System: Change
Launch date: September 8, 2023
Developer: Geometric Interactive
Writer: Annapurna Interactive
Cocoon’s mechanical brilliance is the refined variety, the type that sneaks up on you. I knew going into my playthrough that this was the subsequent mission from Jeppe Carlsen, the lead gameplay designer of extremely acclaimed side-scrollers Limbo and Inside; that kind of pedigree units excessive expectations, which for me had been amplified additional after a summer season media demo left me with extra questions than solutions. A very powerful distinction to notice with Cocoon is that it’s extra outwardly a puzzle sport than both of its forebears, and a really intelligent one; its trippy, entangled internet of worlds is one large metapuzzle that’s true depth astonishes the deeper one dives into it. It’s additionally a sport that in some way builds environment masterfully, however frustratingly refuses to contextualize its world or present any actual stakes, narrative and even lore to interact with. Having rolled credit, I’m nonetheless uncertain what precisely was the purpose of my little mechanical bug’s world-bending journey; this, mixed with some technical points on Change, ends in a sport that in some way manages to each impress and disappoint without delay.
In contrast to many different puzzle-driven video games through which particular person logic challenges are scattered throughout a sport world, what makes Cocoon so distinctive is that the world itself is the puzzle. As a lightfooted biomechanical insect, you start by exploring a rocky, sunset-hued desert and initially coping with easy challenges, like how one can align shifting platforms to cross a canyon. It’s not lengthy, although, earlier than gamers will uncover an odd teleporter-like platform; activating it’ll see our anthropod flutter its wings and launch itself out of that world totally, and into a brand new one. Every world in Cocoon is contained inside a glass orb that our touring bug can keep on its again, whereas additionally appearing as its personal energy supply to activate different machines like bridges and doorways.
Cocoon truly has gamers working with as much as 4 orbs without delay, every one containing a world to traverse and bounce out and in of. The difficult half is that your bug can solely carry one orb at a time. What this implies is that in a short time, Cocoon turns into a sport about carrying worlds into different worlds, strategically utilizing their power to activate machines and discover, after which in the end utilizing extra teleporters to maneuver deeper inward or outward by means of these layered worlds. Among the trickier puzzles within the sport can have you needing to, for instance, place the inexperienced world within the orange world, the orange world within the purple world, then lastly the purple world within the white world, after which bounce again out to the white world to hold all 4 worlds with you to some swap it’s essential to activate. Then, you may bounce again down a number of worlds and rearrange the spheres inside one another another manner to assist remedy a puzzle on the outer-most world.
The opposite component that makes traversal a puzzle in of itself is that every of Cocoon’s coloured world-spheres has a particular means hooked up to it that’s required to navigate sure obstacles. For instance, carrying the inexperienced world-sphere lets the participant work together with elevators, whereas the white world-sphere can hearth a projectile that can be utilized to activate sure switches. One puzzle later within the sport wanted me to activate a swap with the white world-sphere, however the swap was situated in an space that required me to make use of the inexperienced world-sphere to entry it. With the ability to solely carry one object at a time, I first needed to discover a teleporter in order that I might carry the white sphere into the inexperienced one, letting me traverse the primary set of obstacles with each worlds carried on my again; then, later, I might pull the white sphere again out to unravel the second layer of the puzzle.
It’s the kind of factor that sounds convoluted on paper and is admittedly a bit tough to clarify, however to Cocoon’s credit score, the sport is masterfully paced and does a wonderful job slowly introducing these mechanics. By the point you attain the sport’s most complicated puzzles, you’ll probably be confidently leaping out and in of worlds, carrying them between one another and feeling actually good whilst you do it. Cocoon strikes the proper steadiness between being difficult with out feeling irritating; I at all times felt like I used to be given all of the instruments and the cumulative information of how the instruments work together with one another. With every puzzle seemingly having just one meant answer, I used to be stunned at how usually I felt intelligent for determining how one can navigate a tough set of obstacles; the “a-ha” moments really feel earned. It evoked plenty of the identical emotions I felt the primary time I performed Portal, which is concerning the highest reward I can supply for a puzzle sport.
