When I first watched the PlayStation Showcase, I came away thinking we hadn't been treated to very much game footage. Then as I listed all the games we had seen, I realised that most of them did come armed with some sort of gameplay, even if they were not the 12-minute spectacular we received from Spider-Man 2. I think part of the reason I didn't feel like I'd seen very much gameplay footage was because there wasn't much that impressed me. I don't mean that as a criticism of the games themselves, more the industry.
Everything seemed too familiar, like we'd seen it all before. Whether that be first person shooters with colourful beams of light in place of bullets, mechanics quite clearly ripped straight from Breath of the Wild, or an Assassin's Creed game that but for the graphics could have been a trailer from 15 years ago, it was deja vu all over again. Phantom Blade Zero was a standout, somehow managing to feel fresh despite the overused grimdark tone and samurai aesthetics, and after that the most interesting game was Foamstars, despite clearly being a Splatoon rip-off. It's a low bar that it seems original by virtue of being the first game to rip Splatoon off.
And yet after all that, the game I came away thinking about most was Neva. We saw no gameplay from Neva, and I have no idea what it is, how it plays, what it's about, or what it's trying to say. Still it's the game I'm thinking about, and maybe that's because it gave me something to think about. Obviously it would not have been a well-received showcase if there was no gameplay because everyone opted for cryptic trailers that gave nothing away, and in the absence of details we can fill in the gaps with perfection in preparation for disappointment. But with so many games seeming to chase the same thing, Neva was refreshingly bold.
Made by the team behind Gris, we can take a decent guess that it will be arty and wordless, relying on visual metaphor and tone to convey its narrative. It may well be platform-based with light puzzling once more, where the point of the experience is to bear witness to the events unfolding rather than to 'beat' the game or 'solve' any brain buster. Gris would push and challenge you in places, but the game wanted to guide you through these parts to see what awaited on the other side. Technically it was nothing special, but it left a mark because it was different. That is my only hope for Neva - to be different.
The trailer, presented in a painterly pastel art style, showed a bird falling peacefully from the sky, black flowers growing from its death, before a kindly explorer and her wolf companion took the creature in her arms. A much larger wolf with glorious antlers then revealed itself, standing over our hero to protect her. As an ominous rumble arrived from the distance, our hero readied her sword before a black mass of demon hands swarmed them. The larger wolf fought the creatures valiantly, but ultimately succumbed. As it lay there dying, our hero comforted it before the younger wolf crawled into her arms.
I have no idea how we're supposed to play a scene like that, if we even are at all, or what it means for Neva's narrative and combat. I don't know if that's the start of the game, or the middle, or more of a vague description of what the game tries to be 'about' in the profound sense of the word. All I know is I'm hooked. The Gris connection helped, but mostly it's that I don't need to understand Neva to know that it will be different. Whatever it is, that's exactly what gaming needs.