Hello people!
My title is Dave Mervik and I’m the Narrative Director for Tarsier Studios, creators of the soon-to-be-released co-op horror recreation Reanimal, which launches on PS5 Feb 13, 2026.
For these of you new to the world of Reanimal, it’s a story of a gaggle of orphans certain collectively by the world they grew up in, and torn aside by what that world turned. The Boy and The Lady are your playable characters on this story they usually discover one another very early on at the start of the sport. After they’ve stated their hellos, they set off of their boat to seek out and reclaim their lacking associates – Hood, Bucket and Bandage – from a wide range of disagreeable locations and even extra disagreeable monsters. It’s truthful to say that these children have a sophisticated historical past with this place, so don’t be shocked in the event that they’re a bit nonplussed to see you at first, however all good associates come to those that wait!
This 12 months we’ve got travelled to each Gamescom and Tokyo Recreation Present to demo Reanimal for the general public and the response has surpassed all our wildest goals, listening to the screams of each pleasure and terror as gamers labored collectively to outlive has been music to our ears and is strictly what we had hoped for when concocting this concept of being Scared Collectively. So to all of you who gave of your time in Cologne and Tokyo, we give our most heartfelt thanks. It’s that sort of reception that makes the various years of laborious work price it. Nearly!
As the discharge of the total recreation hoves into view, we wish to take this chance to announce to you right here right this moment that pre-orders at the moment are open! All pre-orders of Reanimal unlock a pair of unique masks – Foxhead and Muttonhead – which can be utilized by both character to make your travails on this hellish world a bit extra enjoyable, or to blind you to their horrors!
As a studio that reduce its enamel making hats and costumes for LittleBigPlanet, it feels unusually applicable to be again right here all these years later speaking concerning the masks of Reanimal. These of you who’ve already performed the Reanimal demo will know, our newest vary of headwear has gone to a a lot darker place! Sure, gone are the times of donning your silliest hat to gambol with carefree abandon by way of a world of happiness and creativity. Reanimal is a wildly completely different beast, it’s a world of loss, violence and being scared collectively, a birthday cake hat would break every little thing!
At Tarsier, we attempt to make our worlds as wealthy and stuffed with character as potential, the place the story lives as a lot on the earth round you because it does in what our characters say and do. It’s each enjoyable and rewarding to concentrate to the little issues, filling the background with particulars that inform us extra concerning the world we’re in and the world we got here from. Masks and costumes fall into this class too. Adorning the pinnacle or obscuring the face needn’t all the time be a meaningless act, and in lots of instances the masks (or the purpose for it) is as a lot part of the story because the individual behind it.
The method of making masks for Reanimal begins in a lot the identical approach as in previous video games, the artists start sketching concepts across the core themes that we discover within the recreation after which iterating these till they hit that elusive Tarsier High quality Bar™. The Foxhead and Muttonhead masks resonated particularly effectively as a result of that they had that bestial flavour that we have been searching for; whereas their predator/prey characterisations quietly reiterate the sport’s thematic undercurrents. They felt like a becoming pair to launch as exclusives, as they arrive with loads of baggage, similar to our protagonists.
So, whereas out searching for your folks, regardless that you might dread to take action, it’s price exploring the world round you to see what secrets and techniques may be mendacity round. There are further story snippets, hidden morsels of lore, easter eggs; and, after all, a number of the most disagreeable masks we’ve ever created. We are able to’t assure that sporting them will hold you secure from what lies forward, however you’ll not less than appear to be you belong right here!