2026
By: Alexander Holmes
What if Little Red Riding Hood wasn't terrorized by the Big Bad Wolf, but became its guardian instead?
That's the question that comes to mind when you first see Neva, a game by Nomada Studio and published by Devolver Digital. The game's opening short film showing the protagonist and an infant, behorned wolf cub desperately flee. As a massive wolf with the giant antlers of a stag is slain by shadowy, inky creatures reminiscent of No-Face from Spirited Away, or the Nowhere King of Centaur world. The great wolf dies.
And in its place, we are thrust into a position and care for this young wolf. This is Neva, and we have set out on a journey to fight off and flee from the monsters that plague this land.
This game poses some trepidation for me. I've chosen to include this game into my series of Africana games, and that is already feeling like a strange choice. Part of the purpose od this series is to highlight games with black and African diaspora main characters and protagonists specifically. And i chose that narrow focus for two reasons specifically. First was to avoid seeking representation where inclusion is made secondary or optional, such as with character creation tools or fighting game rosters. Second, to highlight how few games in fact feature blackness in its characters.
Part of that concern is another concept. That of colorism. The idea that lighter skin tones are more aesthetically beautiful for morally worthwhile than dark skin tones. Colorism is a very important idea for any analysis that tries to highlight African protagonists. But the harms caused by colorism are by no means exclusive to African Diaspora cultures.
East Asian, Near East Asian, and Southeast Asian cultures have issues of colorism that long predate European Colonialist influences. And some issues of colorism are exclusively the result of widespread European colonialism.
Hispanic cultures, by which I mean cultures which predominantly speak Spanish as a first language, often deal with a preference for light skin in the appreciation of beauty and depictions in art. And many Hispanic cultures are also dominantly African Diaspora cultures. No discussion from such a pulled back perspective could hope to capture the nuances of tackling colorism across, say, Spain, The Dominican Republic, Brazil, Puerto Rico, Chilé, Peru, and The Philippines in a single video. Exacerbated more by how I'm not a member of any of these cultures and should expose my own ignorance on these matters.
Nomada studios is a Spanish studio working out of Barcelona. In interviews about Neva's art-style, the focus is always on challenging themselves to follow up their original release, Gris, with something entirely different. Doing away with line art and watercolor in favor of line-less shape language and solid color.
It feels like Genndy Tartokovsky's Samurai Jack in the best way possible. As a child of the 90s, that is the highest praise I can give. And that merely makes up the first layer of the art direction they crafted. However, I was unable to find an interview that discussed the inspiration behind the design of the main character, Alba.
I struggled to write about my experience with Gris. At the time i played it, the predominant emotion of my personal life was feeling burnt out creatively. Gris was an emotionally driven narrative about feeling trapped in grief and working your way through it. I didn't want to write a half hearted script that came down to saying, “Gris is another indie game about depression.” I loved the game, but I wasn't emotionally available to it at the time.
But Neva wears its influences on its sleeves. A mountain in the distance at the start of the game is uncanny in its similarity to Journey. The complex scripting-power behavior of Neva is terribly reminiscent of The Last Guardian. The combat draws significantly from the conventions of indie Metroidvanias. Things that immediately shorthand my feelings of connectedness to this game.
I have that same, raw, intuitive connectedness to Alba. She is a darker skinned protagonist with curly, shapely hair. This feels like an artistic intent to me, even though no one has chosen to discuss it. The word Alba means Dawn. Her hair is grey to show, despite her rosy cheeks, she is an elder and a parent to this wolf cub. Whereas Little Red Riding Hood was a child thrust into danger by her naivete, Alba is the wisdom that must help the naive wolf navigate the world. Through raw determination she acts as Neva's guardian. And as they both age, Neva becomes her guardian instead.
This is the narrative that I wish to tell with Neva. A story about love overcoming the trauma of generations, and passing the torch to the next generation. Passing on the strength that brought us through the past, as we make a kinder, safer world for the future.
Part 1: Summer
The first arc of the game takes place in a lush, green jungle. Neva is only a small cub. A toddler by all measures. We have to linger around jumps to help Neva over a ledge, in case he doesn't quite clear the distance. When the shadow creatures begin to swarm us, Neva runs and cowers under tree roots. When he is caught by vines of shadowy hands, we must save him.
Once freed, he needs to be comforted. Pats on his head. A long hug. Neva needs emotional support to move forward as much as physical safety.
Neva here is a child. Determined and observant. But hasn't been given the time necessary to learn about the world, nor the skills to navigate it.
Progressing through the world is punctuated by giant Cairns. Cairns in Irish history were used as burial mounds and tomb markers. In Japan, similar stacked river stones were believed to help the bodhisattva Jizo Bōsatsu ferry the souls of lost children to the next life. And today cairn are used as guide posts to protect hikers from getting lost.
