The original Life Is Strange devs are making a beautifully animated, choice-driven narrative game next
Life Is Strange developer Don’t Nod has a new game, and it looks like we’re trading in teen drama for a tale of megacorps, gods, and the precarious balance between the mortal and divine worlds. So pretty much the same thing. Harmony: The Fall of Reverie was revealed during yesterday’s Nintendo Direct, and hits Steam in June this year.
The game takes place “in the very near future” in the mediterranean city of Alma, which has fallen under the sway of a sinister corporation called MK. You play as Polly, a woman who has returned to the city to look for her missing mother, and who “quickly realizes that she has a gift of clairvoyance that connects her to another world, Reverie, where the Aspirations of Humanity live”.
In that world, she becomes a goddess called Harmony, and will have to choose which Aspiration—things like Power, Bliss, Chaos, and Truth—will eventually rule it, and restore the balance between Reverie and the mortal world. It all sounds heavily choice-driven, with the different branches of the story playing out on a board called the Augural, which looks like it shows you the choices you’ve made, where they’ve taken you, and where they could have taken you if you’d chosen differently.
The whole thing is done in a 2D, animated art style that looks pretty incredible, at least in the reveal trailer. The game’s art seems to have a distinct, Saturday morning cartoon vibe that I’m very much into, as well as a soundtrack by Lena Raine, of Celeste fame (opens in new tab).
I tend to think of Don’t Nod as a kind of flawed gem factory, though I confess I haven’t played Life Is Strange 2 or the games the company made after it. I’ve put a lot of time into Life Is Strange Season 1 (opens in new tab) and Vampyr (opens in new tab), though, and while both of those games have their issues (Vampyr moreso), they have some pretty high peaks, too. If Harmony can live up to that standard, consider me on board.
You can follow Harmony: The Fall of Reverie over on its Steam page (opens in new tab), and you can keep track of updates from Don’t Nod on Twitter (opens in new tab).
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