About a year and a half since its release, Nomada Studios’ Neva remains the game I think of when people bring up the age-old “are video games art” debate—a tight, concise gameplay experience and a visually stunning journey, with a powerful emotional core. I didn’t expect we’d see any more in this world, but now the new Prologue DLC offers a compelling incentive to return to this shadowy world for one more chapter (or play it for the first time).
Neva: Prologue is a short chapter which, despite being intended to play after completing the game, is actually the story of how protagonist Alba found the titular wolf pup. True to the main game’s form, Alba has the same set of skills—running, (double) jumping, rolling, and swinging her sword—but this prequel acts like a sort of final testing ground, where all the reflexes you’ve honed are called into play.
Without having played the game since completing it at launch, returning was like hopping back on a bicycle. Neva: Prologue eases the player back into the engine without relying overmuch on obvious tutorials. The natural signposting returns, and if that’s not enough, the game will gently remind you of the relevant controls. I appreciated the discretion used here, leaving the immersion intact and ultimately helping ease the player back in if it’s been a while.
Neva: Prologue is a rock-solid chapter of gameplay, another finely-tuned adventure in a beautiful world.
Playing as Alba alone is a bit of an adjustment, but before you can miss your heckin’ good pup too much, some new mechanics and puzzles demand attention. There are birds which drop out of alien-looking pods, which must be creatively dispatched midair in order to bypass platforming sections. Trying to make these spawn appropriately, and timing how and when to attack them, is a creative use of the existing physics engine. Timing also comes into play with “puddles” which, once stepped upon, trigger a delayed attack from a plethora of shadowy limbs.
Just like the core game, each new element is introduced naturally, given time to become familiar, and then twisted to offer further challenge. In this regard, Neva: Prologue remains a masterclass in design, approaching Shigeru Miyamoto-esque levels of intuitive design.
This holds true when Alba eventually encounters a very young Neva. Without instruction, the human must encourage the animal to trust her, and then a new wrinkle is introduced. Where pressing the X button (on the Nintendo Switch controller scheme) used to direct Neva, or prompt Alba to call her name, it’s now used to pick up your new partner and carry her.
While carrying the wolf, Alba cannot perform her full repertoire of moves, restricting her to only jumps. This in itself offers some fresh challenges, but perhaps the biggest is finding the nerve to temporarily leave your young charge behind to clear a path.
Nerves will be important, for that matter, as the Prologue‘s difficulty hasn’t stepped down from the main game’s ending. While it’s not necessarily into “superboss” territory like some postgame updates, the bosses here are still a proper challenge—while surmountable even after a long time away from the game. The same goes for the platforming segments as well, like a final exam to test everything you learned along the way.
To my surprise, however, the story and emotional connection fell flatter than I expected. Neva managed to tell a tale with only one word, the power of vocal inflection, and some powerful animations, so it’s not like I felt a massive lore dump was in the cards for a DLC. However, despite seeing how Alba first encountered Neva, there wasn’t quite a “full-circle” moment to connect and really enhance the main story. Returning to a few familiar spots was a nice touch, but it was the return to the gameplay style that was more compelling than the reason behind the adventure.
That being said, Neva: Prologue is a rock-solid chapter of gameplay, another finely-tuned adventure in a beautiful world. For only $4 CDN, a fraction of the full game’s price, the additional content feels central. If you’ve already played through the story, it’s worth the small price of admission, plus the time and bandwidth to redownload it. While I hoped for a little more “prologue” in the Prologue, this chapter is both a fitting victory lap and a thorough cross-section of everything that made Neva great.
