taking a step into a cryptic past, when rumors of Polybius were flitting among arcade goers and a night of entertainment meant a crossword puzzle or two. Unique and addicting, Lorelei and the Laser Eyes provides a fun and rewarding experience for either a single person or group of gamers.

Like Lorelei and the Laser Eyes itself, the story does not immediately reveal itself to you. It takes a bit of time and sleuthing before the yarn starts to unravel. When the game starts, you know very little about your character, a smartly-dressed woman who looks like she’d fit right in a noir spy film. As you piece together clues from dialogue and readable items, you learn that an eccentric man invited you to a secluded hotel, which houses strange puzzles, art exhibits, magic shows, and plenty of mysteries. And a dog too, which you can pet.

The puzzles range between pleasantly easy and surprisingly difficult, but none of them feel like cop-outs. You truly have almost everything you need at your fingertips, or they’re a few steps away. Some of them are incredibly easy, such as one requiring basic knowledge of Roman numerals or our English alphabet. But then you’d encounter one that makes you stare at it, feeling like you’re rubbing every single brain cell you have and getting nothing in return.

I vividly realizing the solution to a puzzle as I was falling asleep and then shooting up, wide awake, just to turn on Lorelei and the Laser Eyes and rush to the location to input my answer. I was right, and that rush of serotonin was so strong that I continued to play until the sun was in the sky.

Part of the appeal lies in its more old school way of doing things. It brought me back to when I was a child, sitting in the waiting room of my piano teacher’s house and hunched over a book of riddles and whodunnits with a pen and notebook in hand. The Discord server I have for myself was full of pictures, notes, equations, and scribbles. I called on my roommate for help, as well as provided the puzzles without any context to my friends when I was stuck. Some of the puzzles prompted pretty lively discussion and I found it fascinating that this game, which can feel so isolating as you wander around the dreary hotel on your own, could bring so many people together without even being in my friends’ hands.

“Beautiful” might not be the first word that pops to mind when you see Lorelei and the Laser Eyes. Indeed, according to Simogo’s development blog, that wasn’t the goal. But there’s something gripping about the retro aesthetic. I loved how clean and crisp the black-and-white color scheme is, with everything easily visible despite the grainy filter and odd textures. When colors appear, they pop, and they’re so eerie against the dark backdrop that they really stick in your mind. For a game that seems to do so little with its appearance, its blend of its many inspirations make for a singularly unique experience.

This is one of those games that I’ll think about even after I finish it. As of the time of writing, I still have quite a few mysteries to uncover, as there are some puzzles that just well and truly stumped me. The world it presents is a cryptic one, reminding me of old conspiracy theories from before my time, but it keeps you coming back for more, hankering to pull back the curtains and unlock the doors to discover the secrets behind them.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes will come out on the Nintendo Switch and Windows PC via Steam on May 16, 2024. Nintendo Switch version reviewed.

The post Review: Lorelei and the Laser Eyes Makes You Feel Like the Smartest and Dumbest Person Alive appeared first on Siliconera.

Visual novels and exploration titles like Gone Home or Unpacking only succeed when they are able to convince the player to connect with their characters, and sadly Open Roads is a game that doesn’t do that. It relies heavily on a lo-fi aesthetic, but all that ambiance is surface level and doesn’t offer actual substance.

Much like Gone Home, Open Roads is a game that tasks its players with getting involved to get the most out of it. People begin in Tess Devine’s room in the middle of a major life change. She’s about to be out of school. Her grandmother Helen recently died. Her and her mother Opal are about to be out of the home they shared with Helen. Her parents are no longer together. Both Tess and Opal seem disconnected from each other and not exactly pleased about their prospects. However, as they are packing up, Tess finds evidence of a secret involving Helen’s love life, learns about abandoned summer home, and convinces her mom to take one last trip.