They serve a similar purpose for us.
The Summer night proceeds as we flee the danger of the shadow monsters as long as we can. Through mazes and traps. We come across a mysterious altar and leave it behind just as fast.
Until, at last, the giant beast that follows us has blocked our path. Have have no choice but to fight a monster oddly similar to the cleric beast from Bloodborne.
As we deal the final blow, we call Neva to our side to help us strike. Showing the young wolf that running is not the only option. Sometimes you must fight to protect yourself.
Part 2: Fall
Time has passed, and Neva has grown to nearly match us in height. No longer cowering when the shadows appear. Instead, Neva is brash. Jumping and flying ahead of us. Eating random plants and fruits he finds on the ground. Coughing and hacking when not to their taste. Neva also revels in combat, and needs us to redirect him when lost in mangling the bodies of defeated foes.
That small fox we started the game with is still in there. Upon being incapacitated by a larger shadow, after we defeat it, Neva still needs that gentle touch and a knowing embrace to feel better. Beyond that, however, Neva is now comforting us. The floral light that emits when they howl heals us between checkpoints. Helping us blaze our trails forward as well.
Open restoring two shrines and beginning our return home, a strange l, new shadow appears below us. Her face, stature, and sword somehow paralleling our own appearance. She slams the ground, sending forth a cascade of shadow. And as we narrowly escape, we awake in some unknown place.
We cross paths with a pack of giant boars. Their bodies growing with a dark parasitic flower. We can do little more than plant our white flowers on their bodies.
As the fighting grows more harrowing, we learn to coordinate. We can now direct Neva where to fight, and are starting down the path of working together as equals. A skill necessary for fighting off a pair of deer who have succumbed to the corruption. Their love for each other shows through, despite the horror they have been subjected to.
It is a short lived victory, as the corruption spirits us away to a strange world of solid darkness and stark light. Neva is nowhere to be found, and so we go searching for him. We choose to dive deeper and deeper until we are reunited.
On the horizon, the body of the giant wolf from the start of the game can be seen. It yells, and the world is washed in red.
Overcoming this nightmare will be the end of Fall, and passed this the game goes through two more seasons to make one full year.
As narratives structures go, using the passage of seasons is a common framing device to deliver to players. I once made a video about how From Software's renowned open-world game, Elden Ring, told its story through changing the seasons with its environmental designs.
In that game, starting in Spring gave players a feeling of discovery, of newness and adventure. Moving on to Summer levels represented struggle and effort through more hostile environments. Fall was associated with an austere grandeur meant to express the completion of a task. Only to be funneled into Winter, where your options are few, and your path toward survival chosen for you. Finally culminating in a strange voids. Outside of time of cycles as a whole.
Neva expresses a very different progression, and simply by starting at a different season an entirely different story arch can be read from the plot. Starting in Summer, life is already flourishing and new life is just barely finding its place in the greater ecosystem. Fall comes to represent a more literal fall. As life begins to fade around you, your place is changed to an act of resistance. The rising action is more literally a fall action. In Winter, you will be at your lowest. The “All is Lost” moment of a film. Where despite being left with nothing, one must either find the will to move on, or die with the season. That strength often found in the company and warmth of others trying to do the same. And finally, Spring, when all the hardship is finally rewarded with a new lease on life, and the opportunity to begin the cycle anew for others.
In interviews with Nomada Studios, different members of the team seem to emphasize that the narrative arch of the game is less about the act of raising an pet, as would be a person's first assumption. Rather, their goal was to construct an allegory for raising a child that would be equally resonant for parents as well as people who aren't.
I have two pets of my own. Two cats named Jazz and Calypso. They are also the first pets I have had since i was a small child and couldn't really understand the responsibility of raising a mouse or a guinea pig. I delayed having a pet throughout my 20s for fear of repeating the mistakes of poorly caring for another life the way I had done before.
Since adopting these two from the rescue, I have found immense joy in learning to see their unique personalities. In coming to understand their needs, and providing for them. So that my house can be a safe and easy place to live for however long I may have them.
So I will confidently say that raising Neva is nothing like raising a pet. Hardship, strife, and eventual independence are in this strange, magical wolf's future regardless of what Alba may do to protect them.
The relationship between parents and children is one of the child being provided for, working together with age, being cared for by the child, and finally moving on as the child transfers their care to caring for a child of their own. It's a messing spiral. A lot of overlap between poorly defined seasons. But there is an austere beauty in sending the spiral ever forward.
Thank you got watching,
Take care of each other,
And stay true.