MUTATION NATION

A warped world awaits in Tarsier Studios' latest horror. At least this time you can bring a friend

- JULIAN BENSON

We make a strange pair. Two children sit in a small dinghy bobbing in the dark water, the boat’s outboard motor quiet. The girl wears a white shift and a simple rabbit mask a lot like you would see at a children’s party themed around Alice In Wonderland. More macabrely, a hessian sack covers the boy’s head, the thick cord of a cut hangman’s noose trailing down his back. The lamp hanging from a thin pole at the stern does little to fend off the encroaching gloom. We push forward on the thumbstick and the outboard motor chokes into life, driving the little boat toward a distant beach.

Tarsier Studios is taking a risk. The Malmöbased developer behind games such as Little Nightmares and its sequel doesn’t like to demo unfinished work, but today it’s showing us an incomplete section of the forthcoming Reanimal. The game will stutter as assets are loaded in, items will turn invisible in our hands, and incomplete animations mean skinned corpses that should chase us like writhing snakes will simply glide icily over the floor. We can sense the hesitance in the room. This is a studio that values quality and strives for perfection. It’s why it’s sometimes called “chaotic”, according to creative director Dennis Talajic. Even late into a game’s development, the team will tweak and change, cut and alter, iterate and improve. They end up with better games as a consequence, but it’s an approach that demands faith that the game will realise its potential, and it takes a toll on the entire studio.

At least, that used to be the case. Today, Tarsier Studios is showing off unfinished work because it is a changed company. After what it took to complete its previous game, it has to be.