In a time where AI is insidiously seeping into almost every thing around us, even our video games, completely 100% handmade art made with heart (side note: can we get that on a t-shirt?) is becoming almost novel. That’s why I used to be drawn to Out of Words–it’s an ambitious, gorgeous stop-motion co-op 2D platformer where every thing, all the way down to each blade of grass and piece of moss, is meticulously handmade in the true world with physical mediums.
Out of Words’ story is even inspired by a poem written by Danish poet Morten Søndergaard, and each component of the world and setting is allegorically built from language, communication, and human connection. I didn’t get to see the story setup of Out of Words myself, but game design lead Jeff Sparks explained it to me during my short-but-sweet 20-minute demo at Summer Game Fest.
In Out of Words, the playable characters Kurt and Karla are best friends who grew up together, who’ve developed changing feelings for one another as they enter adolescence, yet they simply won’t speak the words–so that they lose all of them together after they fail to specific themselves in a moment before crossing a street. They develop into isekaid (magically thrust into one other world) right into a mystical land called Vokabulantis, yet they’ve lost their mouths–and words–along the way in which. Their mouth mysteriously becomes a cute creature, Aleph, that grants them powers throughout their journey.
We’ve actually written about Out of Words last yr, citing it as possibly being the subsequent must-play two-player co-op, but I did get to see and learn some latest things during my gameplay-heavy demo with Sparks.
For our first real obstacle, we helped Prince get out of the mud on his motorcycle. The little mini-game-esque task was fun and straightforward enough, and the animation of mud flinging throughout our characters who couldn’t complain was just as entertaining. I couldn’t help but imagine how gross it’d be to be in that situation myself.
You may actually watch the entire strategy of making Prince’s puppet within the official “making of” video below, which I highly recommend if you happen to’re interested by the painstaking artistry that goes into every puppet in Out of Words.
Next, we skipped ahead through a number of different acts, to get a way of the various environments, gameplay elements, and moods that Out of Words had to supply.
“We did lots of of prototypes attempting to make the narrative sort of situation between the 2 characters line up with what was happening gameplay-wise,” Sparks explained. “So we have done lots of of sorts of co-op game mechanics attempting to work out what was going to be suitable.”
In certainly one of the areas we encountered, there was a narrative reason the atmosphere felt dark and heavy, and that the creatures seemed more spooky than usual. One portion I played with anti-gravity, which required us to walk on the ceilings and partitions, were a number of the first mechanics the team ever conceived–which also has a narrative allegory, but I don’t wish to spoil anything for anyone.
Sparks couldn’t help but express how surreal it was to see the realm rendered with the extent of finish it was at–with moss, stone, and clay bringing it to life. I wholeheartedly agree it looked incredible, as did the remainder of what I played. The artistic lighting and bokeh techniques to speak perspective and focus made every thing much more beautiful and atmospheric.
It’d be easy to get distracted with the environment, but some portions required some quick moving to flee some unsavory creatures after us. Out of Words doesn’t appear to be its gameplay is supposed to be too difficult to beat, but it surely’s still a testament to good game design we were capable of get through that section, and many of the remainder of what we played, with no need to talk much to one another. Nevertheless, communicating along with your partner would make things go more easily. Even when it’s only for encouragement or support, like when Sparks said he’d catch me during a very tricky gravity-platforming section, words can – somewhat paradoxically given the title and setup of this game – go a good distance in creating forward momentum.
“We expect there’s something really special in regards to the couch co-op experience,” Sparks said, which I even have to agree with. Truthfully, I prefer playing any multiplayer game in the identical room with my teammates, but there’s something especially satisfying about sitting next to someone while taking a look at the identical screen as them.
Sparks and the team empathizes with individuals who can’t play in person together, though, so that they’ve ensured Out of Words is playable online, cross-platform. The additional dream is to have Out of Words playable via game-share, so just one person must own it to play online with one other. “You may play wherever you would like and play with the person you wish to play with essentially the most. That was really necessary to us,” Sparks said.
To be clear, you have to play Out of Words with one other person–there isn’t any AI companion to take their place, very like the Hazelight co-op hits Split Fiction, It Takes Two, and A Way Out. So if you happen to do commit to completing Out of Words with someone, how much time are you really agreeing to? Spark’s “silly answer” is that they’re not completely sure yet because they’re still making it, and hope that folks take their time with it so that they can “soak it in.” But as a loose, ballpark estimate, he’s guessing about 10 hours.
Out of Words is pretty linear. There are specific starts and ends to every level, and there’s not lots of off-the-beaten-path exploration to be done from what I saw, but there is reason to take your time besides simply to smell the roses. There might be secret areas where you could find collectibles, that are missing words from a large poem–the poem that makes up the sport’s story.
Chatting with Sparks, and seeing the short vignette of what I did, left me feeling like Out of Words could be, well, emotional, to place it bluntly. After I asked Sparks if Out of Words would make people cry, he said he already tears up when he simply talks about it for too long. “We’re not attempting to make people cry, but I feel sometimes crying is a component of feeling these
meaningful story beats that actually touch you,” Sparks said. “I don’t desire people to cry, but in a way I could be surprised if people get through this without feeling something.”
As Sparks has demonstrated, the complete team at WiredFly and Kong Orange seems emotionally invested within the making of Out of Words. “We’re putting our full hearts into this and all of our love and energy into telling this story and making this sort of shared experience for people. We expect the co-op nature and connecting with other people and playing something that’s artful and meaningful and that has been considered and delivered to life by artists of each stripe is… we’re at this moment on the planet where we could really use slightly little bit of life and color and joy and connection. That is what we endeavor to do–is to make something beautiful meaning something to people.”
When you like mandatory co-op games just like the aforementioned Split Fiction or It Takes Two, or are even just enamored by good-old-fashioned physical-medium art, Out of Words is a game to maintain in your radar. It’s still a ways away, with a release window of early 2027 on Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Epic Games Store.
Casey DeFreitas is IGN’s Deputy Editor of Guides. Catch her on Socials @ShinyCaseyD.