after us Archives - Private Division

After Us Now Available for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S

Jeremy Gumber — Tue, 23 May 2023 15:05:20 +0000

From Piccolo Studio, the award-winning developers behind Arise: A Simple Story, comes an emotional adventure platforming game that challenges the player to restore life on Earth

To celebrate launch, Private Division has made a charitable donation to The Nature Conservancy

Private Division and Piccolo Studio are proud to announce that After Us is now available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S. Explore a surrealistic world as Gaia, the Spirit of Life, in a quest to restore a bleak and broken planet by reviving the spirits of animals. This third-person adventure game combines platforming, puzzle solving, and Piccolo Studio’s signature style of emotional storytelling to create an unforgettable experience. Will you be able to fight back the darkness to return hope to the world in After Us?

“With After Us we sought to make a game that inspires and challenges players”

— Jordi Ministral, Game Director at Piccolo Studio

Private Division has made a charitable donation to The Nature Conservancy to celebrate the release of After Us. In this heartfelt game, players help restore nature by growing plants and trees, reviving extinct animals, and prevailing over the consequences of climate change. “We hope After Us brings more awareness to the efforts being made across the globe by so many fantastic organizations like The Nature Conservancy, each striving to create a brighter future for our planet,” said Michael Worosz, Chief Strategy Officer, Take-Two Interactive, and Head of Private Division.

Players traverse multiple biomes in After Us, tiptoeing carefully across tightropes high above a wasteland of a crumbling city, navigating treacherous waters of sunken ships, and dodging deadly traps while outrunning the watchful eye of the Devourers, oil-covered lumbering adversaries set on consuming all remaining life. Using her burst of life ability, Gaia emits radiant energy and light to regrow lost fields, sprout massive trees, and unlock new paths to travel.

“With After Us we sought to make a game that inspires and challenges players,” said Jordi Ministral, Game Director at Piccolo Studio. “At the core, we ask what kind of world we may leave behind. While seemingly dark at times, we ultimately want to share a message of hope and can’t wait to see the reactions from players.”

There are over 100 different animal spirits to collect in After Us. Players learn the final fates of various majestic creatures, such as the last whale, the final eagle caged, and the last deer hunted down. Each new environment presents new challenges and tells the stories of these beasts’ final moments before their climactic moment of rebirth. In addition to these great spirits, players can discover several other wildlife, including cats, squirrels, fish, horses, and more. Once found, these animals will begin to appear throughout the world: serene spiritual reflections of the inhabitants who once roamed Earth.

“Piccolo Studio showcases their strengths and abilities to craft an unconventional game that is sure to leave a heartfelt and poignant impression.”

— Naomi Steele, Senior Producer at Private Division

After Us dares players to discover what happened to our planet through imaginative and evocative environmental storytelling. Players will encounter gorgeous vistas and sweeping, destruction-strewn scenery offering moments of reflection. What choices led to the creation of this wasteland? Players will unlock hidden memories to learn about the tragedy and beauty of daily life. There are puzzles to be solved, which reveal glimpses into the devastating actions that led to this world. And ultimately, by unraveling these mysteries, players will discover the complete story behind After Us.

“After Us is meant not only to entertain but enlighten players. It is a title we are incredibly proud to be launching today,” said Naomi Steele, Senior Producer at Private Division. “Piccolo Studio showcases their strengths and abilities to craft an unconventional game that is sure to leave a heartfelt and poignant impression.”

After Us is available now for PC on Steam, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S for $29.99 MSRP. After Us is rated T for Teen by the ESRB. For more information on After Us, subscribe on YouTube, follow us on Twitter, become a fan on Facebook, follow on Instagram, and visit www.afterusgame.com.

Private Division is a publishing label of Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. (NASDAQ: TTWO).

About Piccolo Studio

Piccolo Studio is a developer from Barcelona, Spain, crafting creative and emotional games. Piccolo Studio’s identity relies in the use of unique, original game design, art direction and sound to deliver memorable interactive experiences. Piccolo Studio released Arise: A Simple Story in 2019 for PS4, Xbox One and PC, and a Nintendo Switch version was launched in April 2022. After Us is the second game of the studio.

About Private Division

Private Division is a developer-focused publisher that partners with the finest creative talent in the video game industry, empowering studios to develop the games that they are passionate about creating, while providing the support that they need to make their titles critically and commercially successful on a global scale. The Label publishes the Kerbal Space Program franchise, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey from Panache Digital Games, The Outer Worlds from Obsidian Entertainment, Disintegration from V1 Interactive, OlliOlli World and Rollerdrome from Roll7, and After Us from Piccolo Studio, with future unannounced projects in development with Moon Studios, Evening Star, Yellow Brick Games, Game Freak, and other esteemed independent developers. Private Division publishes the physical retail edition of Hades from Supergiant Games on PlayStation^® and Xbox consoles. Private Division continues to build its internal studio capacity, with Roll7 and Intercept Games as internal developers for the Label. Private Division is headquartered in New York City with offices in Seattle, Las Vegas, and Munich. For more information, please visit www.privatedivision.com.

