Tunic takes lessons from A Link to the Past - about how to build a world and layer its puzzles until they become a kind of strata of secrets and possibilities. But this isn't a clone or a copy or an idiotic riff on cherished memories. I had almost written it off as a secondary text, to be honest: that top-downish topiary world, the cinnamon roll trees of Hyrule swapped out for fat little darts, the boyish hero in green replaced with a plucky fox. And an invitation, perhaps - encouragement to allow my mind to work in the same way.Ī Link to the Past is just one of a handful of games that Tunic reminds me of. He gave me a glimpse into the minds of the designers - of the way their minds worked when they came together, certainly.
But more than that, just by being there, in this secret piece of the map that I had to first imagine might exist in order to actually locate, he gave me something much more. This fellow gave me a bottle, which in a Zelda game is always a useful thing to have one more of. A pocket of cosiness in an increasingly frightening world. I found a path eventually, and under the bridge was a sleeping fellow lying by a campfire. Late on in A Link to the Past, which is still arguably the best Zelda game, and certainly the most committed in its Zeldaishness, I realised that there was a gap in the map: a bridge, which may have had something under it. Watch on YouTube Here's Ian's own review of Tunic for our video team. It will be a single detail that sticks in the mind and makes you think: Cor! Look at that. How do birds even know when a nest is complete? For a world like this, a world in a videogame, rather than up high in an old tree, completeness shows up in the details. Availability: Out on PC, Xbox (Game Pass), and Mac on 16th March.Maybe scavenged, maybe stolen, a thing reflecting a thousand other mini-things that came together to make it. And as intricate too: woven together, each piece locked in position by dozens of other pieces. Instead these worlds are a bounded place, a place as boldly self-contained - as compact and weather-tested - as a bird's nest in the high branches of an old tree. Not open worlds, not free-roaming, certainly not endless or procedural worlds. Tunic turns its many influences into something that feels both familiar and gloriously new.
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