Psychonauts studio Double Fine returns with a surprising, shapeshifting adventure of captivating wonder and beauty.
Part of me thinks I should tell you what happens a couple of hours into Keeper. And then how it continues to evolve, again and again, from there. These are such big, magical moments in Psychonauts developer Double Fine’s latest adventure – a mesmerising trek through a mysterious world, with, perhaps, a touch of thatgamecompany’s seminal Journey in its DNA – that slapping five stars on it without delving deeper almost feels like I’m doing my job wrong. But to hell with that. Instead, I’m going to do my best to preserve at least some of Keeper’s secrets, so you might get to enjoy its remarkable sense of goggle-eyed wonder unsullied too.
Keeper begins, more or less, on a rock. In the background, rugged spires arc menacingly out of churning waters, rising above a bleak coastline into a green-grey sky. Here, in these grim surroundings, an unlikely hero is born; a dilapidated lighthouse made suddenly sentient, teetering on spider-like legs of rope and stone. At first, its heaving, shifting weight demands careful balance to stay aloft. But slowly, with a little encouragement from Twig – a strange seabird newly nestled upon its lantern – its tentative steps find a more confident rhythm. And so begins a wordless journey, buoyed on by the merest wisp of a narrative, through some wondrous sights, all leading toward the island’s mysterious, omnipresent peak.
You begin your tottering trek stumbling across a desolate, if distantly recognisable landscape of crumbling highways and long-abandoned homes. The colour palette may be bleak, but the ceaselessly shifting camera finds beauty everywhere, pulling back to reveal waves hammering the gloomy shoreline or shifting upward to frame the shambling lighthouse in perfect silhouette as a wan sun spears the thick green clouds. But suddenly the pathway pinches, the camera swings, and the air of faint familiarity turns alien as a heaving, mountainous mass perched upon skittering, scrambling legs comes looming into view.
Keeper might well be the most beautiful game I’ve ever played (as the 276 screenshots I took can probably attest). From that first big reveal to its final fade to black, Double Fine’s world is one of such effervescent wonder, I don’t think there was a single moment across its five-or-so-hour runtime I wasn’t gawping at it in quietly stunned awe. Dusty planes and stampeding herds soon make way for perilous red rock cliff tops with dazzling sea views; crowded valleys of fallen stone and towering roots become teetering plateaus strewn with behemoth bones; flower-specked meadows become twilight caverns become vibrant coral fields become verdant fungal forests, and on it goes; each change perfectly matched by a wonderfully reactive soundtrack that shifts restlessly from jaunty percussion to swooning synths to cacophonous bells.
Every inch of Keeper is an explosion of iridescent colour, strikingly rendered in thick brushstroke swirls, and all framed for maximum impact by that ever-roving camera. Even its corridors are so meticulously textured and illuminated they could move an aesthete to tears. And it all feels so alive. Sentient rocks skitter on stick-like legs around burbling bioluminescent pools; fuzzy worm-birds scamper through swaying cerulean grass and snuggle up in their strange stone homes; delicate creatures with dangling tendrils drift dreamily on the breeze, and that’s before we get to the really big things. It’s mesmerising; a wondrously absurd ecosystem brought to life in an impeccable union of art, animation, and sound. I’m not exaggerating when I say I played the whole thing accompanied by a constant inner chorus of ‘bloody hells’.
If anything puts a damper on that unbridled wonder early on, it’s the worry Double Fine’s broader design choices mightn’t be a match for its artistic vision. Keeper’s opening few hours are perhaps overly restrictive, funnelling players along a narrow path that leaves little room for deviation or experimentation. You’ll plod gamely forward as the camera twirls to find another perfectly framed view, occasionally impeded by an obstacle in the road. In these moments, your chief means of interaction is your lighthouse beam, directed using the controller’s right analogue stick. It’s a satisfying thing to play around with, causing nature to come writhingly alive as its light dances across the world. Focus it, however, and it gains more powerful utility, restoring ancient contraptions or helpfully dislodging masonry by causing organic masses to explode. And when a more hands-on approach is required, you can send Twig out to manipulate cranks or shift moveable rods before summoning them home.
It’s a perfectly solid foundation for some creative puzzle design, but one that’s perhaps explored with an overabundance of caution early on. Solutions aren’t just simple, they’re heavily signposted, and you’re never far from another on-screen prompt telling you exactly what to do (these can, thankfully, be turned off in the menu). Double Fine’s decision to prioritise propulsive approachability over complexity probably won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it means wide-eyed wonder never gives way to frustration, which ultimately feels like the right way to go. And gradually, Keeper does evolve. First, that fixed path gently opens out, then puzzles slowly begin to permit more agency. And then, among cloud-kissed peaks and candy floss spores, players gain a different kind of freedom. Swaddled in pink fluff and granted the power of lazy levitation, Keeper suddenly, if briefly, becomes a platform game. And it’s here – drifting past magnificent waterfalls and keening sky whales – I began to appreciate just how good it feels.
Keeper is, perhaps, a game as much about the joy of movement as anything, and looking back, I probably should have been wiser to Double Fine’s end-game sooner. First, the pleasing physicality of those uncertain early stumbles making way for more surefooted strides; strides becoming careening dashes, then billowing jumps and gentle glides. Then, just as it starts to feel like Keeper might have run its course, a truly radical change occurs – powered by a different kind of propulsion and underscored in a sequence of such gleefully choreographed kinetic awe I genuinely clapped in delight. True, your fundamental interactions remain largely the same throughout, but they’re applied to challenges much broader in scale. And just when you think you’ve got the measure of Keeper this time, it shifts again, and again; each reinvention introducing a different kind of movement. And by the time the world was rushing by in a blaze of pure psychedelic fury to a backdrop of blistering electro beats, I was well and truly sold.
The part of me that wonders if I should be more forthcoming about Keeper’s surprises is the same part of me that might be inclined to look at its slightly wonky early pacing, its perhaps excessively frictionless progression, and its fairly unambitious puzzle design a little more harshly. But that’s not who’s reviewing this today. Instead, this one comes from a person who played through Keeper in a single spellbound sitting, thoroughly captivated and utterly delighted by the wondrous artistry of it all. Keeper is a lovely bit of magic; joyously realised, gently moving (but never mawkishly so), and it sees Double Fine – hardly a studio known to flub its big creative swings – on exceptional form.
A copy of Keeper was provided for this review by Xbox Game Studios.