About Take-Two Interactive Software

Headquartered in New York City, Take-Two Interactive Software, Inc. is a leading developer, publisher, and marketer of interactive entertainment for consumers around the globe. The Company develops and publishes products principally through Rockstar Games, 2K, Private Division, and Zynga. Our products are currently designed for console gaming systems, PC, and Mobile including smartphones and tablets, and are delivered through physical retail, digital download, online platforms, and cloud streaming services. The Company’s common stock is publicly traded on NASDAQ under the symbol TTWO.

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Q&A With the Developers of After Us

Jeremy Gumber — Wed, 17 May 2023 16:00:27 +0000

After Us launches later this month on May 23^rd. Ahead of the release, over at Piccolo Studio, the team wanted to take a moment and answer some questions we gathered from the community about the game. We can’t wait for you to experience this surrealistic exploration adventure game, so let’s find out a bit more from Alexis Corominas, Co-Game Director, and Jordi Ministral, Co-Game Director.

Do you have any tips for new players in After Us?

Alexis: Soak in the world. Don’t look at it like the type of game where you have to upgrade your skill tree or improve your character abilities, because we don’t do that. After Us is a game about exploring and thinking about what you’re seeing – and being moved by the environment, the main character, and the experiences you’re going to have.

What inspired you to tell the story of After Us and how does it compare to your studio’s first title, Arise: A Simple Story?

Alexis: Well, Arise a Simple Story was the tale of an old man looking back, and for After Us we wanted to change that, and we wanted to look ahead. Look ahead on what legacy we are leaving for our children, and even beyond that – for future generations, what kind of relationship we have with the environment and this planet.

What can you tell us about the protagonist, Gaia, and her abilities?

Alexis: Gaia is a small nymph who lives in the Ark. This is a game about desolation and hope and she is the light of the game, she is hope. We wanted to have this kind of very quick character, so she can run very fast while exploring the world. She also jumps very high, she has double-jumping, she can dodge in the air, and as we will see later on, she can use her heart for special abilities.

Based on what we’ve seen so far, the world of After Us seems tragic, yet beautiful. Was that your intention? Additionally, what were your inspirations while building the world?

Alexis: We wanted to create a very unique world that shows how humans interact with nature. It’s the world after us – the world after humans have destroyed everything, a world devoid of any life and full of concrete and steel. It has a layer of melancholy but we wanted to make it beautiful. We spent a lot of time creating the world and the right balance between a bleak world, but one that’s compelling visually.

What was the art process like designing the environments, Gaia, and the spirits?

Jordi: We start with high-level concepts like – like deciding this section of the world is about this concept, and figure out how to represent that visually. I don’t know about other companies, but I think maybe this is where we are slightly different – we don’t have design teams working on one part at a time, we have the animators, and the environment artists, and designers work at the same time, together. When designers are thinking about a puzzle, they need to have a sense of the layout and the artistic vision – we don’t want the puzzle to feel like a puzzle out of context.

Gaia not only can restore animal spirits, but she possesses the ability to regrow plant life. Tell us more about what this does and how it impacts gameplay?

Alexis: The player has an ability called “Burst of Life” – the ability to grow vegetation around Gaia. It can be used to deal with hazards, like in combat or removing patches of oil so you can clear the way, and there are even certain elements in the world that you can grow that will stay forever. We want the player to feel like they are impacting the world, not just by creating trees here and there but also because you are restoring spirits into the world.

What are the trophies going to be? Any difficulty/speedrun ones or just a straightforward list?

Jordi: The trophies are more of a straightforward list, like getting trophies for collecting all the animals in an area, or for growing a certain amount of trees. Trophies are probably one of the more conventional rewards we give to players in After Us.

It seems fans have really resonated seeing the dog spirit from the game, can you tell us more about how you picked which animals to include and do you have any stories about what inspired those?

Alexis: The weiner dog is the first animal vessel you will find in After Us. We wanted a small, domestic dog because it resonates a lot more that it’s a vulnerable animal, and it has a collar, so you know it was the animal of someone. For us, it’s like the last dog, and this corpse represents all the dogs.

Jordi: You will see that we have the deer, the shark, and they represent big families of animals.

Alexis: The shark is interesting because everybody would expect to be moved by the dog – but managing to move people by the shark – I think that was a bigger challenge. You are seeing the world through the eyes of Gaia, and she doesn’t have this human perception of animals. The dog and the shark are just the same: life-beings.

Without spoiling anything, which part of After Us do you think players will enjoy the most?

Alexis: The game has a lot of biomes, and sometimes the gameplay changes depending on them, so players may enjoy a specific area of the game. I think that people that really get into the loop of exploring the world and finding all the hidden spirits, as well as people that enjoy the emotional side of the game, are really going to enjoy After Us.

What message do you hope players will take away from the game?

Jordi: I hope that people finish the game and take away this message of hope. In the end, the only way to make the world a better place is to try.

Alexis: It’s not a message we want people to take away from this game, but a feeling.

Jordi: That’s a good point

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