Though Heart Machine’s games, like Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, span a variety of genres, there’s a visual throughline connecting them all. If you’ve noticed that shared sensibility, that’s because it’s completely intentional on the part of the developers.
“The goal here is to, at a glance, say, ‘Oh, that looks like a Heart Machine game,’ with any title that we do, no matter the style or format of the gameplay itself,” studio founder Alx Preston told Polygon during a video interview in October. He and environmental artist Wolf Traenkle dove into detail on how the studio crafts new intellectual property, like the recently released side-scroller Possessor(s), and defines the look of a Heart Machine game.
“We’ve wanted to tackle some mix of new IP, new ideas from different worlds and try and expand on things that way, and also reestablish and continue on with stuff in the Hyper Light world that’s been successful for us,” Preston said. “We want to try and do something in our own style and as fresh as we can each time that we’re putting something out there. Possessor(s) is no different with that.”
Possessor(s) is a 2D Metroidvania about a teen named Luca who’s trying to survive in the ruins of a corporation-controlled city beset by demons and demonic objects. She makes a pact with the demon Rhem, and together they search for a way out. “Possessor(s) is a darker take on some of the stuff we’ve done in the past,” Preston said.
Heart Machine’s latest features vibrant environmental colors and sharply defined enemies. Traenkle described a “vibrancy that is at a juxtaposition with almost a seriousness, or a strong feeling” as a common thread between all of Heart Machine’s games. ”We definitely wanted to take a more detrimental, somber tone with this one, push it a little bit further,” Traenkle said, while Preston noted the team took “a more simplified or very stylized approach to our characters and environments as well, when it comes to level of detail.”
In crafting a game like Possessor(s), there’s an ongoing dialogue between the emotional storytelling and its visual style. Traenkle said the team takes a “jam band” approach to crafting a game. “We are working with each other and we kind of all have a good idea of what the underlying feeling is that we’re trying to achieve,” she explained. She called the creative process a very fluid one, noting how the environments and character designs of the artists might push the narrative in new directions, and vice versa.
Preston explained how those underlying feelings are essential to Heart Machine’s work. Somber moods and tones “come from a lot of internal emotional conflicts and experiences that we want to translate into this format.” He quipped, “Do you want to be happily depressed? […] That’s my favorite experience.”
With demonic enemies — like screaming, flying books attacking the player from above — Possessor(s) can certainly be frightening at times, though Heart Machine didn’t try to make it explicitly horror. “It’s definitely got some creepy elements, but I feel like it’s more of that dread feeling than it is trying to necessarily scare you directly,” Traenkle said.
As Luca wanders through a mostly empty city, years after it’s been devastated by demons, parallels to the COVID-19 pandemic become obvious. “How could the pandemic not influence certain things?” Preston explained. “The inception of the story for me was about sort of isolation, personally, but also more globally speaking, more societally.”
The team was also influenced by a wide range of media to nail down that dreadful feeling in the game’s storytelling and visual style. Demon Slayer, with its penchant for providing emotional backstories for hated antagonists, was a formative influence. So too was Apple TV’s Severance and its investigation of liminal spaces. Traenkle also points to the visual style of Annihilation, the 2018 adaptation of Jeff Vandermeer’s climate fiction novel, as an example of the kind of alien beauty typified by “unfamiliar shapes that are kind of enticing and have that vibrancy” as a source of inspiration for Possessor(s).
All of the influences, visual flair, and moody atmosphere add up to something that is unmistakably a Heart Machine title, even as it treads new paths for the studio. Traenkle particularly enjoyed the challenge of creating something stylized, yet simple. “How much information can I take away and still have [environments] read properly? And so figuring out that blend and what feels right between those spaces is part of the first challenges when it comes to these projects and establishing a look,” she explains. Even at a casual glance, Possessor(s)’ vibrant environments and dreadful enemies stand out in a crowded Metroidvania space.
Unfortunately, Heart Machine’s challenges haven’t only been of the creative variety recently. Polygon spoke with Preston and Traenkle after news broke that the studio was ending development on its roguelike Hyper Light Breaker and laying off part of its staff. Preston noted the two teams were separate: the Breaker layoffs wouldn’t affect the Possessor(s) team. But Heart Machine underwent another round of layoffs after Preston and Traenkle spoke with Polygon back in October, and members of the Possessor(s) team unfortunately did lose their jobs.
“When we wrapping up Possessor(s), I think the timing was apt for us to sort of release this out into the world in November and then move along to the next thing for ourselves,” Preston said. What that next thing ends up being, however, is yet to be seen.
Possessor(s) is out now on PlayStation 5 and Windows PC.
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