{"id":76688,"date":"2023-09-28T18:37:04","date_gmt":"2023-09-28T17:37:04","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/pc\/2023-gets-another-must-play-game\/"},"modified":"2023-09-28T18:37:04","modified_gmt":"2023-09-28T17:37:04","slug":"2023-gets-another-must-play-game","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pley2win.com\/?p=76688","title":{"rendered":"2023 Gets Another Must-Play Game"},"content":{"rendered":"


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There was a moment near the end of Cocoon<\/em> when my brain could not keep up with the game. Like being curled up in a wave and then flipped head over heels against the surf, my mind sluggishly tried to work backwards what precisely had just occurred. Where did I just come from? How did I get here? Cocoon<\/em>\u2019s strange, alien world is based on an exceedingly simple and elegant set of rules, yet every time I thought I\u2019d figured them out a new wrinkle would appear, changing how each piece of the puzzle related to the others and upending my understanding of the bigger picture in the process. Cocoon <\/em>might be one of the best puzzle adventures ever made. It is certainly one of the most graceful and satisfying ones I\u2019ve ever played.<\/p>\n

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This Brutal Gothic Metroidvania Is Shaping up To Be Something Special<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Out September 29 on PlayStation, Xbox, PC, and Switch, Cocoon<\/em> is the first game by Geometric Interactive, a Danish indie studio co-founded by former Playdead developers Jeppe Carlsen and Jakob Schmid. Just as eerily evocative and clever at brooding puzzle hits Limbo<\/em> and Inside<\/em>, Cocoon<\/em> feels right at home in that lineage. But it also departs in meaningful ways from the formulas that made both of those games so great, with a much more advanced set of gameplay mechanics and a world that trades the constant threat of death and violence for one of chill exploration and discovery. Nothing will kill you. Even the boss fights. They just send you back to the beginning of the encounter until you manage to decipher them.<\/p>\n

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Screenshot: Geometric Interactive<\/figcaption><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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You control a tiny moth-like creature searching for something\u2014meaning, purpose, a sense of order\u2014amid landscapes that shift from desert and marshy biomes to alien environments full of organic fauna and industrial scaffolding. Are you on a distant planet, inside a spaceship, or perhaps mulling about inside the body of a much larger being? It\u2019s never quite clear as you begin navigating Cocoon<\/em>\u2019s tiny mazes of interwoven puzzle mechanics, a constant flux that, combined with the subtle but expressive reverberations of its synth soundtrack, adds to the propulsive mystery at the game\u2019s center.<\/p>\n

Cocoon<\/em>\u2019s key innovation is the use of worlds within worlds to augment how you can reach new areas and double back on old ones to overcome simple obstacles. These worlds are represented by orbs you can carry around and plug into nodes to activate various devices that help you move forward. In addition to being a world in itself that you can hop in and out of at specific points, the orbs also have special powers. An orange one powers energy bridges while a green one lets you rise up and down columns of fluid as they solidify and evaporate. <\/p>\n