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Surreal-Em-Up - Niko: Through The Dream Out June 26th

Strange things

How do you describe the art style of Niko: Through The Dream [official site]? Some may call it a Magritte painting in the form of a puzzle game; Others might say it's like experiencing one of Cheryl Cole's fever dreams from when she had malaria. Actually, to a certain extent it reminds me of Rod Humble's The Marriage - in spirit, at least.

The Marriage was ultimately an experiment in whether or not games can be used as a symbolic tool: A blue and a pink square against a plain background used to express how a marriage can feel. By comparison, NIKO is the story of a girl who visits strange, minimalist dream-islands which are each a representation of important events of her past. Puzzles appear to be representative of these events, which relate to anything from "the embrace of a father" to "the corruption of the environment," according to a new gameplay trailer from Studio Paint.

Niko: Through The Dream is scheduled to launch June 26th, but in the meantime you can check it out in action below.

Ignore the fact that it sounds like the entire trailer is being narrated by Merovingian from The Matrix: Revolutions. They use the term "oneiric" in it, for god's sake.

Watch on YouTube

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Emily Gera avatar
Emily Gera is a former journalist who contributed to The Guardian, Polygon and Rock Paper Shotgun. She is now a senior writer at Larian.
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NIKO: Through The Dream

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