If that seems like a lot, it genuinely is. It all gets tossed at a person in the span of about fifteen minutes, depending on how quickly you choose to explore what was Helen, Opal, and Tess’ home. So much so that’d I’d say it is one of Open Roads’ major failings. There’s no time to really take in these revelations and ensure they count. Very little commentary typically appears from Tess and Opal, and the nature of their relationship means some responses can be more short or flippant rather than emotional. Not to mention rushing through things and learning important elements about characters, like that Tess’ father is gone, means there’s no impact to any of it.

All of this isn’t helped by the fact that Open Roads Team never gives its players a chance to really know who anyone is in this game. Visual novels can have thousands of words worth of exposition and dialogue that help you understand peoples’ personalities, relationships, and motivations. Gone Home offered a house filled with detailed notes, meaningful belongings, and set pieces that told a story without actually telling a story. Open Roads doesn’t do that. 

When we’re heading to many of these locations, they’re often empty or in states of disarray. The things we might interact with, like erasers, board games, occasional books, or other knickknacks, are too generic to offer any real insight into their owners’ souls. (Meanwhile, Gone Home and Unpacking both made belongings feel meaningful as you’d happen upon them.) It almost felt like a joke whenever I’d have Tess find something, tell her to yell, “Mom” to find out what Opal had to say about it, and get one or two sentences that felt like meaningless asides as a response.

It got to the point that once the road trip proper began, I felt no motivation to actually explore anything. I wasn’t getting anything about of the flavorless text. Especially since Keri Russell and Kaitlyn Dever, two performers who are normally really great in their roles, don’t really feel like they embrace their roles. They both are fine here, but I was playing this while also going through a Japanese visual novel with actors really going all-in on their performances. The juxtaposition really made me feel like maybe they weren’t getting the direction or script they needed to really take advantage of the talent both bring to the table. The presentation isn’t great.

Speaking of which, I think I expected more from Open Roads based on its opening movie and early trailers. It almost seemed like we’d be getting a game where character portraits would be expressive and reacting to each situation. Instead, there are the same repeated animations for Tess and Opal. Sometimes, I even felt like the reactions of their portraits didn’t exactly match up with the moment. It is absolutely fine to go with static character portraits for visual novels. Some of my favorite ones do. But when we have a game that might only take you about an hour or two, depending on how much you explore, and has so few major story moments, I can’t help but feel like it needed that extra effort from its character designs. 

I very much wanted to care about Open Roads, as it seemed like my “thing.” But there’s just so little to it, and it becomes near impossible to care about Tess, Opal, and their trip together as a result. People who often play visual novels will be let down by the narrative (or lack thereof). People who wanted this to be like Gone Home will despair in the fact that it isn’t fun to pick through these people’s things. It’s just a disappointment.

Open Roads is available for the Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, and PC.

The post Review: Open Roads Lacks Depth and Weight appeared first on Siliconera.

In Famitsu's New Year Greetings column for 2024, Silent Hill series Lead Producer Motoi Okamoto offered an update on the series. Okamoto’s keyword for 2024 is “delivery,” and the producer confirmed that 2024 will mark the beginning of new Silent Hill game releases. [Thanks, Famitsu!]

The producer’s aspirations for 2024 consist of continuing to build up the Silent Hill series with both games and other types of media. Motoi Okamoto mentioned the release of the interactive streaming Silent Hill Ascension in November 2023 as one of such types of non-game media for the franchise.

Konami originally announced 3 Silent Hill games and 2 non-game titles in production on October 2022. Silent Hill F is a new mainline installment in the franchise developed by Neobards Entertainment and written by When They Cry sound novel series author Ryukishi07. Bloober Team is developing the Silent Hill 2 remake for the PS5 and PC, in collaboration with artist Masahiro Ito and composer Akira Yamaoka.

Konami is also collaborating with publisher Annapurna Interactive and Observation developer No Code in the Silent Hill: Townfall. At the time of writing this story none of the aforementioned Silent Hill video game titles have a release date or window, but people can expect some of these to appear in 2024.

The Return to Silent Hill live-action movie is the other non-game title for the current Silent Hill multimedia project, and director Christophe Gans is in charge of it. Gans previously directed the first Silent Hill live-action project.

