Sony's latest State of Play event may not have been its most exciting to date, but it did finally give us our first in-depth look at the upcoming Little Devil Inside.
Little Devil Inside was first announced for PS5 with a trailer during Sony's Future of Gaming event in 2020, offering an intriguing but confusing look at the action-adventure. Following the announcement, we didn't hear all that much about this odd Kickstarter game, until Sony's State of Play event on October 27.
While the in-depth trailer was less confusing than the announcement trailer and gave us a look at what Little Devil Inside's gameplay will actually consist of, I still came away from it wondering what the heck this game was about – but extremely excited to find out.
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Poor Billy
Little Devil Inside's art style is beautiful, oddly reminiscent of a '70s children's TV show with a Coraline-like creepiness. The trailer quickly introduces us to Billy, the protagonist, who is is traveling to a mansion to pick up a peculiar artifact for someone called Professor Vincent.
Billy's travel in itself is peculiar and wonderful-looking, we see the train he's on moving along a dynamic map that looks similar to the miniature worlds my grandfather used to build, littered with tiny trees and houses and overly large fields - Billy himself giant in comparison and moving through the world with the movements of a board game piece.
Billy can interact with the other large (in comparison to the other elements of the world) people and encounters he comes across, with the trailer showing him asking an old lady for directions and trying to move some sheep out of the road. The main gameplay isn't like this though. Instead, it appears to adopt a more real-time third-person gameplay view, which in itself is also unique, with the characters looking almost figurine-like.
The aesthetic overall is beautifully niche, adding a wholesomeness to a game that seems to embrace its dark side too. We see this as Billy goes to the mansion, which simply screams "horror movie", with tight-angled views and tentacle-like scribbles across the wall, before being tricked by what seems to be the owner who pushed him into a pool with a monster.
The trailer quickly moves on after that, but that moment appears to be the kick-off of the story. We then cut to Billy fighting angry marshmallows that look like they've swallowed a bunch of magician scarves, with the narrator telling us that, since the mansion incident, stuff like this keeps happening to Billy - poor Billy.
The trailer moves quite quickly after that, not telling us too much but revealing sandy and snow-clad worlds, a cooking feature, and... a robot?
It's utterly bizarre and, as someone who is usually pretty invested in the narrative, I don't even care what the story is - I just want to jump into this gothic, occasionally miniature world.
Well we do know some things
While the trailers have been somewhat confusing but brilliant, outside of State of Play there has been some light shed on Little Devil Inside. Following the event, a PlayStation Blog post explained that, regardless of the mission at hand, Billy will be able to explore the world map either on foot, on mule, in vehicles, or on a train. There's no fast travel in Little Devil Inside but, from what we've seen, exploring and traveling appear to be part of the fun.
We also know that Billy is a 19th-century adventurer-for-hire who travels around the world exploring supernatural phenomena while trying to survive, with the overall aim being to fill an encyclopedia of sorts of creatures and occurrences. It seems there's a co-op mode too. Outside of these details, we still don't know a whole lot, but I like it that way.
Little Devil Inside comes away from State of Play as the most unique game showcased despite little being known about what it's actually about. The fact it can still ramp up excitement is a testament to the art style and gameplay we've seen so far. Let's just hope the main game lives up to the hype when it releases some time in 2022.
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