Review: Neva is a Beautiful Tale of a Girl and Her Wolf

On first glance, Neva is a cozy game about nature and woodland friends. However, as soon as you load the game up, it quickly reminds you that nature is brutal. Within minutes, a bird has died and turned into a black husk, while a majestic wolf-deer is murdered by horrors.

This tone is not surprising when you realize who the developer of Neva is. It’s the latest game from Nomada Studio, whose previous game Gris was a beautiful yet harrowing exploration of grief. Neva feels like that the natural extension of that game. It takes the combination of beautiful visuals and dark subject matter and turns it towards the brutal conflicts of nature. And with it, the puzzle platforming now gets tougher and gains more combat mechanics.

You play as a woman named Alba, who is not directly named in-game. She serves as a protector for a vast forest, along with her wolf-deer hybrid companion. However, at the start of the game, this companion is killed, leaving behind a cub named Neva. The game then chronicles a year in the life of Alba and Neva, as she raises this pup into an adult so it can become the forest’s new protector.

The game itself is a puzzle platformer. You venture through the often-surreal wilderness, leaping across platforms, air dashing across gaps and climbing vast structures to progress. Along the way you encounter dark, corrupted enemies that threaten the sanctity of the forest. With each season, Neva takes a more active role in combat and can be called on to stall enemies with bites or damage enemies Alba can’t reach.

There’s an obvious Ghibli inspiration within all this. It’s not hard to look at our protagonist’s fierce defense of the forest, accompanied by a large wolf creature, and immediately see Princess Mononoke’s San and Moro. Similarly, the corrupted enemies, with their writhing black bodies and mask-like faces, bear more than a little resemblance to No-Face from Spirited Away.

That said, the game avoids feeling like an imitation, and more a work that exists in the same headspace. For a start, its visuals avoid the Ghibli style entirely. This is definitely the studio who made Gris, with its painterly aesthetic and minimalist design. You could take a screenshot of any part of this game, and it wouldn’t look out of place on a gallery wall.

However, the moment-to-moment gameplay is a huge contrast to the slow-paced, meditative puzzle-solving of Nomada’s previous work. The emphasis on combat adds fail states that Gris lacked, and the primary emotional state of the game is anger rather than sadness. There’s a sense of something profoundly wrong happening to these woods, and Alba and Neva must right the wrongs. It’s defiant and aggressive.

This means Neva is a lot more challenging than it might appear. I went into the game fully expecting the kind of slow, relaxed experience of a lot of artsy, narrative-driven projects. You walk a lot and solve puzzles. Sure, that is here too, but the extra difficulty adds an exciting new layer. Combat offers a tiny health pool, the limited moveset can make encounters with large groups tense, and some platforming segments combined Alba’s moveset in specific ways that must be figured out with some ingenuity. By no means is this Dark Souls, but anyone coming into this expecting to casually walk through it with ease may find themselves surprised.

This was welcome, as it created for some great moments. Sections where the scenery breaks open during combat, shifting the environment you’re trying to position yourself on. Sometimes enemies will use the scenery itself to fight you, or flying enemies will enter the fray. These enemies force you to change your tactics and make you focus on your positioning.

I also really loved how Neva shook up its platforming sections. The scenery shifts are a big way the game keeps you on your toes, but then some sections also require you to send Neva to attack switches while you’re in mid-air or combine your double jump and air dash in new ways. There’s also a section during the Winter chapter that deliberately screws with your perspective, and it’s easily one of the best parts of the game.

The real shining moments of the game are the moments of peril where you’re helpless and Neva jumps in and saves the day. These moments are the real heart of the game. Mechanically, they usually add something new to your kit that you’ll be using during the next section. Narratively, they show the building relationship between Alba and Neva in a way that’s highly effective despite the lack of words.

This minimalist approach to story is something that Neva does incredibly well. The only word spoken in the entire game is “Neva” whenever you call for her. Otherwise, the game’s narrative is communicated entirely through gestures and moments. We never get long exposition about the origins of the corruption, we just know it’s bad and must be stopped. Anything left unexplained is for the player to interpret as they see fit. Is it a reminder of the cruelty of nature that must be respected? A critique on pollution and its effect on wildlife? Or could it be seen as an allegory for death and rebirth? It’s all valid, and you’ll be left pondering these questions long after the game is over.

In fact, I struggle to find much I didn’t like about Neva. Any critique I have feels either like I’m nitpicking or trying to turn the game into something it’s not. Could the moveset be a little more expansive to make some sections feel less repetitive? Sure, but the game’s simplicity is a major asset in how the game delivers its narrative. Are there sections where the scenery can sometimes get in the way of the path a little too much? Sure, but these are rare and usually during quiet times where you’re simply walking. I certainly don’t recall any moments where fog obscured combat, for instance.

The game is, admittedly, short. My playthrough took just shy of four hours to complete, and aside from some optional plants you can make bloom, there’s little incentive to replay the game. However, those four hours are beautiful and heartfelt, and something you’d likely want to experience again.

Neva is a sweet little game that left a significant impression on me. Every frame looks like a painting, there’s a surprising amount of challenge and the way it builds these characters without saying a word is masterful. If you’re a fan of short, artful experiences in games, you need to play Neva.

Neva is out now for PC, PS5, Switch and Xbox Series X/S.