The post Silent Hill Producer Motoi Okamoto Offers Update on Games appeared first on Siliconera.

When I first read the summary for Thirsty Suitors, I imagined it would be a South Asian version of Scott Pilgrim, only you're fighting your own evil exes. But as soon as I booted up the game and stepped into a Jala's inner world, skateboard in hand and a Thirstsona quiz badgering me about my love life after every grind, I realized I was going to be in for a wilder ride. Despite its short length, it made a far deeper impression on me than the majority of longer AAA games I'd played this year with its clever writing and memorable battle system.

After a messy break-up with her older girlfriend, Jala returns to her hometown of Timber Falls. Not only does she have to face the disappointed judgment of her parents, she also has to deal with vengeful exes, a sister who won’t talk to her, an imminent meeting with her strict Indian grandmother, and a bizarre skateboarding cult run by an anonymous man who lives in the sewers and wears a bear mask. Her exes all have beef with Jala and honestly, after hearing their side of the story, I can’t blame them. She was a piece of work. Her past romances, as well as tensions regarding the skater cult, makes Timber Falls a hostile place. But as Jala works through her issues both personal and interpersonal, she starts to discover more about herself and her home.

The story focuses on themes of emotional reconciliation, as well as inter-generational trauma and the immigrant experience. There is a lot of diversity in this game when it comes to races, genders, and sexualities. However, I never felt like the writers were shoving it in my face. Their identities are a major part of their character, of course, but it doesn’t define them. The writing is snappy and witty, but fraught with emotional punches when it needs to be. This is a really hard balance to achieve. I’ve reviewed games in the past where I dinged the writing for nonstop “humor” and “Tumblr speech,” which is when the characters act as mouthpieces for the writers’ political beliefs. However, Thirsty Suitors’s jokes made me laugh out loud and its more intense moments brought me to tears. I never felt like the writing talked down to me or over-explained anything.

Jala’s conversations with her exes were really funny. Her confrontation with Irfan, for example, was hilarious, even though Jala was terrible to him when they were together. She’s so messy, it’s crazy, and it’s even worse when you put Tyler into the mix. The writing really shines in the interactions between Jala and her mother, though. I think most Asians can relate to Jala’s frustrations in the face of her mother’s ive-aggressive remarks about her life and decisions. 

I actually yelled when, upon achieving a perfect score on one of the recipes, her mother said that she would serve the dish to guests. Granted, she wouldn’t serve it to desi guests. But guests?! That’s high praise! Outerloop Games is a minority-led studio and so it’s totally understandable as to how its writers could accurately recreate the Asian daughter experience. The entire conversation between Jala, Jala’s mother, and Jala’s grandmother was so uncomfortable. It brought back really awkward memories of having to watch my own mother and maternal grandmother interact.

The part about Outerloops being minority-led is what I think makes the writing hit home so well. This is not tokenism or forced diversity. The characters aren't stereotypes or mouthpieces. They're us. This is our lived experience. Thirsty Suitors writes from a queer Asian immigrant perspective for the queer Asian immigrant, which eliminates the need to over-explain anything. Why does it need to fully put into words the effort that Jala's parents put into as first-generation immigrants, or Diya's complicated relationship with her own family, when these are experiences that we can relate to? I've heard my parents talk about it. I've seen my parents live it. That's not to say that the game can only be relatable to Asians or immigrants, though. Jala's internal turmoils, as well as the real hurt she inflicted upon her community, are also struggles that I'm sure most people who had messy teenage years can see themselves in.

The story and characters aren’t the only strong points of Thirsty Suitors. As a whole, the game feels incredibly polished. As soon as I booted up the game and the “What’s Your Thirstsona?” track started to play, I was hooked. I knew I’d enjoy the game. All the songs have such a catchy rhythm, and has such a unique Indian inspiration that I don’t usually hear in games. The voice acting, too, felt great. I think that a lot of the lines in the game could be really cringy in the Marvel movie way. But the delivery is either so earnest or so funny, that I laughed more often than not. Visually, too, I love how funny the status effects are on the characters. The aesthetics of the characters really fit the overall vibe of the environment, story, and atmosphere, combining retro designs with a modern style.

