A beautiful puzzle adventure emerges from its chrysalis

The winged protagonist carefully places the orange orb, which instantly produces a rippling puddle beneath it. Trotting over to a second sphere – turquoise this time – our insectoid hero gently lifts it onto its back and carries it over to the first. What happens next is the most mesmerising three seconds of videogame you’ll see in 2023. Those wings flutter excitedly in anticipation, the puddle suddenly evaporating as the bug leaps and circles the central orb, like a satellite drawn into its orbit. The camera, positioned above, zooms in for a closer look as the orb opens up and the bug spirals into it, descending at great velocity until it touches down with a thump. You’ve entered one world, with another borne on your shoulders. This exhilarating transition serves the central hook of Cocoon, from Jeppe Carlsen, lead gameplay designer for Playdead’s multiaward-winning Limbo and Inside (a fact shrewdly highlighted by publisher Annapurna Interactive in the game’s debut trailer). The idea originated once Carlsen’s work on Inside was over – before the game was shipped, but after it was content-complete. At the time, he was working on a small game called Thoth, but the concept for Cocoon was nonetheless firmly in his thoughts. “It was this idea of basically: what if levels were also objects that I could pick up?”