Then there are the boss battles, that are fairly actually utterly completely different beasts. These big, imposing bio-mechanical monstrosities lie partway by means of every world, however as a result of Cocoon is a combat-free expertise, they every symbolize a type of puzzle to unravel. The distinction is that for these foes, there’s no component of world-shifting required to beat them; as a substitute defeating every of those foes depends extra on studying their assault patterns so you should utilize the setting to use their weaknesses. An early boss had me choosing up a tunneling explosive insect to toss at them whereas dodging hornets and shards of crystal, with its ultimate defeat granting me a brand new means for the world-sphere it beforehand managed. I gained’t spoil the spectacular late-game bosses, however they’re spectacular to face off in opposition to, extremely well-animated, and enjoyable to take down; that mentioned, they probably gained’t have you ever pondering as arduous as the remainder of the sport does.
Exploring Cocoon’s worlds between these encounters, I discovered myself impressed by the sturdy creative path of every biome, even when every area feels a bit sparse in significant element. Don’t get me flawed – the sense of environment is wealthy and layered, promoting the concept that this world you’re navigating is each natural and artificial, with creatures and constructions concurrently pulsing like dwelling animals and whirring like machines. And the stellar sound design impresses, with each motion you carry out being accentuated by the clicks or buzzing of a tool being activated, or by the pitter of rain on the swamp puddles beneath your ft. Visually, it’s all extraordinarily sharp and colourful – placing, however by no means exhausting or overly demanding of your consideration. Sometimes, it will probably really feel mysterious. However the magnificence is skin-deep, and the worlds themselves are sometimes fairly sparse and repetitive; sure, you’ll see attention-grabbing particulars right here and there, however you’ll usually see them so steadily that you just really feel such as you’re retreading plenty of the identical floor. The brevity of Cocoon – 4 to 5 hours – makes this much less of a problem, however I in the end felt like the sport’s worlds existed solely as backdrops for puzzles, relatively than as distinct locations that I needed to see extra of.
A few of this, I really feel, might have been alleviated if the sport had sought out richer worldbuilding, however there’s primarily no narrative in any respect in Cocoon, and right here specifically I actually missed its absence. Not all puzzle video games have to have an easy story to compel, in fact, however Cocoon’s full disinterest at contextualizing any of the surreal and probably attention-grabbing components of its world simply left me with a basic apathy to what I used to be seeing – outdoors of the unimaginable puzzles, in fact. I can respect video games that conceal their solutions behind refined lore that requires deeper participant investigation, however Cocoon doesn’t actually appear desirous about laying substantial sufficient groundwork to make that potential.
Examine this to Limbo and Inside; these video games are additionally opaque, positive, however they embrace environmental storytelling at such a excessive caliber that gamers can at the very least considerably piece collectively what they assume is going on, or can at the very least hit up boards to debate the mysteries which might be introduced. Cocoon, although, doesn’t present sufficient in-world context for gamers to have the ability to do even that; its world is really little greater than a backdrop for its puzzles. That’s tremendous, but it surely might have been a lot extra. Cocoon’s ending cutscene feels nearly like what ought to have been an introduction; it left me eager to play extra, however principally as a result of I used to be unhappy with the way it all failed to return collectively narratively in a significant manner.
My ultimate grievance is that Cocoon actually struggles to take care of a constant framerate on Change outdoors of the opening space. I don’t know what precisely is occurring past the scenes, but it surely looks as if in most biomes, even simply strolling could cause Cocoon’s frame-rate to plunge within the low twenties, and infrequently even decrease when the display screen is awash with particle results or heavy lighting. It’s very distracting, and never even a tough reset of my Change improved the scenario. Handheld mode fared a bit higher, however in docked mode – the place admittedly the sport is gorgeously crisp – all of it cumulates in a really uneven expertise. For a puzzle-focused sport, I used to be in a position to tolerate it, but it surely actually put a damper on my playthrough.
The Verdict
Cocoon is a superb puzzle sport, and if that’s sufficient for you, you’ll probably be blown away by simply how intelligent its Inception-like puzzles can get; the core conceit of carrying total worlds by means of different worlds after which again out of one another is exclusive, intuitively designed, and easily feels nice to execute. The sport punctuates these intelligent stretches of world-hopping with punchy boss encounters which might be snappy and tense, if a bit distant from most of Cocoon’s core mechanics. Sadly, along with some very distracting technical points, Cocoon’s worlds can usually really feel repetitive and missing in which means, and the sport wastes its surreal and mysterious environment by failing to interact in any actual world-building and even primary storytelling to interact the participant at a deeper stage. These points will not be dealbreakers for some, however for me, they cumulated in a sport that made me really feel intelligent as a rule, however failed to attract me into the world because it so clearly felt meant to do.
Cocoon assessment copy supplied by the writer for the needs of this assessment.