There are several ways to level up Jala. You can fight against suitors and punks, of course. There is some level of customization as well. Jala's Thirstsona changes depending on your answers in the story. Flaky responses raise her Bohemian Thirstsona, for example, which has different stats than the mean Heartbreaker one. Combat is turn-based. It focuses on applying status effects, and button inputs affect damage. The better you time the inputs, the more damage you deal or the less you take. It's kind of similar to Yakuza 7. The battles can seem as ridiculous as the ones there too if you think about it too much. Jala is a grown woman beating up teenagers in a skate park, like, come on.

You can also cook and skateboard to level up. Since I cooked a lot to get free healing items, I became overleveled halfway through the game. The cooking mini-game is like a rhythm game and it’s super addicting. While I enjoyed the Tony Hawk games, I personally had a harder time in Thirsty Suitors because I had a hard time gauging how far Jala could jump or steering her around.

What keeps Thirsty Suitors from being a perfect game for me is that I encountered a few bugs. The game does not let you manually save. Instead, it simply auto-saves. In one of the earlier chapters, I encountered a bug in which the game thought I didn’t talk to Tyler when I did. So it tried to spawn her, but couldn’t. That meant I could no longer progress through the story, since Tyler literally was not there for me to speak to. The game is short—under ten hours long—so it was no issue to simply restart. But the fact I had to restart in the first place due to the fact I could not load up an earlier save was unfortunate. I wish that there is both an auto-save function and a manual save option. However, upon reaching out to Outerloop about this, they very quickly saved my file for me.

All in all, Thirsty Suitors is a thoughtful and whimsical story that balances light-hearted humor with a legitimately emotional tale about family, love, and self-acceptance. The game only took me nine hours to finish (even with the restart). But at the end of it, I felt like I’d known everyone in Timber Falls my whole life. Despite how ridiculous the game’s premise and battles are, the characters and their struggles all felt so real. This game wasn’t on my radar at all, but it’s a true hidden gem.

Thirsty Suitors will come out on November 2, 2023 for the PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Windows PC, and Nintendo Switch.

The post Review: Thirsty Suitors Is an Emotional Journey to Self-Acceptance appeared first on Siliconera.

When I played the Cocoon demo in June 2023, my main takeaway from the experience was intrigue. It left a lot of open questions, yet its gameplay design and mysterious atmosphere made me desperate to play more. My experience with the full game has failed to answer many of the questions the demo instilled in me. Instead, it asked even more and left me unable to stop thinking about what on earth I experienced.

This is a good thing.

Cocoon is the brainchild of former Playdead designer Jeppe Carlsen, who designed many of the puzzles in Limbo and Inside. While he was not responsible for the overall aesthetic and storytelling of those games, there is some clear shared DNA here. This mostly comes across in the vague way its world and story are presented. However, Cocoon is an even less explainable experience.

Cocoon is set in a surreal world full of biomechanical contraptions and natural structures fused with machines. The opening desert area is peppered with metal plating and machines that move like bugs. You, too, are some kind of mechanical bug, resembling a fly that someone made from repurposed toy parts.

At the start of the game, you emerge from the titular cocoon, a disturbingly yonic onion full of flesh and wires. You wander the desert, pushing switches and activating machines until you fly upwards and out of the world, which is now contained in a small orange orb. And that’s your introduction to the game and its central concept.

That’s how Cocoon continues to play out. Much of the game involves you hopping in and out of these world orbs, using them for a series of abstract puzzles. You combine these orbs in increasingly odd ways, creating a Russian doll of worlds within worlds. As you progress, you unlock extra abilities that help you navigate the bizarre landscapes, such as the ability to reveal hidden paths or turn certain platforms hollow. It feels like there’s a story here, although I am at a loss on how to describe it to you.

