Since Cocoon’s reveal final 12 months, I’ve been excited to at some point test it out. Coming from Jeppe Carlsen, a former lead designer behind Playdead’s Limbo and Inside, its reveal trailer in 2022 made splashes amongst followers of the video games Carlsen labored on. Throughout Summer time Video games Fest this 12 months, I lastly acquired to play roughly half-hour of this unusual, sci-fi puzzle sport, and I don’t suppose it may have made a greater first hands-on impression.
Instantly, Cocoon’s visible type is putting. Its minimalist sci-fi aesthetic feels proper at dwelling inside the lineage of Playdead video games, though it’s vital to notice this comes from Carlsen’s new unbiased Geometric Interactive studio. I management a metallic beetle-like with no obvious goal: I attempt to discover the realm I’m in deeper as a result of that looks as if what I’m speculated to do.
Rapidly, although, I encounter puzzles constructed into the encompassing alien atmosphere. In my favourite puzzle, I pull a geometrical, prismatic sphere throughout a half-circle line and doing so rotated a spire close by. On this spire are shapes, and I’ve to memorize the order through which these shapes seem after which stroll via symbols planted into the bottom close by based mostly on these shapes in that precise order. In one other, I look out to the horizon to find which shapes, through which order, I have to work together with.
I would not name these puzzles difficult, however their serene and easy nature matches properly with the coolness ambiance in the remainder of Cocoon. As peaceable and chill as Cocoon is, it’s additionally mysterious and considerably spooky, thanks partially to its glorious sound design. Sci-fi womps, siren-like pops, and drawn-out notes create a rating that feels much less like a melody and extra like aliens talking via music.
For many of my half-hour, I used to be transporting giant, ethereal orbs from one place to a different, and every time I place this orb on the designated spot, one thing new occurs, permitting me to advance in my exploration. Walkways open up, horizontal platforms transfer left and proper, and elevators activate. Generally, the orb on my beetle’s again reveals pinkish-orange crystalline walkways beforehand hidden from sight, permitting me to succeed in new areas. Different instances, I full a puzzle and obtain a honeybee-like drone that follows me and shoots down limitations in entrance of me, one other methodology to succeed in beforehand restricted areas.
The climax of the demo got here within the type of a boss struggle. After diving into the orb I’ve been transporting on my again, I attain a brand new space (and I dive into different orbs, too, to succeed in new areas elsewhere within the demo). After fixing a number of puzzles, a large alien moth creature seems out of the bottom.
As a result of Cocoon does not have conventional fight, or no less than this demo didn’t, my aim is to outlive throughout the boss struggle. The moth creature flies forwards and backwards throughout the sector, releasing a lethal stream of pinkish-orange crystal beneath that I’ve to dodge. It additionally shoots a stream of metallic bugs at me, which I shortly shake off by urgent A. On occasion, I see the filth beneath me shake, nearly as if one thing is crawling underground. Tapping A over this filth causes a purple and black bomb to look, and I can smash this bomb into the bottom to wreck the boss.
Defeating the boss paves the way in which for me to succeed in a brand new swamp space, however my demo ends shortly after my exploration right here started.
Cocoon is unusual and mysterious, and I’ve no clue what’s occurring narratively in it. Its world, ambiance, visible type, rating, and resume of puzzles so far are greater than sufficient to make sure I try the total sport when it’s launched on Xbox Sequence X/S, Xbox One, Change, and PC someday this 12 months.
