The two main characters of Out of Words are young teens who are falling in love in a coming of age story. But then disaster strikes as they lose their mouths. They try to talk, but can’t anymore. Their mouths are sewn shut.
And so begins Out of Words, a co-op platformer adventure. Of all the games that I saw at the Summer Game Fest, this one was the best. The goal of the game is to find the lost voices of the puppet-animated characters. But unfortunately, we’ll have to wait for a while.
It’s coming out in 2026 on the PC via the Epic Games Store PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S. It’s the first game for Johan Oettinger, game director for Out of Words. The developers are Kong Orange and WiredFly, and its even got a poet, Morten Søndergaard, who penned the poems in the game.
At the Epic Games booth at the Summer Game Fest Play Days, I met with Oettenger and executive producer Esben Kjær Ravn. I played the game with Oettenger, and the co-op platformer adventure immediately reminded me of HazeLight’s game of the year from a few years ago, It Takes Two. The game did its best to remind me how a great game can marry its story with its gameplay mechanics.
Out of Words has painterly backgrounds.
Like in HazeLight’s game, you have a couple with some troubles. In this case, they can’t speak to each other. But while It Takes Two was a split-screen game, Out of Words has a single screen for both players because, Oettenger said, the aim is to make people feel the same experience together.
Together with a friend, via online cross-platform or couch co-op, you can explore a wild, colorful realm as Kurt and Karla in a story about the first time they held hands — where everything you see is crafted by hand.
Origins
Johan Oettinger (left) and Esben Kjær Ravn are making Out of Words.
Based on an idea from Søndergaard, Oettinger of Kong Orange began working on the game about 10 years ago in 2015. But he had never made a game before and didn’t know how to do it. He only had an idea that he wanted to make a game based on hand-crafted art using stop-motion animation techniques.
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