PAX West Spotlight: Stela

By Rae

Coming up from Vancouver’s SkyBox Labs, Stela describesitself as a cinematic, atmospheric platformer. Visually, it’s a perfectdescription – the camera falls back from the player, showing off the dyingworld around them, and strangely beautiful scenery fills the screen.

Stela takes us into the final days of a mysterious ancientworld, putting us in the place of a young woman as she makes her way across thelandscape and ruins left behind. Along the way, creatures pose an ever-presentthreat, eagerly hunting her path. The premise and atmosphere are certainlycreepy enough, with plenty of horror elements lurking, but Stela’s atmosphereis something rather special.

While creating Stela, Skybox didn’t want to follow thetropes of stuffy, claustrophobic levels that are so prevalent in eerie games.You’ll notice two major unique things as a result of this. The first is thatthe camera is panned out rather far from our protagonist. The game isn’t solelycentered on a character – in fact, at least in the demo – it’s hard to make outmuch about her at all. Instead, you’re the witness to the death of a world,watching as it passes by you, even as you play. The second is an amazingvariety of environments and elements. Our demo took us through a haunting, deadforest. While most games might throw us into a dark, barely visible scene, Stelashows off its woods through a hazy, twilight-like glow. It certainly gives afresh look to the game, making the world around you the main focus.

Stela’s gameplay is incredibly intuitive – while the demowastes no time with instructions, anyone familiar with a controller should haveno issue figuring out how to proceed. As I tried to stealth my way along thepath, an ominous, humanoid creature occasionally appeared. You can’t quite runfrom them – the goal is to not be spotted in the first place. Sometimes this isas easy as hiding behind a tree. Others, it’s a little more challenging, as thecreatures, run, crawl, and lurk through spaces you might have thought weresafe. It’s not all hiding from monsters - much of the gameplay is puzzle-based- but stealth and quick-thinking will be important for you.

Difficulty-wise, Stela felt like a nice fit. When chattingabout the game, Skybox revealed that they didn’t want the game to be too impossiblychallenging. Instead, the player should be able to learn and adjust. It’s meantto be a game that anyone can play, if they’re willing to put in some effort.

Stela will be coming out before the end of 2019 – wishlist it on steam today or sign up to receive updates on the official site!