During my time with the Cocoon demo, I wondered how the world orb concept was going to be fleshed out beyond the two worlds I’d seen. I expected to see more worlds, of course, but what I didn’t expect while playing the full game was how much the game would uprooted its own concept and go off on tangents I didn’t expect. No spoilers, but there are parts of the game’s later stages that blew my mind when I realised what I’d been led to do. The rabbit hole just keeps getting deeper, and not just because you keep stuffing more world orbs into it.

What’s impressive about all this is despite how mind-bending the concept is, the puzzle design itself is relatively straightforward. Controls are as basic as it gets, with movement and a single action button used for interacting with objects in the world. Every puzzle is self-contained, with all the pieces present, you just need to figure out the correct way to assemble them.

This doesn’t mean the puzzles in Cocoon are easy. The way these elements are laid out isn’t always obvious, not to mention many puzzles are layered on multiple planes of existence, just to make the solution even less clear. However, nothing is ever so obtuse it leaves you clueless. Every solution had a logical solution once you’re used to the way this works. If anything, the times I got stuck were my own fault, usually by overcomplicating the puzzles. I would come up with absurd galaxy brain solutions only to find the real answer involved just using a different warp point. In these moments, I always found myself praising the game for somehow knowing how to kick the puzzle-solving part of my brain into overdrive, even to my own detriment.

The world of Cocoon is an interesting one. It’s never clear where we are or what we’re doing, but offers a lot of intrigue. There are multiple boss fights against creatures with bizarre designs cooked up from a fever dream. The structures of the world are both highly advanced while also crumbling apart at the seams. The biomechanical design choices also become horrific in places, raising more questions about the purpose of everything we see.

That said, the vagueness is both a positive and a negative for Cocoon. While it is interesting, its persistent refusal to even offer a crumb of information can be frustrating. There is no dialogue, no notes to provide context and barely any coherent environmental elements that ground the player. Carlsen’s previous work was equally vague, but at least both Limbo and Inside took place in worlds similar to our own. Limbo’s moody forests and Inside’s obvious dystopia gave the player a foundation to work with, even if they had to figure everything else out.

By contrast, Cocoon is alien in every way. Why are so many switches disco balls attached to fleshy tendrils? What is the purpose of the facility that houses the orbs? Who are the other insectoid creatures that can be found down hidden paths? We may never know. Of course, leaving things open to interpretation is fine, maybe even encouraged, but there’s just so little to latch onto to even begin formulating any theories. Are we in some kind of multiverse factory? Is this the inner workings of a giant machine or a creature of some kind? Is our bug man a diligent worker, a rebel or simply lost? The answer may be all of these. Equally it may be none of them. It's all down to your own interpretation.

Your reaction to this will vary greatly. As someone who doesn’t mind art being impenetrable and weird for the sake of it, I had a great time. However, there are other players who might react with horror as there are no relatable characters and no obvious end goal.

Cocoon is also extremely short. My playthrough clocked in between 4-5 hours and there is little to no replayability. There are hidden paths with secrets, and they could even lead to a secret ending. But playing through the game a second time involves replaying every puzzle you’ve already solved, which has much less appeal than the initial run.

Cocoon is a strange game but one that’s worth the experience for those willing to accept that. The visual design is a treat of surreal imagery, and the puzzle design is superb. If you like unfathomable narratives and journeys through alien worlds, it’s highly recommended.

Cocoon will be released on September 29, 2023 for PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PS4 and PS5.

The post Review: Cocoon is a Surreal, Alien Take on Puzzle Games appeared first on Siliconera.

Cocoon is a game not interested in explaining itself. The game opens in a desert, a beam of light rains down and activates some ancient circuitry in the cliffs. This awakens the titular cocoon, and out pops our protagonist, beginning the game. That’s about all you’re getting in the way of explanation, as I found upon playing the demo.

It’s not surprising, since the lead designer of Cocoon is Jeppe Carlsen, who is also responsible for Limbo and Inside. Those games were equally obtuse about their setting, featuring a young boy in either a dangerous monochrome forest or a dystopian city with little else to go on. Cocoon’s ambiguity is even more striking, as very little of this game resembles the real world.

