Tunic

Tunic

Ryan Larson

Tunic is an action-adventure game developed by Canadian indie developer Andrew Shouldice and published by Finji. The game was released in March 2022 on Microsoft Windows and macOS, and on the Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One as a timed exclusive for consoles.

Tunic is played nominally in an isometric view, allowing the player to maneuver their character, an anthropomorphic fox, around the game’s world, interacting with objects and fighting enemies; if necessary the player can switch to a more top-down view in combat. The game is structured similar to The Legend of Zelda, with progress limited to certain areas of the game world until the player has collected a new weapon or ability for the fox to use, adding some touches from the Souls series. The game’s purpose and method of playing are somewhat oblique; what dialog is presented to the player is generally of an undecipherable language though selected characters or words will be legible in the player’s language that may hint towards puzzle solutions, and some of the items that the player will find are pages that make up the game’s manual.