Universally acknowledged

We’re enjoying a cheerful wander around Ija Nöj in Tchia when we’re belatedly struck by a fact revealed in its intro video. This utterly convincing sun-kissed setting was built by just nine people. How, we wonder, did they manage it? And then we realise: it works so well because the team at Awaceb didn’t have to fake it; it is, after all, where they’re from.

Sure, technically this archipelago is fictional – but it’s a place that has a firm grounding in the real world. Tchia is a love letter to New Caledonia, a South Pacific island the studio’s co-founders call home. Awaceb doesn’t boast the resources afforded most developers of open-world games, and in its introduction it’s at great pains to point out that certain elements are fictional – probably unnecessary in a game allowing you to possess oil drums and fight creatures made from fabric – yet it feels just about as vivid and real as pretty much any triple-A sandbox we’ve spent time in lately.

The pixellated horror of Holstin may be a world apart from Tchia, yet its setting, too, bears the fingerprints of creators who have lived there. Again, there’s no need for clarification that early-’90s Poland wasn’t covered in some kind of otherworldly ooze (though it perhaps serves as a metaphor for the societal disorder of the time). But game director Rafal Sankowski and narrative designer Czarek Tomolak delight in outlining that their game has period- and location-accurate street lamps and bins.

And while we’re sure Triple Topping never played in a demonic punk band – perhaps we should have doublechecked – Dead Pets Unleashed demonstrates that as creatives the team have encountered their share of dubious industry gatekeepers and moments of economic precarity. Rather than striving to appeal to everyone, all three games show that it’s through specificities that creators are more likely to achieve universality – those precise details letting us more easily connect with places and in turn identify with the people who inhabit them.