I played a lot of video games when I visited Los Angeles for The Game Awards. I dove into the corporate satire of Revenge of the Savage Planet, got a feel for the furiously fun Crimson Desert, and even played To a T with Katamari Damacy creator Keita Takahashi. There’s one game that I’m still thinking about weeks later, though, and it’s much smaller than any of those.
Faraway is the latest game by Steph Thirion, the creator of 2009 puzzle classic Eliss. The project, set to launch in 2025 for PC, is another retro arcade game set in the trippy reaches of a digitized outer space. It’s a follow-up that’s been 15 years in the making, which may sound surprising when looking at its minimalistic gameplay. You can’t rush great art, though, and Faraway already has all the markings of a simple cult hit.
In Faraway, players simply guide a shooting star through space and make constellations with it. When I sit down to try it out, it takes me a few minutes to figure out how it all works even though it’s essentially a one-button game. When a level begins, my star automatically begins flying through the black of space. As it passes other stars, I can tap a button to magnetize it to one and swing it around to change its direction. The longer I hold the button, the more it turns.
Eventually, I come across a set of stars that needs to be connected into a constellation using my bright buddy’s tail. All I need to do is guide myself from star to star to connect them, all while making sure not to break my chain by passing through a line I’ve created. It sounds simple enough, but I quickly discover that there’s a lot of patience and nuance required to get it right.
The first skill I learn is to make gentle turns rather than holding down the button for too long and completely throwing off both my momentum and direction. Navigating between stars almost feels like learning a playing simulator like Forza Motorsport for the first time and discovering that the key to success is pumping the brakes instead of slamming on them. Once I accept that, I’m able to sink into a state of Zen as I play a cosmic game of connect the dots.
As Thirion showed me the ropes, he explained that his north star for the project is Tetris. He’s aiming to make an arcade-style puzzle game that has the same kind of entrancing flow state. I can feel the influence of something like Tetris Effect here the more I’m able to lock in and move my star around with finesse.
While the constellation puzzles I played were a good way to learn the ropes, they aren’t the main attraction. The core mode, as Thirion calls it, is a timed challenge where players are given a mess of stars and need to create the biggest constellation possible to rack up a high score. It seems simple, but I instantly discover the depth in that task. If I start forming lines in the center of the star system and working my way out, I’m able to form loops using further stars. The goal is to use spatial reasoning on the fly to keep an uninterrupted connection going as long as possible without passing through the line between two already connected stars.
Thirion seems thrilled as he watches me play, excited to see someone get the hang of that strategy within 20 minutes of play and with no tutorial whatsoever. That speaks to the potential power of Faraway. It’s the kind of arcade puzzler that you can pick up and learn in an instant, but one that rewards players who naturally unravel its depth. It may look tiny next to enormous games coming next year like Monster Hunter Wilds, but it might just be one of my most anticipated games of the year at the moment.
Faraway launches in 2025 for PC.
