Hello Games has had a very busy year, releasing frequent patches and large content updates for its 2016 game No Man's Sky. Now, the developers have taken The Game Awards as an opportunity to share an announcement trailer for a new project, The Last Campfire.
The Last Campfire is a puzzle adventure game where players will assume the role of a lost Ember who is "searching for meaning and a way home." The game will ask players to navigate through a "puzzling palace," discovering "a beautiful wilderness filled with lost folk, strange creatures and mysterious ruins" along the way.
While the game's reveal trailer does not offer a great deal of detail, it does showcase The Last Campfire's striking art style, which may turn a few heads.
The studio is referring to The Last Campfire as a "Hello Games Short," and it is understandable that the game is not intended to rival No Man's Sky in scale, as it is being worked on by just two Hello Games employees: Steve Burgess and Chris Symonds. Prior to joining Hello Games, Burgess and Symonds worked on LostWinds, and while The Last Campfire appears to be a very different game, the distinct art style may remind some of this 2008 platformer.
Hello Games founder Sean Murray sheds some light on The Last Campfire's tiny team, comparing the circumstances to that of a Pixar short film in its attempt to "foster creativity and new voices in the studio." Murray elaborates further:
We started by making Joe Danger, before No Man's Sky, and we want to pay forward our success to give others the opportunity to do the same. I'm so proud that just two of our team has been able to make something so artistically interesting, but also so fun and unique to play. It reminds me of why I love working at Hello Games.
As stated, very few concrete details can be gleaned from the trailer showcased at The Game Awards, not even what platforms The Last Campfire will be released on or when it will come. However, this mysterious first look is certain to leave some players eagerly waiting for more.
The Last Campfire is in development for unspecified consoles.