I honestly can’t remember the last time I played a game like Neverway. In fact, let me just confidently say here that I don’t think I ever have. Believe me, I’ve played a lot of very strange, deeply unsettling games before, but after spending around an hour with Neverway‘s prologue on Steam alone, I’m not sure any of them even come close. It’s not just the mood, either. It’s the way every part of the game comes together into this well-oiled, nightmarish machine that is just unnerving enough to, rather than paralyze you or make you want to hide under the thickest comforter you can find, actually make you want to keep pushing forward out of hope that there’s a resolution lying in wait ahead. And somehow, beneath all its strange and delightfully disturbing antics, Neverway still makes room for familiar Zelda-inspired combat and the life sim loop of games like Graveyard Keeper and Stardew Valley.
Neverway is an upcoming psychological horror life sim by Coldblood Inc. that follows Fiona, who quits her dead-end job and moves to a remote island to start over on a farm. The fresh start goes very wrong when she becomes the immortal herald of a dead god, leaving her indebted to it while a nightmare reality called Neverway begins leaking into her own. She has to maintain her new life, build relationships, farm and craft, while also fighting horrors and searching for Neverway itself. Even its premise alone is enough to make the hair stand up on the body of the most optimistic soul, but that’s what really makes it such a creative take on the life sim genre. Set to launch in 2027 on PC via Steam and Nintendo Switch, Neverway is still a bit further out than I wanted, especially now that I’ve played the demo, and it’s all I can think about.
Neverway’s Prologue Alone Feels Like a Stroke of Genius
Check Out Neverway on Steam
What can I say about Neverway but that it is one of the weirdest indie games I’ve ever played, and I mean that in a very, very good way. In fact, “weird” is a term of endearment in my household, so just know that if that word is coming out of my mouth, whatever it’s directed toward is most likely being complimented. That is very much the case with Neverway, because I have truly not had such a memorable experience with a game in quite some time—and all I’ve played of it is the prologue demo on Steam.
For starters, the atmosphere in this game is positively off the charts. It’s intentionally off-putting, and yet simultaneously compelling enough to make you keep playing. Immediately, it’s clear that something isn’t quite right about its world, but the discomforting feeling it gives you is somehow also cozy. Even its color schemes are abnormal, despite actually feeling perfectly normal during play. It’s honestly the strangest mix of emotions I’ve felt in a game, but one of those mixed drinks that I want absolutely every single drop of. To me, this is one of the most important things that Neverway had to nail, because half of what makes horror, well, horror is a great atmosphere.
I have truly not had such a memorable experience with a game in quite some time—and all I’ve played of it is the prologue demo on Steam.
Even Neverway‘s sound design—which is, in my opinion, another fundamental building block of a great horror game—is fantastic. Everything from the ambience both in and outside Fiona’s apartment to the sound of the subway running through the tunnels makes the world itself intensely immersive and, at times, downright hypnotic. Its music is also deliberately dissonant, with warped tones and melodies that seem to drift in and out of tune, giving even otherwise quiet moments an uneasy edge. Before my first combat encounter, before my first interaction with an NPC, I was sold on Neverway‘s world, the heart and soul of this incredibly promising horror RPG.
I’m already invested in the story too, which is, as I mentioned before, just dark enough to inspire curiosity. Fiona is immediately easy to latch onto as a character, and the prologue wastes very little time establishing that there’s far more happening beneath the surface than she’s aware of. It gives you enough information to start forming theories, but never enough to make you feel like you’ve actually figured anything out, and that tension only gets stronger as the demo goes on. By the time it reaches what initially feels like its ending, Neverway has already done enough to make its mystery difficult to walk away from. Then it pulls one more trick, taking you somewhere completely unexpected and reframing the entire experience in the process. I won’t spoil exactly what happens there, but it was the moment that took Neverway from something I was enjoying to something I genuinely couldn’t stop thinking about after I closed the game.
Neverway Makes Its Life Sim and Zelda-Inspired Combat Feel Like Part of the Same Game
All of that said, the combat and gameplay loop in Neverway are still just as solid. While I didn’t get to delve too deeply into the life sim side of the game during the demo, there were plenty of familiar pieces already in place, primarily when it comes to resource gathering and crafting. At one point, I was tasked with rebuilding a bridge in order to move forward, and to do so, I had to fight my way through enemies and complete a few minor tasks to get the tools and materials necessary to do so. Once I had completed the bridge, the demo actually concluded after another story-heavy scene that I won’t spoil here, but my point in mentioning it is that I didn’t get to see the full extent of Neverway‘s life sim side, though I do know plenty about it based on the game’s Steam description.
The full game is going to lean much harder into that side of things, and what Coldblood Inc. has described so far already sounds like a pretty substantial life sim hiding underneath all the horror. Fiona can farm, fish, craft items, prepare meals, and decorate her homestead, while each day is split into morning, afternoon, and evening blocks that only advance when the player chooses to move them forward. Relationships are a big part of that loop too, with more than 20 characters appearing throughout the story and 12 available as romance options, and getting close to them can actually help Fiona in different ways, whether that’s dealing with debuffs, hacking computers, or unlocking buffs and combat abilities. There are even smaller details like selling crops to help pay Fiona’s mortgage every Treeday, using them to prepare snacks, spending money at Sellmart, or just picking up a part-time job there if she needs the cash. Coldblood Inc. has said the goal isn’t for any of these life sim elements to exist on their own, either, but to support the story and make Neverway‘s world feel more alive, which honestly sounds like exactly the right approach for a game already this strange.
Before my first combat encounter, before my first interaction with an NPC, I was sold on Neverway‘s world, the heart and soul of this incredibly promising horror RPG.
Regarding combat, it really does feel a lot like classic Zelda, which means it’s right up my alley. Fiona has a simple weapon she can use to strike her foes, and she even has a Hookshot (yes, it’s actually called that, too) that can pull her across gaps or pull enemies toward her. She can dash in order to dodge attacks as well, and I even acquired an ability during the demo that allowed me to leave a shadow of Fiona behind after a dash that would then attack any enemies that came within range of it. There wasn’t enough combat in the prologue for me to see how much depth it will eventually have, but what I played was responsive, easy to understand, and already gave me plenty of reasons to want to see what other abilities Fiona can pick up along the way.
Neverway Just Made 2027 Feel Much Further Away
More than anything, I’m impressed by how confidently Neverway seems to know what it wants to be. There are a lot of games that mash genres together, but I’ve played plenty where one side of that equation ends up feeling like the main attraction while everything else is there to give it a little extra flavor. Even from this short prologue, I never got that impression here. The horror doesn’t feel pasted onto a life sim, and the life sim doesn’t seem like something designed to give Fiona something to do between encounters with whatever nightmare is waiting for her next. It’s all strangely comfortable living together, even when almost nothing about the game itself feels comfortable, and I think that’s a huge part of why it left such a strong impression on me.
Unfortunately, that impression now has to carry me all the way to 2027, which feels a little cruel after a demo this good. Neverway was already on my radar before I played it, but I wasn’t prepared for just how much personality Coldblood Inc. had packed into such a small slice of the game, or how quickly its mystery would get its hooks into me. There are still plenty of questions hanging over how all of these systems will come together during a playthrough of the full game, but if the rest of Neverway is even half as creative, strange, and delightfully unnerving as its prologue, I’m more than ready to find out what exactly Fiona has gotten herself into.
- Released
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2026
- Developer(s)
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Coldblood Inc.
- Publisher(s)
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Coldblood Inc., Outersloth
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Unknown
