Dontnod is probably best known [[link]] for its dramatic story-driven fare—games like Life is Strange and Lost Records: Bloom & Rage—but they took a sensational left turn with Jusant, a placid climbing game which . If you liked that game, it looks like it's gotten a photoreal, star-faring makeover with the studio's newest game: Aphelion.
Aphelion's reveal trailer, which popped up at today's Xbox showcase, shows off a lot of snazzy parkour sequences; precarious maneuvering over ice bridges, sliding down a crumbling mountainside, and so on. Assuming the utter absence of combat is no mistake, this looks like the sort of hyper-detailed, big budget treat that more realistic platforming rarely sees.
Where Jusant channels the likes of Journey and Abzu for a meditative experience, Aphelion reminds me more of the exploration set pieces in Uncharted or Square Enix's Tomb Raider reboot. It [[link]] looks weighty, tense, and like one wrong step could see you plummeting to your death.
That photoreal art style is a far cry from the studio's usual fare too, but the game still seems to revolve around its a character-driven story. Two astronauts crash land on a planet and have to get back to each other, and the end of the trailer implies they might stumble on some aliens in the process. I assume the European Space Agency logo at the end of the trailer announcing a collaboration with Dontnod has more to do with the planetary exploration side of things and not the spooky aliens.
Frankly, I'm pretty taken with the prospect. I always liked the puzzles and exploration in the Tomb Raider reboot more than the combat or RPG aspect, so a game that trims the fat and delivers the goods could be a sleeper hit in the making.
Aphelion's Steam page doesn't seem to be live just yet, but you can find more details on Dontnod's .