As announced in the recent Nintendo Direct, Gearbox Publishing and French developer Casus Ludi will be releasing a new type of cooperative survival adventure games where a young deer and a wolf collaborate in a snowy wilderness to find a family.
The story itself is very untraditional, because the deer and the wolf are usually depicted as natural enemies. However, in Blanc they both have to set their differences aside and make use of each other’s strengths in order to reunite with their families.
The deer is fickle and doesn’t weigh much, so it can jump to high places with ease, and as for the wolf, his fast and small body can bend and enable it to pass through narrow places. Players can enjoy this cooperative type of gameplay by using two controllers or even online over a distance.
Blanc is characterized by an expressive black and white art style that speaks volumes about the snowy and lonely world, in which everything is hand drawn and then rendered into 3D. The controls are simplified so that even people who are not accustomed to playing video games can enjoy it, which is an approach very similar to GRIS.
Breaking free from the predetermined roles of older fairy tale stories and society norms is always interesting to see. Back then, children tales used to define Good and Evil in pre-established concepts, but now the line has gotten more blurry around that subject, and stories about self-determination and you deciding how you want your life and interpersonal relationships to be are more resonant and needed, and Blanc is what I believe a perspective changing story in that regard.
Casus Ludi is an agency that prides itself on making interactive experiences with persuasive content, and how to make them as immersive as possible. It feels like they are treading new grounds in the field of digital writing, and we can’t wait to see what they have in store when Blanc arrives on Steam, Epic Games Store and Nintendo Eshop