A Bittersweet Déjà Vu | NEVA

“It’s better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.” - Alfred Lord Tennyson

I went into this game knowing I was going to cry. This is just what you expect when you play a game from Nómada Studio. Even so, nothing can prepare you for the sensation of your heart being torn to shreds. I have always said I am partial to stories that possess the ability to make you feel things, because there’s nothing so vulnerable than being moved to a physical reaction, a building up of emotion so intense that you have no choice but to vent it for the world to witness. It could be embarrassing, if every witness weren’t feeling the exact same way. Such is the power of Neva, a beautiful indie game dripping with visual grandeur and rich in story. It’s a short, few hours long experience, but that’s apparently all the developers needed to feed you joy and calm and dread and grief. 

Spoiler warning:

You simply must play this game for yourself, without any spoilers. I say this a lot, I know. But for this one the entire experience of the game is completely altered once you know the story. It won’t take long.

See you back here when you’re done :)

We begin the story with an intense battle scene. Alba and her two wolves attempt to fight away the darkness threatening to swallow the world, lead by a multi-faced woman of shadow. The battle is won, but as the darkness dissipates, Alba discovers the mother wolf has been slain and only the baby survived. The story continues as Alba and the baby wolf - Neva, traverse the seasons, each of which brings their own beauty and their own tribulations. Neva grows from a playful child, to a moody teenager, to a majestic adult, eventually meeting a mate and having a child of her own. It’s at this point we experience a fatal dose of Deja vu, as the events of the opening scene start to unravel, and we are left heartbroken, realising that Neva was the mother wolf all this time - and we knew of her untimely death long before we ever grew to love her.

Something happened, between the opening sequence and the closing sequence, that modified our feelings towards Neva. We begin with a detached sadness, as if the weight we bore was for Alba and for the baby, the ones left behind, the ones grieving the most. But there was also a hope there, because we had the whole game ahead of us, and because the baby represented a future where things might just be okay. The growing wolf’s companionship with Alba was endearing to witness and a pleasure to feel a part of. We formed our own companionship with them, in an omnipresent way, as the player guiding them through dangerous and beautiful settings. A found family with all the happiness and heartbreak that comes with loved ones growing together and apart like the branches of a tree. 

To know that tree was always going to be cut down shouldn’t change the enjoyment of the game spent frolicking through the forest with Neva, but it does. If I played it again it would be different, tinged with an inescapable melancholy. I would savour the moments, the precious few, unwilling to lead Neva to the inevitable end. I would pay more attention, laugh more, pat her more. As I think about this, it begins to feel familiar. When faced with mortality, don’t we all wish we could have turned back the clocks, and savoured the sweetness for just a little while longer? Unlike in Psychroma, it’s impossible, though we are always harshly reminded of this in hindsight. Neva serves to remind us preemptively then, that every lovely moment should be savoured, even if the importance of it is not yet clear. Via the pain of the first playthrough, the lesson is learnt.  Via the pain of the first playthrough, the lesson is carved into our souls.

Upon completing the game, I was left with an odd feeling I couldn’t quite decipher in the moment. A quite obvious sorrow of course, but also a strange hint of guilt and anger, as if by realising sooner I could have saved her, that I had been mislead, or cheated. Like someone close to you shared a harrowing secret that now haunts every moment from this point forward, and taints every memory that came before. The mourning of not only Neva herself, but of the time we spent with her, the journey we went on, never to be experienced the same again. You can only play this game once, before it is forever altered. And that is both the beauty and tragedy of stories like this, in all forms. To know is the greatest disadvantage. Naivety is yearned for, but once lost, is impossible to regain. The story becomes fragile, made to be broken, but it is the act of breaking it that is so satisfying. We are forced to reckon with it alone, left to sit with the strange sensation of losing something, surrounded by the shattered fragments of our hearts. It is only a game, you must remind yourself, because to believe otherwise is to fall, over and over again. 

Everyone I know that has played Gris, Nómada Studios first game, knew this was coming. The way they dealt with grief in that game was masterful and graceful, that you can tell came straight from the heart. Neva is no different. This wonderful ability to both pull forth emotions from complete strangers and comfort them, is how we know they deserve to be known as the best of the best. Their team is a set of dreamweavers, incredibly and magically talented, and I will forever be in awe of the stories they choose to gift to the world. I, and many others, will wait for their next masterpiece with open arms, when the trauma of Neva has all but healed. 

The experience of Neva is one that I’ve tried my best to explain but can really only be felt. Nómada Studios are master storytellers, so much so that there is no doubt what they create is art. Check them out here and keep an eye on any future projects. Also, play Gris and Neva if you haven’t already. If you take anything from this blog, let it be that you must play both these games, immediately.