“It’ll be a game for freaks,” said Ben Esposito of Neon White in a gameplay trailer when it was announced for Nintendo Switch last July.
Really, it’s a game for people who like fun, campy, melodrama alongside their speedrunning. In a video preview of the game, Esposito describes Neon White as a speedrunning first person shooter meets visual novel that’s “nostalgic but not in a superficial way”.
“We really wanted to make a game that felt cool and it really felt like the self-indulgent Y2K anime game of our dreams,” he says.
Rather than subvert expectations and shy away from obvious cringeworthy tropes, Esposito and the team have leaned into them. Here instead is a game that plays like an anime, full of vibrant colours, outlandish characters, and a fanciful story of Heaven and Hell. It’s even got anime voice actor Steve Blum (Cowboy Bebop) voicing the lead character.