Retro Shooters, Blog Mysteries, And Vampire Narratives: Kwalee’s Line-Up Is A Love Letter To Gaming’s Versitility

In modern gaming, the indie space has proven to be a truly unique landscape full of wild ambition and clever reinventions of formula. Places like the Steam Store are the ideal showcase for that, where love letters to previous generations of game design can sit side-by-side with metatextual mysteries and deeply engrossing IP revivals. Look no further than the upcoming line-up from Kwalee.

Kwalee’s upcoming games speak to the sheer versatility of the indie space, with a very ambitious line-up of very different games coming down the pipeline from a host of unique developers. Members of the media (including ComicBook) got the chance to check out three of their upcoming titles — Vampire: The Masquerade – Eternal Whispers, SPRAWL Zero, and lily’s world XD — each of which has clear passion on the part of the creators to deliver something unique while still staying true to their inspirations.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Eternal Whispers Is A Must-Play For Disco Elysium Fans

Vampire: The Masquerade has had a lot of success in the world of modern gaming, with the TTRPG being adapted into several video games over the years. Most of these titles have put emphasis on the action and horror of the world of the vampires, but Vampire: The Masquerade – Eternal Whispers takes a far more narrative-driven approach. Developed by Flyos and inspired by other narrative-heavy games like Disco Elysium, Eternal Whispers places focus on a vampire who has been awakened after decades of being locked away. Awakening in Montreal decades later, the vampire is given the chance to find out who they are, what their legacy is meant to be, and if there is any chance they could still be redeemed.

The CRPG is almost an interactive novel, with much of the focus being paid to dialogue, character interaction, and branching narratives driven by the player’s choices. In development since 2023, the game was described by the team as a “fail-forward” RPG where traditional failstates aren’t an option. In a game where narrative is key, every choice should matter as the player investigates Montreal roughly twenty years after the events of the “Montreal by Night” expansion for the TTRPG. Especially for gamers who prefer immersive storytelling over fast-paced action, Eternal Whispers is going to be the perfect game to sink your teeth into.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Eternal Whispers does not currently have a release date.

SPRAWL Zero Is The Retro Shooter That Will Make Any Millennial Cheer

That’s not to say Kwalee’s line-up is all cerebral. SPRAWL Zero is a fast-paced and action-heavy FPS that feels rooted to a previous era — and that’s meant as a compliment. Taking inspiration from games of the era of FPS titles like Halo, Half-Life, and Timesplitters, MAETH’s SPRAWL Zero is the follow-up to 2023’s SPRAWL. The game, serving as a prequel to that title, follows an agent of a megacorp who is sent in to deal with problems for the company. The FPS action is quick, with members of the media let loose into a demo that puts emphasis on fast-paced movement and non-stop combat. Firefights break out at an alarming speed, especially as players race through a massive industrial zone doing their best to survive.

It’s very much an FPS of that era, albeit with some extra modern touches and tweaks. The most engaging is the fact that the game doesn’t allow players to reload. Instead, running out of ammo forces the player to throw their gun away — often as a projectile towards a nearby enemy — and then find a new weapon. It’s a clever mechanic that puts emphasis on the game’s bullet time ability, ensuring players try out different types of guns instead of zeroing in on a favorite. Fitted with a retro approach to the graphics, score, and HUD, SPRAWL Zero feels like a lost relic from that era, which is meant as the highest of compliments, given the game’s clear love for that era of gaming. If you’re a FPS fan or from a certain generation of players who grew up with the F.E.A.R. series, then SPRAWL Zero will scratch a big nostalgic itch.

SPRAWL Zero does not currently have a release date. The demo is now available on Steam.

lily’s world XD Is Clever, Meta, And Already Really Creepy

The third game shown off during Kwalee’s preview to the media, lily’s world XD is a fascinating and inventive mystery game that steadily gives way to an unsettling psychological horror. The setup is that players take the role of a regular person who finds an old laptop. While checking it out, they discover that it used to belong to a teenage girl in 2004, complete with AOL Messenger and other apps of the era. While going through notes, pictures, and docs within the computer, the player begins to piece together clues pointing towards a collapsing friendship and a mysterious cult.

Things gradually take a grim turn as the player finds increasingly threatening messages for Lily amidst all the pictures and songs. Even the player might not be safe, as the messages sometimes seem to be directed towards them. Developed by Emily Pitcher — better known online as SonderingEmily — lily’s world XD is focused on recreating the digital era of 2004 and using it as the grounding elements for a murderous mystery that only gets more unsettling the more clues you discover. With challenging puzzles baked into the formatting and use of the websites and apps on the computer, lily’s world XD is a clever approach to both the horror and the mystery genre that could only work as a game.

lily’s world XD is currently scheduled to be launched on December 31, 2026.