In a post on the Stadia Community Blog today, Thunder Lotus announced that their new game Spiritfarer will be releasing on Google's platform on the same day it arrives for other systems. Thunder Lotus' previous titles, Jotan and Sundered, released on Stadia last month.
In Spiritfarer, players take on the role of Stella, cheerful captain of a ferry for the deceased. Stella takes her boat wandering among islands, looking for spirits to journey to the afterlife. Along the way, she gathers materials to help build her happy death-boat into the best death-boat it can be.
Each spirit you help make the transition is its own individual character. In an interview posted today, Thunder Lotus' Rodrigue Duperron offered the following examples: "Stan the Mushroom Spirit is certainly one of the more quirky and energetic spirits you’ll encounter – likely because he’s also by far the youngest passenger. But he nevertheless proves to harbor knowledge and wisdom beyond his years. Meanwhile, Giovanni the Lion Spirit is best described as charmingly obnoxious. Though he’s passionate and loving, you’ll discover that perhaps an undue amount of that love is directed towards himself!"
The entire topic of death is handles with an unbridled, infection cheer. "The initial pitch for Spiritfarer was to do a farm sim-lite game with the concept of the myth of the souls of the dead on the river Styx. But we wanted to approach that material in a much more colorful and bubbly way, and this was nicely supported by the art direction. Once we had that core idea, we thought about the actual theme and message and knew we wanted to talk about death in an uplifting way. Especially compared to the more grim setting in Sundered, we sought to create something with more optimism."
No official release date has been announced beyond "2020", but its great that Stadia fans will be able to play Spiritfarer on the same day as everyone else. And, of course, if you aren't a Stadia fan, Spiritfarer will be releasing on Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC, Mac, and Linux.
