Spiritfarer is inspired by Greek mythology and Studio Ghibli

We talked to Creative Director Nicolas Guérin at E3 2019.

During E3 2019, Microsoft showed a trailer for Spiritfarer, a new platform-adventure developed for Windows 10 PC and Xbox One by Thunder Lotus Games. After the Xbox conference, we had the opportunity to talk to the game's creative director, Nicolas Guérin, who explained what Spiritfarer is at its core:

"Yeah, so as you say, Spiritfarer is what we call a cosy management game about dying. And in the game, you play Stella, who is the little girl here on the screen, and [she's the spiritfarer] and with her is Daffodil the cat. We're joining the adventure with her in two-player co-op. And in the game, you have to build a boat to explore the world and pick up spirits to bring them aboard and then release them into the afterlife.

"So it's a management game. So basically, every resource you get from sea events, going to locations, farming, mining, woodcutting and all that, they're then transferred into the building mode where you can actually edit the boat and make the whole thing for yourself.

"The whole point is to make a safe haven for the spirit, so all those guys they have stories, they have personalities, they have very distinct story traits physically. So you need to understand them, who they are, what they want, and then when they're ready for basically living, you will release them into the afterlife".

What makes Spiritfarer unique is, of course, its art style, and we were curious about their inspirations for both the art style and also the lore, and how the game tries to convey that message:

"Yeah, we knew from the get-go that we wanted to take the Charon myth at the heart of the game. So Charon is the ferry master [...] in Greek mythology. So you go to the river Styx and then Charon takes you aboard - if you have a noble - and makes you cross the river. So that's what basically Stella is.

"Now for as you can see on screen the graphical inspiration is way more colourful, way more, you know, large-hearted. We wanted to talk about grave subject matter lightly [...] At the core, we were so very heavily inspired by the works of Studio Ghibli and Hayao Miyazaki, movies like Spirited Away, movies like Howl's Moving Castle".

You can watch the full interview with Nicolas Guérin below. We don't have any release date yet for Spiritfarer, but the game is expected next year on PC and Xbox One.