I experience games differently now that I am a parent. I find myself incredibly aware of any young charges, virtual or real, and become invested in their wellbeing very quickly. In short, I have become a protector. It is a role I do not take lightly.
This sense of protectiveness is something Barcelona-based developer Nomada Studio is counting on for its next release, Neva, a breathtakingly beautiful 2D puzzle-platformer. While the studio’s previous game Gris was a solo journey negotiating the stages of grief, the player character in Neva – a woman named Alba – is not alone. Rather, she is joined by a young wolf companion.
This wolf is Neva, which is Spanish for snow – a name that serves as a nod to the wolf’s white coat as well as snow’s purity. Neva is Alba’s ‘child’, and as her mother, Alba (which translates to dawn) will do everything in her power to protect and nurture the wolf pup. The studio hopes players will, too.
I went hands-on with Neva during an event in Barcelona last week. At the beginning of my preview, I meet Alba and Neva, along with another fully grown wolf companion. As they walk together through a lush landscape, they start to notice their world succumbing to a sickness. A bird lies dead on the ground, black flowers covering its now lifeless form. Soon, more birds fall from the sky, before a darkness full of malicious entities swarms the three. Alba and the large wolf do their best to fend off the monsters, but Alba is knocked unconscious. When the darkness does eventually disperse, the other adult wolf appears dead. Alba and Neva now only have each other, and together must fight the darkness killing their world. The emotional stage is set.
This parent/child relationship is something Nomada Studio sees as a natural evolution for its team, and creative director Conrad Roset told me games such as The Last Guardian and Ico served as references here. Roset became a father himself as work on Gris was coming to a close – a personal milestone that became a turning point for the entire studio. “If I hadn’t become a father, I would have never created [Neva],” he told me. “The narrative has a lot to do with the fact I just became a father. I wanted to explain a story where you could see this changing role.”
Despite playing as Alba, the changes Roset refers to also apply to Neva, whose growth from a young wolf cub is also key. In the game’s first chapter, Neva struggles with larger jumps and cowers from enemies, but as the story progresses becomes physically bigger and more assertive. Neva will start acting more independently as the game continues, attacking enemies on her own and becoming much more confident in her own abilities. Eventually, Alba will come to rely on her child to help her through the world.
“I find myself between two generations,” Roset said, explaining how his own experiences have influenced Neva. “I have my children, and I have my parents. And now, I am taking care of my parents, who once took care of me in the past.”
Lead producer Roger Mendoza, who is also a parent himself, echoed Roset’s comments. “The idea was to make a game where you could translate those feelings of raising someone,” Mendoza told me. “That’s why it was important for us to have a companion. So you could have this full cycle of ‘you start taking care of someone, you grow up with them, and then they end up taking care of you’.”
Despite players controlling the ‘parent’ throughout, Nomada still considers Neva the game’s main character. “You don’t unlock any new abilities as Alba,” Mendoza explained. “It is actually Neva who, by growing, brings you new gameplay elements.”
The team felt it was important these new abilities and the game’s platforming progression came from Alba’s wolf companion, rather than the parental figure. “Right now, my kid is small, he doesn’t always listen to me, and does what he wants,” Mendoza joked. “And that is what we are trying to show at the beginning of Neva. It’s ‘hey, here is this character that does its own thing, and you need to teach them something’.”
“The main theme of the story is your relationship with your companion, and how it changes,” Nomada’s technical director Adrián Cuevas added. “It is the evolution of protecting Neva, and taking care of her and worrying about her, to then how she can help you as she grows up… you need that to explain a game about a relationship between any kind of parent and child.”
As well as making their way through a number of story chapters relating to the passing seasons, full of platforming and puzzles, players will also need to fight off the nightmarish entities in Neva, which are polluting the world with malice and violence. However, if Alba’s own sword swipes, jumps and dodges aren’t timed right, she can and will die. This is unlike Gris, which had no violence and no fail state.
