Cocoon is a game not interested in explaining itself. The game opens in a desert, a beam of light rains down and activates some ancient circuitry in the cliffs. This awakens the titular cocoon, and out pops our protagonist, beginning the game. That’s about all you’re getting in the way of explanation, as I found upon playing the demo.
It’s not surprising, since the lead designer of Cocoon is Jeppe Carlsen, who is also responsible for Limbo and Inside. Those games were equally obtuse about their setting, featuring a young boy in either a dangerous monochrome forest or a dystopian city with little else to go on. Cocoon’s ambiguity is even more striking, as very little of this game resembles the real world.
You are a small bug person of some kind. You have wings, but you can’t even jump, let alone fly. The start of the game sees you wandering through the desert until you emerge from an orb that this world is contained in. Something angry and large wakes up and enters the orb you just left. You can now move this orb (and the world it contains) around.
Image via Annapurna
During my time playing through the demo of Cocoon, I was able to see three worlds. There was a desert one, contained in an orange orb, a swamp one, contained in a green orb, and a world that houses the orbs that is a strange facility full of odd machinery. These three worlds are about as alien as they come, full of biomechanical devices blending rigid metal with fleshy tendrils. Even the protagonist looks to be partially plastic. It’s a strange place to be, with no context for where all this is happening. An alien world, maybe? We may never know.
Cocoon doesn’t just avoid explaining its setting or story, it also just drops you into gameplay without any explanation of its mechanics. You’re left to figure it all out yourself. However, while there are no text boxes explaining how to use an orb, Cocoon does an excellent job of helping you intuit what you need to do. You have two abilities, walking and touching things, so every puzzle boils down to you touching whatever you find until something useful happens.
The key mechanic in Cocoon is the world-switching ability. The orbs containing the swamp and desert worlds are used for a ton of different purposes. They’re used to activate machinery, hold down switches, and each orb can gain a unique ability. The orange orb can reveal hidden crystal paths within a certain radius, while the green orb can make certain pillars switch between solid or transparent. You can even take an orb inside another orb and use it to solve puzzles there.
This got especially interesting as the demo went on, as I had to move in and out of the worlds to solve different puzzles. I had to dodge an obstacle at one point simply by leaving the world, watching the obstacle pass by through the portal, then jump back in at the right time. Another puzzle required manipulating multiple exit portals to get an orb past an obstacle it couldn’t pass by normally.
Image via Annapurna
I also got to fight two of Cocoon’s bosses. The protagonist doesn’t have a weapon, so each fight requires you to find one in the arena. These encounters were inventive, especially the one in the swamp. That fight briefly turned into a bullet hell with the protagonist flying around on a watery jetpack. That was unexpected but a lot of fun.
What I played of Cocoon was fascinating in so many ways. Its ambiguity and lack of explanation for anything appealed to my love of mystery. Meanwhile, the puzzles were impressively complex for a game with such simple controls. It hooked me in so much that when the words “End of demo” flashed up on screen I audibly protested. That’s probably the highest praise a demo can receive.
Cocoon has a strong start, and I can’t wait to see how much further the concepts on display here can be taken. It’s a mysterious world that will no doubt be left open to player interpretation, and I can see the worlds-within-worlds concept expanding out to brain-melting proportions. If you’re a fan of puzzle games, Cocoon is looking like one to watch.
Cocoon will come to the PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and Nintendo Switch on September 29, 2023, and a demo is out now.
