Multiplayer: N | Year released: 2023
I can recommend Cocoon to anyone that plays video games, and plenty who don’t. Cocoon is the debut game from Geometric Interactive, a studio founded by former Playdead employees Jeppe Carlsen and Jakob Schmid.
You play as a beetle, navigating a strange land filled with (and contained within) orbs. The controls are incredibly simple: Move with an analog stick and interact with a single button. The complexity comes from the environment, the narrative from exploration. It’s reminiscent of Tunic or Hyper Light Drifter in its lack of dialogue and tutorials. The orbs, carried on the beetle’s little back, are central to gameplay, unlocking specific abilities and allowing players to jump into different worlds at will.
The game introduces just a handful of mechanics, and each of those are matched and remixed in truly creative ways. I appreciate a game being as long as its developer wants it to be, but the bones here are so good, so satisfying, that I can’t help feeling it can hold up to more orbs, more puzzles. That said, the seven hours I spent with Cocoon are among the most memorable of this decade, and I’ll definitely be returning to it in a couple of years, once my brain has purged all of the answers to its puzzles. — Aaron Souppouris, Executive Editor