You are a small bug person of some kind. You have wings, but you can’t even jump, let alone fly. The start of the game sees you wandering through the desert until you emerge from an orb that this world is contained in. Something angry and large wakes up and enters the orb you just left. You can now move this orb (and the world it contains) around.

[caption id="attachment_970915" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Annapurna[/caption]

During my time playing through the demo of Cocoon, I was able to see three worlds. There was a desert one, contained in an orange orb, a swamp one, contained in a green orb, and a world that houses the orbs that is a strange facility full of odd machinery. These three worlds are about as alien as they come, full of biomechanical devices blending rigid metal with fleshy tendrils. Even the protagonist looks to be partially plastic. It’s a strange place to be, with no context for where all this is happening. An alien world, maybe? We may never know.

Cocoon doesn’t just avoid explaining its setting or story, it also just drops you into gameplay without any explanation of its mechanics. You’re left to figure it all out yourself. However, while there are no text boxes explaining how to use an orb, Cocoon does an excellent job of helping you intuit what you need to do. You have two abilities, walking and touching things, so every puzzle boils down to you touching whatever you find until something useful happens.

The key mechanic in Cocoon is the world-switching ability. The orbs containing the swamp and desert worlds are used for a ton of different purposes. They’re used to activate machinery, hold down switches, and each orb can gain a unique ability. The orange orb can reveal hidden crystal paths within a certain radius, while the green orb can make certain pillars switch between solid or transparent. You can even take an orb inside another orb and use it to solve puzzles there.

This got especially interesting as the demo went on, as I had to move in and out of the worlds to solve different puzzles. I had to dodge an obstacle at one point simply by leaving the world, watching the obstacle by through the portal, then jump back in at the right time. Another puzzle required manipulating multiple exit portals to get an orb past an obstacle it couldn’t by normally.

[caption id="attachment_970916" align="alignnone" width="1200"] Image via Annapurna[/caption]

I also got to fight two of Cocoon’s bosses. The protagonist doesn’t have a weapon, so each fight requires you to find one in the arena. These encounters were inventive, especially the one in the swamp. That fight briefly turned into a bullet hell with the protagonist flying around on a watery jetpack. That was unexpected but a lot of fun.

What I played of Cocoon was fascinating in so many ways. Its ambiguity and lack of explanation for anything appealed to my love of mystery. Meanwhile, the puzzles were impressively complex for a game with such simple controls. It hooked me in so much that when the words “End of demo” flashed up on screen I audibly protested. That’s probably the highest praise a demo can receive.

Cocoon has a strong start, and I can’t wait to see how much further the concepts on display here can be taken. It’s a mysterious world that will no doubt be left open to player interpretation, and I can see the worlds-within-worlds concept expanding out to brain-melting proportions. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, Cocoon is looking like one to watch.

Cocoon will come to the PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on September 29, 2023, and a demo is out now.

The post Preview: Cocoon Is Vague, Yet Compelling appeared first on Siliconera.

Cyberpunk cat game Stray is coming to Xbox One and Xbox Series X soon, based on a new ESRB listing. The listing contains the same text as the game’s previous listing, only now the game is specifically listed for the two Microsoft consoles. Stray previously released in July 2022 for PC, PS5, and PS4. [Thanks, Wario64!]

Neither Microsoft nor publisher Annapurna Interactive confirmed this release yet, so no date is currently known. It’s also not clear if Stray will be part of Xbox Game , similar to how it was a day one release for PlayStation Plus.

Stray sees players taking control of a cat in a futuristic world set in a society where humans have disappeared and been replaced by robots. The cat teams up with a small drone robot as he tries to reunite with his family. It allows players to perform a whole bunch of cat behaviors, including knocking paint cans off ledges and clawing furniture.

Stray received widespread acclaim, with it picking up several nominations at The Game Awards in December, including Best Art Direction and Game of the Year. It won awards for Best Indie and Best Debut Indie.

Stray is available now for the PS5, PS4 and PC, and it seems will be getting an Xbox One and Series X release sometime in the future.

The post ESRB Xbox One and Series X Listing Appears for Stray appeared first on Siliconera.