Hela, a new game from Unravel creators, features mice with frog backpacks

Windup Games, a studio founded mainly by industry veterans and former staff from Coldwood Interactive (Unravel, Unravel Two), has revealed its debut game, Hela. It’s an open-world adventure involving mice; it’s coming to PC and consoles, and it’s the best thing I’ve seen this morning.

The trailer shows off two mice trying to figure out some sort of puzzle involving a hanging pair of eyeglasses while not waking a cat. They hold their breath as a rolling washer makes potentially cat-rousing levels of noise. When the cat doesn’t stir, balls of light waft in through the window. They get focused into one ball by the glasses, and then the mice stuff it into a jar. Take that, magic.

Then, it cuts to the good stuff: the gameplay. The mice swing around like Spider-man in a big yard using woolen tongues that shoot out from their frog-shaped backpacks. They then glide around by filling their backpacks with hot air or something. There’s foraging for mushrooms, giant bunnies, and some good-old cooperative gameplay.

It looks a bit rough in a low-budget Unreal Engine 5 kind of way, but the gameplay looks bewilderingly enjoyable. The press release describes it as “heartwarming,” but I think it looks rad. If you get to ride a paper boat down a stream, I’m going to lose my mind.

Hela doesn’t have a stated release date and is said to be coming to PC and consoles.