by Danreb VictorioSummer Game Fest, and the Nintendo Switch 2 booth in particular, offered a lot of fun cooperative experiences, but one game stood out for its beautiful art style and lasting appeal. If you’re looking for a cooperative sidescrolling experience that has Inside’s slow and methodic gameplay but something more cheerful and lighthearted, Out of Words needs to be put on your radar.
In this 2D platformer, you play as Kurt and Karla, two friends who are realizing they have romantic feelings for one another but are struggling to tell each other. To make matters worse, one of them is moving away, making things even more difficult for them mentally. Much like It Takes Two, where Cody and May are turned into dolls by the Book of Love, Kurt and Karla end up in an obtuse alternate world where they have no mouths, and the only way out is by helping each other.
This alternate world is beautifully constructed, and the dev we had guiding us through the demo validly spent more time talking about the game’s visual design than actual hints of how to play–which honestly I preferred anyway. The game utilizes both claymation and handcrafted art to build everything from the characters to the world around them. Moving water made of paper both straight and crumpled was definitely a sight to behold, and the way they look under different kinds of lighting made everything all the more impressive to look at.
As far as gameplay goes, it’s mostly a puzzle platformer, with both players navigating each world and gaining abilities specific to it. The demo we played must’ve been around 20 minutes, but the way they really blended different parts of the game to showcase some of the abilities was really impressive. The dev onsite actually told us we played through various parts of the game that were early, in the middle, and at the end, so I definitely have a lot of respect for how the demo experience was designed.
Two of my favorite sections were memorable because they required both vocal communication between Adriana and me, and the second time we went through something similar toward the end, we didn’t even really need to speak to each other because you can totally see what was happening on-screen. The first example took place early in a mossy cavern with different gravity rules. If you were holding onto this glowing orb, you could walk on the “grassy” ceiling, and it was fun passing the orb back and forth to save each other from certain death. The second example was a little easier because there was no labyrinth to go through. Instead, we were floating in the sky, one of us falling up, and the other of us falling down. The technique here was to let our characters edge the screen and pass the orb back at just the right time to find the right floaty balance and reach the end.
That very small glimpse of Out of Worlds left us really impressed, and it’ll honestly feel like an eternity before the game comes out in early 2027 on all modern platforms. Just know that we’re really excited about it. While I love my Switch 2, I’m glad I have the option of playing this on PlayStation when it comes out.
Out of Words
