Paper Beast is the next game from legendary French game designer Éric Chahi, and it will be coming to PlayStation VR sometime later this year.
Éric Chahi is best known for creating the legendary platformer Another World, or Out of this World as it was known in North America. Developed while he was at Delphine Software, Another World told the familiar story of a genius physicist who gets transported to an alien world after an experiment gone awry.
The game used a unique artstyle for which it became perhaps best-known for. Chahi’s team constructed sprites for the game by using rotoscoped animations with polygons. The result made for a very abstract and well-animated presentation.
This unique artstyle, coupled with the game’s cinematic presentation, helped garner critical acclaim for Another World. Additionally, several game designers, such as Hideo Kojima and Fumito Ueda, have cited the game as having influenced them.
Despite the success of Another World, Chahi hasn’t exactly been a prolific creator. Paper Beast will be just the fifth game from him since Another World originally released in 1991.
Paper Beast is debut game of Chahi’s new studio Pixel Reef. On the PlayStation Blog, Chahi talks about how it will focus on experimentation and discovery. As part of this, Chahi and his team are developing a unique living ecosystem within the game’s world.
The game’s Creatures are designed to move and react in a very natural way. These creatures will also react and change their behavior based on the players actions. Additionally, Chahi mentions that the layer can also create bonds with them.
One thing Paper Beast shares with Another World is that it has a unique art style. As the name suggests, Paper Beast‘s creatures, and even bits of its environments, are all made to look like folded paper animals.
With its unique artstyle and focus on creating a living alien world, Paper Beast is a game that looks to follow in the footsteps of its creator’s past works. At the very least, the game carries the same spirit of creativity as its predecessors.
Check out the new trailer for Paper Beast below.
