I cannot think of another hands-on preview or demo that has left me as shaken, perplexed, and enthralled as my time with the prologue of Neverway. When we were offered the chance to preview the game ahead of its appearance at the Triple-i Initiative Showcase earlier today to announce its October release window, I couldn’t have been more excited, nor more unprepared for what I was about to see.
Developed by Coldblood Inc with support from indie publisher Outersloth, Neverway is a horror life-sim RPG where you step into the scuffed trainers of Fiona, a young woman stuck in a bleak city existence who inexplicably finds herself starting a new life on a rural farm. Things only get weirder as Fiona’s new reality and her old one start bleeding together, and dark forces take hold.
The prologue wastes little time demonstrating just how strange things are going to get. After answering a few questions whilst Fiona muses in the bath, the life-sim elements of Neverway are introduced, going through run-of-the-mill tasks like cleaning the kitchen table so she can sit and eat her food delivery (the noodles I picked as her favourite food). It can’t go unstated, but Neverway’s sound design is impeccable, especially within its UI. Every prompt and action taken is accompanied by a satisfying little blip or hum, scratching that part of my brain so that I look forward to these little moments. It all feels great to control, but this is the cherry on top, and another example of Martin Kvale’s (Tiny Glade, Dome Keeper) excellent work.
Fiona seemingly lives alone in a 3-room apartment that appears to be accumulating untold amounts of technological junk in every corner. I find myself getting lost in the amount of detail in just this small area, from cables and blinking screens to Fiona’s unmade bed and her fridge covered in post-it notes. Neverway’s monochromatic pixel art style, punctuated by neon pink and cyan, comes from Pedro Medeiros, the pixel artist behind the precision platformer Celeste. The pixel art here is on another level, from the perfectly captured reflections and minuscule details seen in the close-up still shots, to the gameplay world, densely packed with environmental storytelling.
Outside on her balcony, with an endless view of concrete and glass, she says she finds it calming, perhaps a welcome break from being inside for days.
Actions like eating and sleeping make time move forward, and soon it is the next day. As I guide Fiona out of her apartment and across the city to pick up her belongings from the dead-end job she just left, the uncomfortable vibes in Fiona’s apartment are amplified tenfold as she sits in an empty subway car and walks through empty streets. The soft, slightly discordant drone of the chiptune soundtrack only heightens that sense of something not being right, and I can’t help but start to feel as anxious as Fiona no doubt does.
I finally meet some NPCs outside the giant glass skyscraper where Fiona used to work, and each interaction with them is as awkward as the last, perfectly delivered through the dialogue and the expressive character portraits. After collecting her belongings from the foyer, it’s time to head back home, to return to the isolation of Fiona’s apartment.
Except it’s not, as things start to take a dark and twisted turn during Fiona’s return journey on the subway. Another girl sits in the carriage, who talks of finding heaven and how it’s no longer a dream, as ghostly apparitions appear in the shadows around her.
Suddenly, static cuts across my screen, and I watch as the girl moves through to the next carriage of the train, which now seemingly floats in the vacuum of space! I follow her, grabbing a pipe trapped in the carriage door, which I can swing to break down obstacles. Train carriages shift into grotesque, fleshy tunnels that Fiona must slowly crawl through before exiting, only to watch the mysterious girl fall into the void.
There’s no time to react, as a horrifying creature with numerous thin appendages and one large eye appears from the darkness, and zombie-like entities start pouring in behind me. I try to fight, swinging my pipe, but the crowd overpower me. Before they kill me, however, the world seems to glitch again, and I am transported through numerous alien environments inhabited by a host of Lovecraftian-like creatures, during which Fiona collapses.
She comes to just as the doors of the subway car open at her stop, and I walk her back into her apartment building without a word as to what just happened. Outside her apartment door, Fiona’s boyfriend is waiting for her. He returns her hoodie, commenting on how she has changed her hair and hasn’t been replying to her emails, only to then begin breaking up with her. Fiona brusquely tells him to leave, running inside her apartment, as a montage shows her home slowly accumulating trash as days creep by.
Looking over the magazine she had been mulling over in the bath at the beginning of the prologue, Fiona decides it’s time for a change.
The game immediately cuts to Fiona on a small boat, the muted monochrome green of her apartment now replaced with deep purples and blues. As the vessel comes to a stop at a short wooden pier, I alight the ship, and now can dash, which uses some of Fiona’s stamina depicted at the top of the screen. For the first time, I pause the game, more so to let my brain catch up with everything I have just witnessed in the last 10 minutes, and I’m greeted with richly detailed menus tracking everything from Fiona’s state, items I am carrying, and NPCs I have met along the way.
Throughout the prologue, it has been made abundantly clear that Fiona is struggling with depression and that the game will involve managing her mental state, right down to making sure to perform actions that will avoid exacerbating it, like choosing to change into her PJs before going to bed. However, on viewing her profile, I discovered that the odd symbol in the top-left corner of the screen indicated that Fiona was dissociating. This would likely explain her sudden arrival in this new area by boat, but I still couldn’t be sure. Fiona was starting to feel like an unreliable narrator; what she perceived and what was real no longer easily distinguishable since the incident on the subway.
Following a dirt road, I arrive at some sort of border crossing, with thick stone walls preventing me from entering, and a small toll booth next to the gate. A shadowy figure from within the booth asks Fiona for proof of her moving to Mist, the location I had named at the start of this preview, and she anxiously navigates the questioning, gaining entry to the quaint little village inside.
I notice that during the conversation, one of my dialogue choices caused a little icon to appear briefly above Fiona’s portrait, and after the two had finished talking, a bar at the bottom of the screen labelled “Charm” appeared, filling up a bit before disappearing. Along with building relationships with certain NPCs, Fiona would also increase different traits, from Charm to Scavenger, by performing certain actions.
I wander around the rural layout of Mist, noticing that most other buildings and homes are either locked up or seemingly out of commission. Even a bridge over a small stream has collapsed, cutting off a whole section of the village.
Before following my current objective of finding my new home and going to bed for the night, I take a good, long moment to sink deeper into Neverway’s moody chiptune soundtrack, the masterful work of composer Disasterpeace (Fez, Hyper Light Drifter, It Follows, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On). Since the title screen, a growing sense of existential dread began to build in me, entirely down to the game’s music, and it does wonders for the world’s ambience, matching the bizarre events happening on screen.
I finally make my way to Fiona’s new residence, a small residence filled with moving boxes still needing to be unpacked. Work for another day. I have Fiona change into her PJs and into bed, where she drifts off to sleep, hoping that this new life she has begun will work; it has to work.
That is where my time with Neverway ended, at least, that I feel comfortable sharing, and it left me confused, creeped out, and craving more! The apparent supergroup of indie talent that Coldblood Inc has assembled seems to be meshing splendidly, if what I have experienced is anything to go by.
I was already in love with the game’s stunning art direction, and as a fan of Disasterpeace’s work, what I heard is easily on par with their best compositions, but it’s the strange unfolding of Neverway’s narrative and setup that has me curious and anxious at the same time. Along with the teases of the game’s larger RPG and life-sim elements, as well as allusions to the game’s relationship system, Neverway’s prologue is the most ominous and enticing tip of the iceberg I have ever played.
The Prologue for Neverway is available to play now on PC via Steam.
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