Alba is able to recover lost health at rocky, shrine-like locations, which are scattered throughout the world, often found soon after a battle. She can also recoup some health by striking her enemies with her sword while avoiding getting hit herself. But, despite this chance for semi-regular rejuvenation, the developers admitted they worried about introducing combat in Neva, as they did not want to isolate players who appreciated Gris’ lower stakes gameplay.
“It was one of the main concerns we had when designing the game,” Cuevas told me. “But, we thought of Neva as a small step up in the evolution of a gamer from playing Gris to playing this game. It is not an easy game, but it’s not a hard game. It is not that punishing in general.”
“In the narrative of Gris, there was no space for death, because of the message,” Roset added, before reasoning: “But in Neva, the characters are actively facing evil, or the enemy. So, narratively, combat fits very well. Also, as a studio, we wanted to try something new.”
To add some flexibility to this newly-introduced combat, the team included a Story mode in Neva, which offers easier puzzles. Meanwhile, Alba deals more damage to her enemies and will have some assistance with the likes of jumps. Alba cannot die in Story mode, although she will still get pushed back by enemy attacks and environmental obstructions. Players can flip between this mode and the standard Adventure mode at any time, adding to Neva’s approachability. “We hate people to get frustrated if they don’t want to feel frustrated,” Cuevas smiled.
On the flip side, Mendoza hopes the introduction of more action coupled with the game’s platforming elements will encourage new players to try Neva. “There are some people who think: ‘Hey, there is no gameplay in Gris, it is a boring game’. And that is fine, it is a valid opinion,” he said.
“But, Neva brings more things to the table.”
So, what exactly are the enemies Alba and Neva fight? They are certainly haunting in their design, with spindly arms, inky hues and visages that – despite their relative simplicity – still feel able to weave their way into your soul. Well, according to Neva’s developers, these monsters are whatever you, the player, believes them to be. They are the “manifestation of anything considered evil”, or a “reflection of everything that can go wrong in the world”. They are war, they are climate change, they are corruption, they are whatever it is you want to protect your loved ones from.
“When I was young, I read The Neverending Story, and there is a concept in that book known as ‘The Nothing’,” Roset told me, “which is described as a void as, if you look at it, it is like you are becoming blind. You see nothing. And, in Neva, [enemies] could be understood like The Nothing from The Neverending Story, which is expanding and erasing the world.
“You can understand [the enemy] as a metaphor for whatever you want. I don’t want to be explicit of what that can be, but it would be the closest thing to this void from The Neverending Story that is destroying the world our characters are in.”
“We don’t want to be super specific about what the monsters are,” Medoza furthered. “We want people to make their own connections.”
“As a father, or as a mother, you feel even more worried when there is someone you have to protect, because probably otherwise you could just run away and hide,” Cuevas added. “But, when you have a kid, maybe you want to confront it and make it better for your kid.”
I asked Roset how he came up with the designs for Neva’s monsters, given what they represent is for players to decide. He told me he simply wanted to create “characters whose only objective is to expand evil”, which he has done to stunning effect. The monsters in Neva can only get nourishment from the parts of the forest that are rotting, which “conveys the idea they need darkness to continue living,” Roset concluded. “There are little metaphors here and there where the enemies can remind you of certain [bits of] society.”
My time with Neva was over too quickly. The game is poised to be another moving piece of, let’s be honest, art from Nomada, and one I already know will bring me to tears. Neva’s blend of artwork, music, subtle story-telling and fluid gameplay are a compelling combination, all woven together with gorgeous results. Despite my relatively short hands-on time with the game, I am sure fans of Gris will be equally, if not more smitten with Neva on its release next month.
Speaking of, with Neva’s debut on the very near horizon, what is next for the acclaimed studio? Even though Neva isn’t out yet, the team already has plans for its next project. Studio Nomada is keeping the details close to its chest for now, though. “We have an idea… development is due to start very soon,” Cuevas told me with a playful smile. “It takes a long time, so even though we are going to start soon, it could be years before it comes.”
Before work on this mysterious next project begins, the team is going to allow themselves a well deserved break. “I want to rest and spend time with my family. I have just become a father for a second time,” Roset said proudly.
“I already have ideas for another project, but for now, I am taking it easy.”