You had me at raccoon detective. If you long for the halcyon days of point-and-click adventures, pixel-perfect Backbone is looking flipping gorgeous.
Developed by EggNut and published by Raw Fury, Backbone is an upcoming point-and-click RPG, featuring stealth mechanics and elaborate dialogue options, set in a post-noir, dystopian Vancouver populated by anthropomorphic animals. You play as private investigator, and raccoon, Howard Lotor, who stumbles into the task of unravelling the dark secrets behind the city’s oppressive power hierarchies. Prepare for maximum existentialism tinged with glimmers of hope as he just tries to make a difference in this cold, cruel world.
The game may be conceptually bleak, but the visuals are not. Backbone combines “high-resolution pixel art and 3D effects like dynamic lighting, pouring rain, volumetric fog, and neon lights” to give you that old school feel with a few modern perks. It also features an atmospheric original soundtrack of “dystopian doom jazz”.
Did I mention you’re a raccoon? Because you’re a raccoon.
Backbone launches for PC on 8 July and you can play the prologue on Steam right now for free. PlayStation, Xbox, and Nintendo Switch versions will follow at some point in the future.