Detective tale and cosmic opera collide in psychedelic adventure Nirvana Noir
Trying to condense one of the biggest events in human history into a slick noir detective tale might seem like a big ask, but developer Feral Cat Den took it all in stride with its debut game Genesis Noir.
Seamless animation took players on a sweeping tour of the universe through the eyes of a time-traveling noir protagonist as he tried to stop his lover from falling victim to a gunshot, a.k.a. The Big Bang. At the end of this detective mystery, the player was given the opportunity to change the course of history, resulting in two distinct endings with very different outcomes.
After releasing Genesis Noir in 2021, the team at Feral Cat Den was also faced with an important decision: move on to another project or continue making games, specifically a follow-up to Genesis Noir. “When we finished Genesis Noir, we weren't even sure if we wanted to do another game,” says Feral Cat Den’s Evan Anthony, “But over the year after we released, we were supporting the game by making DLC for it, and we were still really enjoying being in that world and working within that art direction.”
One decision, two timelines—one without a Genesis Noir sequel and one with Nirvana Noir, a dazzling continuation. Feral Cat Den says that you don't need to have played the first game to enjoy this follow-up, as its story can be understood as a separate entity.
“It’s about a character who's split between two lives,” says Anthony. “He was faced with an impossible decision in his past, and he made an impossible choice to live these two lives, and he’s now suffering the consequences. We thought it was really interesting that the first game's endings are both canon for this character. What is it like for this person to be split between these two very different lives that he's living?”
Our cosmic detective No Man may have hung up his time-diving hat, but he's faced with a new mystery—one that affects both of the timelines he's experiencing. “You're trying to save yourself and your city,” says Feral Cat Den’s Jeremy Abel. “A singular threat has found its way into both of the life paths that he has taken.”
Corruption in the cosmos
Instead of a jaunt across the universe, the majority of Nirvana Noir takes place in a New York City-inspired locale. One city, two realities.
The first of these realities, where No Man stopped the bullet, will be familiar to players who played the first game. This reality—known as Black Rapture—closely follows the look and vibe of the first game. Black-and-white visuals, moody, jazzy, swanky smoke-choked lounges where whiskey pours freely. It wouldn't look out of place in a classic film noir of the 1940s and 1950s. Think The Third Man or Double Indemnity.
The second reality is a world away. Named Constant Testament, this timeline has all the heat, sweat, and sun-stroke psychedelics of neo-noir films like Inherent Vice and The Long Goodbye. It’s bright, colorful, and intoxicating. “It’s inspired by the history of psychedelics in the United States,” Anthony says. “The civil rights era, the MKUltra project, how LSD was a part of social movements and the government’s participation in it.”
These realities don’t merely borrow film aesthetics, they’re also reflections on human histories as explored by both genres. The difference between the two, however subtle, was important to how the team approached the twin realities. “The distinction between noir and neo-noir is sometimes difficult to pin down, but where we had it is: It's sunny in LA versus dark in New York,” Abel says.
A big inspiration for the team with both Genesis Noir and Nirvana Noir is Italo Calvino’s Cosmicomics, an anthology of short sci-fi stories. The way Calvino used poetic imagery to depict grounded stories was something that resonated with the team. “Calvino doesn't try to depict that in a literal sense or educate you about the details. He uses it as a springboard to tell a very deeply human story,” Anthony says.
It's a sentiment that carries through both of Feral Cat Den's games and in both of Nirvana Noir’s realities. In Black Rapture, No Man is trying to discover the culprit behind a series of arsons that's turning the city to ash. In Constant Testament, he’s a criminal informant for the police investigating a dangerous new drug and counterculture cult.
It’s unclear for now how these two stories will tie together but No Man's role stays the same across both timelines. He’s trying to unpin events that are essentially etched in the fabric of time, and he's pushing back against incredible forces—societal forces like corrupt governments, the toxic vice of drugs, and shady criminal groups, but also more cosmic forces like our understanding of reality and the endless flow of time. Both feel as though they are beyond his control but he pursues them regardless.
