Square Enix debuted a couple of new trailers for its fanciful upcoming game Balan Wonderworld.
Both chapters are a look at two of the 12 upcoming tales that players will be able to play through when the game lands in early 2021.
First off is Chapter 2: The Dolphin and the Diver, which appears to follow a young girl ho normally swims with dolphins and takes care of her ocean friend, until one day an unknown force attacks the dolphin. She’s sent flying underwater and swears off her career while in the hospital, or that’s what appears to have happened, while an affected dolphin swirls around her.
In Chapter 3: The Girl Who’s Gaga for Bugs, we see a young girl admiring her insect friends. Fellow students who aren’t fans are seen in the background freaking out as she’s playing with her bug friends. Eventually, being ostracized appears to cocoon her in a world where she doesn’t leave her safe place.
Balan Wonderworld is a platformer directed by Sonic the Hedgehog’s Yuji Naka and is the first game by Balan Company as a studio. It follows two characters, Leo Craig and Emma Cole, as they meet and follow maestro Balan through a whimsical fantasy land known as Wonderworld. There are 80 different costumes that will grant different abilities to players and 12 different stories to explore.
So far, from what we’ve seen of the game, it shares plenty of similarities in design with Naka’s NiGHTS Into Dreams series in terms of both aesthetics and attitude. It has an interesting, dreamlike quality that looks unmatched in the current slate of titles coming out in 2021. It should be an entertaining departure from the norm, at the very least, with new characters to meet and a world to explore.
Balan Wonderworld is due out on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, and PC on March 26, 2021.