I once saw a gif of Backbone on Twitter and it immediately caught my attention, made my jaw drop a bit followed by a sensation of immense agony realizing I wasn’t going to play this on a PlayStation. Well color me wrong and pleasantly surprised as it’s now coming to consoles. And by now I mean 2021.
Backbone is a pixel art detective game bathed in all things noir and placed firmly in a slightly dystopian Vancouver, which also happens to be the home of developer EggNut (Vancouver sans the dystopia). It plays out as a point’n click adventure game, but spiced up with stealth sequences, branching dialogue trees and light platforming. Add a dash of jazz and we’re all set to explore Vancouver as private investigator Howard Lotor (a raccoon of course) and solve its mysteries.
If I sound excited it’s mainly due to two things: 1) I absolutely love adventure games and 2) just look at it. Achieved with a combination of high resolution pixel art and the black magic found within Unreal Engine, Backbone is a real looker and I think that’s an understatement.
I don’t have to convince you though, because that’s what the trailer below is for. Check out the game page for more screenshots and info.
