Neva Review — You Can Pet The Wolf

Neva is a remarkable story told through a platforming action game, following Alba and her titular wolf as they grow together and escape a world collapsing around them. The game will influence you with its remarkable visuals and beautiful music, telling a compelling story without ever saying a word. Another excellent title from Nomada Studio, developers of GRIS, Neva is sure to tug at your heartstrings and be a forever-memorable piece of video game media.

The most important thing to know about Neva is that it is a story game told almost entirely without words.

Besides the occasional call of “Neva!” as our protagonist interacts with her beloved pet/best friend, the only sounds you’ll hear are the swishing and wooshing of jumping, double-jumping, or swinging your sword and the melodic tones of the game’s soundtrack. With hardly a word, Neva tells a beautiful story about nature, friendship, and growing pangs using only stunning visuals and musical cues to convey the message to players.

Side note: because the game is all about visual storytelling, I won’t be sharing any screenshots beyond the early parts of the game. Side-side note: that means that all of the stunning visuals presented in this review happen in the game’s opening act.

As you can see from the screenshot above, Neva is filled with gorgeous visuals. Not only is the entire game hand-drawn, but the game makes a point to fill your screen with a constant variety of stunning backdrops. Neva will take you through a variety of different biomes, and it almost feels like the game is bragging about just how absolutely gorgeous it can be. If so, it totally deserves to.

Neva follows the titular wolf and Alba as they grow together in a world that is succumbing to some vile corruption, destroying life around it. Alba fights to protect Neva as they grow from a pup to a rebellious wolf, and the game is equally full of heartwarming moments, as is teeth-grinding tension.

Nothing in this game, or any other game for that matter, made me as panicked as the moments when Neva the wolf was in danger. As early as the first chapter, the corruption would strike out at Neva, trapping her. This immediately put me on edge and caused me to drop whatever else I was doing to help the poor wolf.

Well done for managing to stress out a lifelong horror fan like never before by putting the cute animal in danger. Fortunately, Neva doesn’t remain a helpless pup for long. Later in the game, you’ll be fighting enemies alongside your trusted wolf instead of desperately fighting in their defense.

I usually praise games published by Devolver Digital for their incredibly unique takes on gameplay mechanics, but Neva, on the other hand, doesn’t really introduce anything new or special mechanically. It’s a platforming game with straightforward combat, and you’ll never really need to use more than three keys to master the game’s combat mechanics: Attack, dodge, and command Neva to attack.

In the battle against the rot, you can use Alba’s sword or Neva’s teeth to cut or bite your way through some rather eerie foes.

However, Neva gets a pass from me for its less-than-complicated combat mechanics. I usually don’t excuse simple mechanics just because a game is a visual experience, but Neva uses animation in a way that makes its combat and movement feel flowy and satisfying to use.

Something I appreciate about Neva’s platforming is the way it utilizes its combat and overarching villain: You will often find that in order to proceed (or to help your wolf Neva proceed), you will need to clear an area of the corruption by cutting it at certain areas with your sword. This usually creates little puzzles that involve you navigating through an area twice, once to cut out the rot and a second time once it’s clear.

One change I think would greatly improve Neva, albeit a minor change on its own, would be the ability to bind the mouse buttons in the game’s control scheme.

As it currently sits, Neva plays using the WASD, Space, and JK keys, with a big warning from Steam that the game is better played on a controller. It’s not a terrible key setup, and the game does allow you to rebind controls in the settings. However, for some reason, I don’t understand why the game doesn’t allow you to bind the mouse buttons to any control. I don’t know if changing this would dramatically break the game’s code or something, but being able to bind attacks and maybe dodge to the mouse would, in my opinion, dramatically increase the ease of playing Neva without a controller.

Besides that, I don’t really have any other criticisms about the game. While it doesn’t do anything particularly special or unique with its gameplay, Neva is still an exciting and memorable experience. It is as fun to play as it is breathtakingly gorgeous to behold. The game manages to be fun throughout, never overstaying its welcome, with about five hours of gameplay available for its generous $20 price tag. Should you choose to give this indie darling a try, you’re sure to be in for an incredibly memorable experience.

Try Hard Guides received a PC review code for this game. Find more detailed looks at popular and upcoming titles on our Game Reviews page! Neva is available on Steam, Nintendo Switch, Xbox, and PlayStation.