“I think there's a lot of continuity between a noir protagonist and these big, existential, cosmic themes of inevitability and the sublime danger of the cosmos,” Abel says.
Sins and supernovas
Nirvana Noir's story scope is told through similar techniques the team used in the first game. Seamless animation and lightweight puzzle-solving encourage the player to explore and interact with the world. “From a design standpoint, we always like to sketch and then prototype, then let them inform one another,” Abel says. “Often, our interactions change over time, or they get simplified as we hone in on what visuals are compelling. How do they forward the story? How is it fun to interact with and touch?”
You can see the result of this puzzle philosophy in Nirvana Noir's demo. In one scene, No Man sets out to interrogate a butcher, Pork Pi, as part of his investigation. Pork Pi’s text dialog gets shoved into a meat grinder, and you need to arrange a handful of Scrabble-style sausages to find the right words to get him to open up. It's a wonderful combination of detective work and visual imagery, as No Man needs to use Pork Pi's own words and language against the butcher.
These artful interactions are what made Genesis Noir so unique. Text, color, and perspective were all used in unexpected ways, and it’s wonderful to see that creative spark continues in this sequel.
“Jeremy's working on one right now, where you discover a church that has been burnt down, and you have to ‘unburn’ it,” says Anthony. “You're turning back time so you can look at the history of these objects and revert them from a destroyed state into their previous state, to see the history of what's happened there.”
As your puzzle-solving gets you closer to unraveling Nirvana Noir’s mysteries, you also have the handy "Mind’s Eye" menu, which displays a spider-like diagram of all your leads, witnesses, and important locations—exactly like a detective’s red-stringed corkboard. Detective work plays a much bigger role in Nirvana Noir than it did in Genesis Noir, and this is more apparent in the colorful psychedelic reality of Constant Testament.
In Black Rapture, the game still resembles Genesis Noir's more poetic communication—puzzles are tactile, and you can "feel" your way through them by messing around with the scene. But in the kaleidoscopic reality of Constant Testament, puzzles need a little bit of brain power. There's a lot more text to read, and you even have dialogue options and lines of questioning to explore when chatting with characters.
Instead of being swept through linear, poetic vignettes, you can also freely explore scenes this time around—go into buildings, chat with characters, and generally poke around the environment.
“It's like two or three blocks, but it's small and dense,” Abel says. “It's open world-ish. You can go into whatever building you want, whenever, more or less. And the world evolves within this consistent environment, rather than putting you in completely self-contained levels.”
This change in structure opened up the scope of storytelling possibilities for the team.
“Genesis Noir was this series of individual levels that gave us a lot of creative opportunity to explore different times and places—but from a narrative standpoint, because we are jumping through the very first moments in the universe and throughout human history and into science fiction, they were very self-contained. The emphasis was more on the poetry of what the environment is and how it relates to the characters, kind of emotional disposition, rather than a very active plot where one thing leads to the next and like there's you're uncovering an intricate conspiracy," Abel explains.
“With Nirvana Noir, the emphasis is definitely more on a richer plot. We're still maintaining the poetry of the first game, but hopefully, wrapping it all up in exciting characters and events and exploring this consistent cosmic city. A meta-metaphysical metropolis.”
From what Feral Cat Den has said and what we've seen from the game’s bonkers trailer—if you’re a fan of animation, you need to check it out—Nirvana Noir looks to be the perfect fusion of the first game’s existential poetry and a new cosmic explosion of color and creativity. Just as neo-noir is to its predecessor, Nirvana Noir feels like the right balance of classic style and new wave.
You’ll be able to jump into Nirvana Noir’s cosmic detective tale sometime soon on the Epic Games Store, so stay tuned for more information. If you’re keen to put your cosmic detective hat and trench coat on sooner, Genesis Noir is also available now on the Epic Games Store.