A testament to Sony’s excellently constructed State of Play broadcast, we got our first look at an assuming little puzzle adventure game going by the name of Arise: A Simple Story.
Arise: A Simple Story Trailer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=710dif4cwFM
The unveiling trailer is as contemplative as it is soothing and is bathed in a sonic track seemingly pulled straight for The Witcher 3‘s Skellige Isles with haunting nordic vocal swells to match. It’s still unclear at this point what Arise is all about, but the art style is simply gorgeous.
Enchantingly rotund pagan-like characters administer the final rites by bonfire of a fallen comrade, before we see an elderly fellow (presumably the deceased) traverse landscapes as diverse as snow-capped mountains and ridged-planes teeming with colossal flora before taking a decidedly darker turn as we get a glimpse of a horde of shadowy specters peering creepily with translucent eyes.
What Can We Expect?
There’s more than a hint of Thatgamecompany’s (of Journey and Sky fame) visuals and tone packed into the short two-minute trailer. There’s even a smattering of Rime and Ori and the Blind Forest, and that’s no bad thing in our estimation.
Fledgling Barcelona studio Piccolo is behind Arise, and its story is an interesting one. The three founding members had worked in advertising for over 20 years, before dropping everything to make games in a leap of faith that, going by the State of Play trailer, was a wise decision.
Piccolo GM Alexis Corominas says Arise is “a bittersweet journey through your life, where you relive the moments of happiness but also have to face devastating tragedies all over again. If that’s not extraordinary enough, you quickly realize you have the gift to bend time to your will.”
Final Word
Arise: A Simple Story is slated for release on December 3rd of this year for PlayStation 4, so we don’t have long to wait to experience its mesmerizing journey for ourselves.