I wanted do a quick recap of 3 games and an announcement of a new studio that stuck out to me at the Annapurna Interactive Showcase. To give some background on on Annapurna Interactive, they were founded and established by Annapurna Films as their games arm of the production company in 2016. Since then they have been a growing indie publisher making a name with story heavy, narrative games. Recent great games like Donut County, Telling Lies, What Remains of Edith Finch, and Outer Wilds have helped put Annapurna Interactive near the top on the list of independent game publishers.
There were many great announcements from the Annapurna Interactive Showcase, which I will link the whole video down at the bottom so you can easily check out what you want from it. Outer Wilds DLC is coming, many partnerships were announced and updates on new platforms for older titles were done. These 3 games and this new studio announcement stuck out to me as my favorites from the show.
Storyteller is a new game from Daniel Benmergui and it had a trailer shown off during the show. The whole game looks like it is in a storybook and you are the one determining the story. You are given a prompt at the top of the screen and you use the characters, items, and themes to complete the prompt giving to you. It gives me similar vibes to a puzzle game that is on Apple Arcade called Dear Reader, it being also a literature driven puzzle game. There seems to be more going in Storyteller than in Dear Reader though and what we saw makes me really excited for the full release “coming soon” to Nintendo Switch and PC.
You would have no idea that this is the next game from the creator of Donut County, Ben Espostio. It looks and is completely different from I would have expected from his next game. You play a character named White who is killing demons so he would have a chance to enter the pearly gates of Heaven. The game has interesting controls, it uses cards for the actions that you are performing, and in the new trailer shown during the show Esposito details how getting rid of cards will do different actions for you. This seems like a mixture of Mirror’s Edge with cards, and a visual novel type story with giving gifts to different characters. It also is coming to Switch and PC in “Winter 2021”
This is the game that I was looking forward to seeing from this showcase the most. Stray is an action-adventure 3rd person game were you play this cat that has been separated from the rest of his family and is trying to make his way back to them. It is kinda like a open-world cyberpunk Homeward Bound (A Disney movie about a group of pets that need to return home to their family after being left behind)
I did not expect to get emotional watching this trailer, but seeing this cat go around this environment looking for their family really hit me in the gut. As someone who usually has always had a cat around while growing up, it really made me realize how much I miss having a pet around the house.
The only bad news about this updated trailer was that Stray has been pushed back to “Early 2022”, but I can not wait for this to come out and they can take as much time as they need with it.
This for me was the biggest new studio and partnership announcement from the show for me. Ivy Road is a new studio with some amazing talent behind it. It is formed from the creator of The Stanley Parable Davey Wreden, co-creator of Gone Home and Tacoma Karla Zimonja, and Minecraft composer Daniel Rosenfeld (also known as C418). They have come together to make a new game that is going to be published by Annapurna Interactive. Whatever the game is going to be from them, I am very excited to see what all of this talent is going to come up with.
Just like with the Day of the Devs Summer Games Fest event a few months ago, Annapurna Interactive knocked it out fo the park with their first showcase. Very interesting and different looking games, with great developer interviews made this show full of bangers and a really easy watch. Hopefully this is not the last Annapurna Interactive Showcase we get and I can’t wait to see more from them.