How Princess Mononoke, The NeverEnding Story, And The Last…

Neva is a platformer by Nomada Studio that tells the story of a young titular wolf, who is joined by the PC Alba. Players watch Neva grow from a young cub to a capable companion in a dying and decaying world. Although all games can be seen as works of art, Neva and its predecessor Gris have pushed that aspect for Devolver Digital's portfolio. This also, understandably, means drawing inspiration from other games, facets of popular culture, literature, paintings, and more. While some of Neva's influences might look more apparent, such as Studio Ghibli's Princess Mononoke with its wolves and forest threat, others might be somewhat more surprising or subtle like Michael Ende's 1979 novel The NeverEnding Story and 2016's action-adventure game The Last Guardian.

In an interview with The Best War Games, Neva's lead producer Roger Mendoza spoke about how Princess Mononoke, The NeverEnding Story, and The Last Guardian specifically inspired the upcoming game.

Neva Hands-On Preview: It's More Than Gris with a Sword

Ahead of its October release, The Best War Games plays a brief demo of Neva where the combat, parent-child relationship, and dying world come to the fore.

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By Joshua Duckworth

How Princess Mononoke And Michael Ende's The NeverEnding Story Inspired Neva

At a glance, Neva and Princess Mononoke have some obvious similarities with their wolf characters. Mendoza also acknowledged the similarities between some of Neva' s enemies and Spirited Away's No Face, but spoke more about Princess Mononoke as a particular inspiration, with Mendoza and Neva creative director Conrad Roset both being big fans. Specifically, Mendoza said Neva has "hints to Mononoke" referring to what happens to the forest.

While most might remember the 1984 movie The NeverEnding Story which was somewhat based on Ende's novel, it was the latter that inspired Neva and, specifically, its depiction of The Nothing as an indeterminate force that ravages the world. Mendoza went on to explain how Roset was inspired by the concept of The Nothing in Neva, which similarly doesn't specify what its enemies are as something for players to unravel themselves:

He really liked this idea of, as you said, The Nothing, of this presence that is everywhere, but it's not super specific. That is something that we wanted to do with Neva in the sense that we're not telling what's happening or where things are coming from, necessarily. It's more of you trying to see that the world is dying, and you'll have to face your fears.

How The Last Guardian Inspired Neva

Mendoza also explained how GenDesign and Japan Studio's The Last Guardian influenced Neva, which has some obvious points of comparison because of the former's young protagonist's bond with Trico. As Mendoza explained,

Again, just to give an illustration from games, we looked a lot at Last Guardian, which is also taking care of and raising someone. It's a game we really love, and it was a good foundation for building that role. It was a good place to start and see what they did and try to take the best things around that and do it our way.

While The Last Guardian had its problems for some players from a technical standpoint, it is widely considered a beautiful portrayal of friendship. Of course, Neva had other influences, like the paintings of Claude Monet, for its backgrounds. It will be interesting to see how Neva brings together its various inspirations into its own signature design and how that influences the evolving parent-child relationship between Alba and Neva. Either way, it's a game that looks to be every bit as an emotional and beautiful journey as Gris.

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