Game Freak’s upcoming Beast of Reincarnation has been repeatedly described as a “one-person, one-dog action-RPG,” earning that title by virtue of its canine mascot Koo, who also acts as the player-character’s companion. After playing about 90 minutes of Beast of Reincarnation at an exclusive preview event, I must say that this description is rather accurate, as it hones in on the relationship at the heart of both the story and the moment-to-moment gameplay.
Koo is a mysterious dog-like creature who has been enhanced by the Blight, a sort of nature-bound curse that affects almost all living beings in the world of Beast of Reincarnation. The game’s player-character, Emma, is an outcast who has been pushed away from society due to her ability to absorb the Blight into her own body, which many find frightening or unnerving. As such, Koo is effectively her closest friend, and their bond is clearly something that will be illuminated over the course of a complete playthrough. Speaking with Beast of Reincarnation director Kota Furushima, I was able to get a new appreciation for this four-legged friend, who’s poised to stand out against legions of other lovable video game dogs.
Game Freak Has a Very Specific Reason for Including Koo in Beast of Reincarnation
Granted, there’s something inherently cool about a sword-wielding loner traveling alongside a vicious beast that heeds no one but them: I originally figured that Koo was added primarily to make Beast of Reincarnation more stylish and appealing. There’s probably some truth to this, but according to Furushima, the decision was more thoughtful. Here’s what he said when asked about Koo’s design process:
“We decided early on that the dynamic we wanted wouldn’t work with another human character. I went back to the idea of a battle system that requires commands, and what animal would be most fit for accepting commands? Man’s best friend, the canine, came up immediately. The idea of a dog being a comrade for Emma really made natural sense.”
Furushima claims that the gameplay dynamic the team was looking for—wherein one character focuses on real-time combat and the other on turn-based-inspired tactics—simply makes more sense with a dog than a person. I tend to agree. As Furushima says, what other animal is better suited to taking commands from a human?
In our conversation, Furushima described the gameplay relationship between Emma and Koo as “a dynamic of dependency,” born from the pair’s inherent differences. Emma’s swordsmanship, agility, and versatility allow her to weave through combat scenarios with ease, but Koo’s powers are what take her to the next level. Speaking on my own experience with the game, activating Koo’s abilities via the tactical menu, whenever they were ready, could often turn the tide of battle in my favor. The dog can launch enemies into the air, restore Emma’s HP, bind enemies to the ground, and so on. Smart use of these commands is nearly essential in tougher enemy encounters, making this “dynamic of dependency” ring ever more true as Beast of Reincarnation cranks up the intensity.
Koo Will Play a Big Role in Beast of Reincarnation’s Narrative
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Image via Game Freak -
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Image via Game Freak
In a January gameplay overview for Beast of Reincarnation, Furushima said that the game concept stemmed from three core concepts: warmth, trust, and loneliness. In our discussion, he also said that the broader concept for the game’s story “was really about a pair bonding in a very harsh landscape.” The dynamic of dependency goes beyond just the gameplay, being tethered to Beast’s plot in ways that will probably only become clear after a full playthrough.
Something I gleaned from my hands-on preview with Beast of Reincarnation is that Emma lacks empathy—she says as much in a flashback cutscene. This is an interesting trait for a protagonist to have, as heroes are often defined by excess empathy, if anything. Her deficits in empathy and emotion are connected to an admittedly less original gaming protagonist trait: Emma has amnesia.
At any rate, it would seem that Emma’s own personal journey of emotional discovery will be aided by Koo, at least to some degree. About this, Furushima said:
“But as you spend more time with the game, you start to understand the reasons behind why [Emma and Koo] work together and how they need to progress. Once you can look at their relationship from a more long-term perspective, new emotional elements start to come into play: they start to understand each other, going through feelings of empathy, solidarity, and all the other emotions one would experience in any kind of relationship.”
It’s a potentially fascinating take on the rugged hero archetype, as Emma could, in a sense, regain her humanity with the help of an animal rather than a human. Such a development would underscore the brutality and inhumanity of Beast of Reincarnation’s post-apocalyptic world. Again, the game is supposed to be about a pair bonding in “a very harsh landscape.” Perhaps this harshness is emotional as much as corporeal.
Slightly more interesting is the claim that players will better understand “why [Emma and Koo] work together and how they need to progress.” This is vague, and Furushima admitted he couldn’t speak much on Emma and Koo’s relationship without spoiling the story, so it’s up for interpretation. Koo is affected by the Blight, and his origin is a mystery to both the player and Emma herself, so perhaps he will be more directly linked to Emma’s past, or the broader implications of the Blight, in some way.
Whatever the case, I’m looking forward to seeing how Beast of Reincarnation incorporates Koo into its gameplay and narrative; if the full game is anything like the 90 minutes I played, then I imagine Koo will be quite central. Zooming out, Koo’s integration and characterization might be seen as representative of Game Freak’s own growth. Here is an uber-successful developer famous for making Pokémon, a game about befriending magical monsters, crafting a more focused experience about just one such monster companion. The parallels are as obvious as the divergences, so no matter what, Beast of Reincarnation will be a line in the sand for Game Freak, a clear threshold for its legacy as a studio. Koo, being so similar to a Pokémon both mechanically and narratively, is an inextricable part of that.
- Released
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August 4, 2026
- Publisher(s)
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Fictions
- Number of Players
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Single-player
