Tchia has been making the rounds ever since its announcement at the 2020Game Awards, and recently, the development studio, Acaweb, uploaded a behind-the-scenes video where the lead developers took the entire team out to New Caledonia to experience the real-life natural environments that inspired the ones in the game.
Throughout the video, we see various 1-to-1 comparisons of the real-life vistas and structures of New Caledonia and the game’s recreations of them, and they are shockingly similar. New Caledonia is a French territory off the eastern coast of Australia, comprised of numerous islands of varying sizes. The game’s lead developers, Thierry Boura and Phil Crifo, were raised in New Caledonia, and they were eventually inspired to make a game based on the beauty of their homeland.
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The video shows explorable island structures that match actual islands off the coast of New Caledonia, such as the Poule de Hienghene. It showed off a forest of Banyan trees, the likes of which will be present in the game, and it also presented a couple of wild animals along their in-game depiction. The game will seemingly also have a representation of the island’s capital city, Numea.
Tchia’s gameplay appears to be heavily based on exploration, a priorvideoshowing several interesting ways to traverse through the terrain. Its first few trailers drew a lot of comparisons toBreath of the Wild, as you can descend softly with a glider, as well as climb any rocky wall you come across. However, what sets it apart is its Soul Jumping mechanic. The titular character Tchia can enter and possess any animal or object the player sees, and travel the island that way.
There seems to be a lot of freedom in how you maximize the physics of the world, as you can use your momentum to Soul Jump out of one animal/object, and immediately Soul Jump into another. Tchia has at least gained the trust of executives over atPlayStation, as it is currently a PlayStation console exclusive (also coming to PC at launch). It’s set to release in early 2023, meaning it may be facing a lot of competition from blockbuster titles likeHogwarts Legacy,Resident Evil 4 Remake, andStar Wars Jedi: Survivor.
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