Tunic (video game)

Tunic is played nominally in an isometric view, allowing the player to maneuver their character, an anthropomorphic fox, around the game's world, interacting with objects and fighting enemies; if necessary the player can switch to a more top-down view in combat. The game is structured similar to The Legend of Zelda, with progress limited to certain areas of the game world until the player has collected a new weapon or ability for the fox to use, adding some touches from the Souls series.[1] The game's purpose and method of playing are somewhat oblique; what dialog is presented to the player is generally of an undecipherable language though selected characters or words will be legible in the player's language that may hint towards puzzle solutions, and some of the items that the player will find are pages that make up the game's manual.[2]

Tunic (originally named Secret Legend) has been developed by one person, Andrew Shouldice. Shouldice had been a developer at Silverback Productions for about six years. In 2015, having participated in a few Ludum Dare events, he wondered what he could produce if he could spend full-time on the product rather than just on weekends. He considered the state of his own career at Silverback and decided to quit to pursue this development.[3]

Shouldice stated the game was inspired by "certain classic triangle-seeking games", obliquely referring to The Legend of Zelda series.[3] Within the game, the player finds pages of instruction manuals, the art which was heavily inspired by the instruction booklets for the Nintendo Entertainment System games The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link.[4] As he started working on the game, he gained interest from Finji, Adam Saltsman's publishing label. Finji offered to publish and help refine the game, taking some of the experience they had in preparing Moss for the PlayStation VR release.[2] The game's soundtrack was composed by Lifeformed, who previously composed music for the 2012 game Dustforce,[5] and Janice Kwan.

At the Electronic Entertainment Expo 2017's PC Gaming Show, the game, previously developed as Secret Legend, was renamed Tunic, along with Shouldice's collaboration with Finji to help publish it.[6] The game was subsequently featured during Microsoft's presentation at E3 2018, where it was announced as a console launch exclusive to the Xbox One, alongside its planned release for Microsoft Windows.[2][7]

Tunic was launched on March 16, 2022. In addition to Windows, mac OS and Xbox releases, it also was added to the Xbox Game Pass the same day.[8]

Tunic received "generally favorable" reviews according to review aggregator Metacritic.[9][10][11]

Destructoid lauded Tunic's "celebration of long-forgotten design practices", praising its sense of exploration that hearkened back to classic titles of the past.[1] IGN praised the game's aesthetics, instruction manual, enemy variety, moveset, boss battles, and world, while describing its narrative as interesting yet unsatisfying.[15] Game Informer commended the amount of accessibility and combat options present, while also praising the Tunic's challenge, combat, puzzles, and attention to detail, writing that the game "...[was] so well designed" to the point where "...the obscureness that [made] it uniquely rewarding [could] lead to genuine frustration."[13] Eurogamer gave the game an 'Essential' rating, writing, "Zelda and Souls combined - not merely the iconography or the main beats. Rather, Tunic is the understanding gained by playing both and really thinking about why they are the way they are - how they create, as a magician might put it, their particular effects."[20] GameSpot and Shacknews cited the visual style, world, language barrier, instruction manual, and enemy design as the game's positives while taking minor issue with some particularly obtuse puzzles, minor enemy AI issues, and restrictive fast travel.[14][16]

The Verge enjoyed Tunic's in-game guide book, "the manual is a joy to flip through, featuring full-page maps, beautiful illustrations of items and characters, and charming artwork of the game’s fox character, and they all make poring over the pages a lot of fun".[21] Rock Paper Shotgun liked the game's world, feeling it had a large amount of hidden areas to find, "Exploration is king... There are labyrinths of invisible walls and, yes, secluded paths veiled by waterfalls, and plentiful shortcuts kept out of sight thanks to quirks of perspective. An absolute joy to me, the shortcut liker".[22] Polygon praised the game's puzzles, feeling they respected the player's intelligence, "Some of these puzzles are ones that I might never solve —at least, not on my own. But I trust the game, and it seems like the game trusts me, too. It never signposts the next step too clearly.[23] VG247 felt the visuals gave the world an added charm, writing "It’s inspired by isometric games, but isn’t afraid to pull the camera out, twist it around, shunt it into a corner or whatever else to give you a sense of place... you’ll find the camera zooms, pans or rolls on a whim, highlighting whatever part of the dustily-lit toybox world works best in the moment".[18]

• Official website