There have been loads of heaters in yesterday’s massive Sony “State of Play” announcement stream, however solely one in every of them (okay, two, I can not deny it was Alan Wake 2) actually acquired my coronary heart racing: Revenant Hill, a comfy, autumnal The “stray cat in an odd world” recreation that may catch Stray’s consideration. Revenant Hill would be the first launch from The Glory Society, a developer cooperative based by Evening within the Woods creators Bethany Hockenberry and Scott Benson.
Evening within the Woods is one thing particular, an journey recreation set in a rundown industrial city known as Possum Springs, a spot as Rural Pennsylvania, however populated solely by lovable anthropomorphic animals, and whose proud historical past of labor hardiness has been laced with a tragic coda of post-industrial decadence. You play as Mae Borowski, the primary member of her household to go to varsity, and in addition the primary to drop out of faculty, as she pieced collectively her life within the shadow of a vaguely supernatural thriller.
It is like Daria meets Twin Peaks, a loving and melancholy portrait of a dying city dropped at life with Benson’s attractive artwork and storybook animation. It is also the proper recreation to play within the fall, with a heat, misty shade palette and the motion of NITW itself going down from late summer time to early winter.
Revenant Hill appears to push the accelerator on each fall vibes and themes of early industrial labor organizing. Its first trailer reveals protagonist Twigs the cat working by a number of distinctive places, together with a witch coven and a city with putting staff within the background, earlier than deciding on a hill above a wheat area. It appears like a world with people, anthropomorphic animals, and wacky skeletons dwelling collectively in concord (or no less than dwelling collectively), and the trailer as a complete jogged my memory of the 2016 Cartoon Community animated collection Over the Backyard Wall.
The official Revenant Hill web site describes the plot as follows:
“It is 1919 within the Decrease North. After the barn she lived in burns down, Twigs the cat takes up residence in a humid log close to an deserted graveyard. When the owl from the following hill begins demanding hire, Twigs should discover a option to make ends meet, and issues get extra sophisticated from there.
Instances are robust, making ends meet is more durable, and the world would not cease on the fringe of the graveyard. One thing massive and darkish is at work within the cities, the factories, the forests and the hills. Eventually, somebody goes to must again off.”
Say no extra, I’m in. We do not have a launch window and even related showcase pages but for Revenant Hill, however its launch is confirmed on Steam, and you may join publication updates on the sport’s official web site.