Neverway, A ‘Nightmarish Life Sim’ From The Artist Of Celeste, Gets October Release Window And Free Demo

Last year’s Triple-i Initiative showcase included the announcement teaser for Neverway, a game that’s part action, part life sim, and part moody, existential horror. This year, the game returned to the event, bringing two of the most exciting pieces of news a showcase trailer can bring: the game has a release window, and you can try it out for free on Steam today. You can watch the latest trailer below.

The game follows a young, profoundly depressed woman named Fiona who moves to a remote island to become a farmer and live the simple life. But try as she might to grow crops and romance her neighbors, she’s also haunted by the past, and must use Zelda-like combat to fight off dark forces.

Neverway is being developed by ColdBlood Inc, a studio founded by two people: Isadora Sophia, formerly a senior engineer at Microsoft, and Pedro Medeiros, who’s known for his work as an artist on Celeste and Towerfall. The game’s soundtrack is done by Disasterpeace, best known for his work composing for games like Hyper Light Drifter and Fez and for films like It Follows and Bodies Bodies Bodies. Neverway is being published by Outersloth, the publishing arm of developer Innersloth, known for Among Us.

Today’s playable prologue includes about an hour of content. The first portion shows the game’s intro, which is more moody and story-driven, while the latter portion comes from an action-heavy sequence taking place sometime later. While the prologue is only available on Steam,  the game will also come to Nintendo Switch when it drops this October.