Chucklefish Unveils Eastward, An Adventure RPG With a 90s Japanese Animation Look

Today, publisher Chucklefish Games – who you may recognize from Stardew Valley and Starbound – and Shanghai- based developer Pixpil unveiled a beautiful and post-apocalyptic adventure RPG, dubbed Eastward.

To accompany the unveiling, an official announcement trailer has also been released, and boy does it look good.

According to Pixpil, Eastward is an adventure game that combines RPG elements, with a visual style inspired by 90s Japanese animation.

The game itself was actually built around pixel artist Hong Moran’s original intricate post-apocalyptic pixel designs, as well as the studio’s joint love of classic Nintendo series: Mother and The Legend of Zelda. Born out of all of these factors was Eastward, a narrative-driven RPG that boasts a soft sci-fi storyline, and some of the best pixel-art I’ve seen in awhile.

Set in a beautifully detailed decaying world, where society has started to collapse as the human population shrinks to an all-time low, you play as a hardworking digger John, who must guide a mysterious girl named Sam through dangerous decaying cities that are inhabited by strange monsters and even stranger people.

The following “features” list is provided:

• Single player, dual character adventure RPG with puzzle-solving and dungeon elements

• Join John and Sam in their emotional journey across a world falling to ruin

• Meet a quirky cast of characters and encounter strange monsters and distant cities

• Beautifully rich pixel art style, created using a combination of modern 3D lighting and retro-pixel style artwork

• Soundtrack composed by Joel Corelitz (Hohokum, The Unfinished Swan, The Tomorrow Children, Gorogoa), with sound design from Irish studio, Hyperduck Soundworks

Development of the title began in 2015, back when Pixpil was only three people deep. Built with an engine of the studio’s own making, the game has since grown in ambition, and the team has added more bodies,and grown to 10 members strong.

Eastward is currently in development for PC and Mac. It’s unclear if it will come to other platforms, but my guess is that it likely will. Further, a price-point and release date/window are also unknown.

For more information and media on the game, be sure to check out its official website.