Chucklefish, the developers of Starbound and publisher of Stardew Valley, have picked up the quirky adventure-RPG Eastward, by Shanghai-based studio Pixpil. The game is inspired by ‘90s Japanese animation and Nintendo classics such as The Legend of Zelda and Mother/Earthbound.
Chucklefish’s other new game Wargroove is “the Advance Wars of 2018”!
The game follows a digger called John and a girl called Sam as they explore a post-apocalyptic world, as strange creatures descend on the last human cities. It seems to be lighter take than that description suggests, and Pixpil describe Eastward’s story as “soft sci-fi”. The soundtrack is being composed by Joel Corelitz, who credits include Hohokum and The Unfinished Swan.
Built using an in-house engine based on pixel artist Hong Moran’s style, the game uses “a combination of a modern, innovative 3D lighting system and a rich retro-pixel artwork”. The trailer clearly shows the studio’s love of Nintendo’s RPGs – in particular, the quirky and fan-beloved Earthbound/Mother series, which also inspired Undertale.
Eastward will be Pixpil’s first game. It started development in 2015 with just three team members, which has since grown to ten. It was last seen on Steam Greenlight, with the last update in July 2017. Chucklefish presumably picked it up at some point after that.
Eastward currently doesn’t have a release date but we’ll let you know when it does. For more on the game check out the website.