Away: Journey to the Unexpected

Learning to get along without mum and dad is an important part of a child’s development.

But the parents of the young and fragile hero in Away: Journey to the Unexpected have suddenly disappeared altogether, just like that! Why? How? It’s up to you to find out, and instead of sitting there crying about it, you decide to set off and find them!

As you search through your grandparents’ huge house, you’ll come across holes and tunnels running everywhere underneath it! Who’s behind these strange excavations? That would be Labiworks, a weird drilling company that thinks it has the right to dig anywhere it please without a thought for granny and grandad!

Armed with nothing more than a simple stick and a set of fireworks, you’ll quickly find yourself out in the world doing battle with droids, aliens, and monstrous bosses! So here you are on a madcap and otherworldly adventure where your wits are your sharpest weapon. And you also have two things that your enemies don’t: friends and infinite lives!

Away: Journey to the Unexpected is the fruit of a collaboration between Aurélien Regard, a well-known French developer (he brought us The Next Penelope, for example) and the level designer from Rayman Legends, Jean-Matthieu Genisson.

This first-person action and adventure game with a decidedly manga style with its 3D environments and 2D characters is also a rogue-lite, where your life is always hanging by a thread. But even though it’s designed for newbies, don’t be surprised if you don’t recognise the worlds you’ve visited, nor by your constant dying and starting again.

Indeed, it’s the only way to learn from your mistakes and use experience points to upgrade your special abilities. Basically: it’s all part of the game! And if things do get too challenging, you can always change your character and try playing as one of your newfound friends!

There are a total of eight that you’ll have to convince to join you, and they can be found across four different worlds. They all boast powerful and spectacular abilities, but they don’t work against every enemy or obstacle.

This means you’ll have to try to balance out your three characters according to their strengths, and gradually work on upgrading your skills. And that’s exactly what you’ll be using those strange golden relics you see everywhere for.

One last tip: expect the unexpected!