Vale's Echo shows first signs of life

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Side-scrolling "cozy horror" adventure revealed for Windows PC on Steam

In adventure games, death often isn't the end. (Not anymore, anyway.) At most it's usually just a temporary hurdle to overcome, but in some cases death is really only the beginning. Vale's Echo is one such game, an upcoming "cozy horror" adventure by indie Lithuanian developer Hollow Beak Games.

Vale is dead, and yet she awakens "on a train to nowhere" with "no pulse, no past, no clue" as to who she is or where she's going. Turns out her destination is the underworld. But why? If she's to find answers to this question and uncover the details of her past, Vale will need to make her way through a surreal environment populated by unusual characters and horrifying creatures – including "every fear Vale ever buried" – on her way to see the head of this realm, Death himself. Fortunately, she's accompanied by a floating, talking skull. No, not Murray, but rather Echo, a skeletal head "full of secrets, charm, and just the right amount of mischief." Together they'll be confronted by manifested fragments of Vale's life, and it's up to players decide whether the young woman's regrets will "follow her into eternity."

It's not often you hear horror games described as "cozy," but beneath the "eerie charm" of Vale's Echo "lies a deeply emotional story connecting the surreal with the human." With a stylish hand-drawn aesthetic accompanied by "melancholic music and darkly witty writing," this game is less a scare-you-silly sort of experience and more of a macabre, creepy-cute one along the lines of Fran Bow or the Rusty Lake series. The muted, side-scrolling world here is designed to feel like it's "falling apart, stitched together by memories and monsters." At first it may seem like "nothing makes sense" in this place, but both the puzzles and the "bizarre" cast of characters represent aspects of Vale's life and serve as metaphors that reflect who she was. 

Expected to take about 4-5 hours to complete, gameplay will be split between character interaction, minigames, and both environmental and more traditional puzzles – albeit with highly unusual goals, such as cooking "an unearthly dinner for a hungry hermit" and unlocking cursed luggage. Along the way will be items to collect – some for your inventory and others just as keepsakes – as well as dialogue challenges and choices, whether to "bargain with leeches, chat with fish-human hybrids, [or] meet creatures who test your morals." The decisions you make have consequences, as the resulting branching narratives will "shape Vale’s relationships, memories, and ultimate fate" in a story that touches on universally relatable emotions like grief, loneliness and fear.

There is no target release date for Vale's Echo yet, but the game can now be wishlisted on Steam, where it's due to arrive sometime in the third quarter of 2026 for Windows PC, along with as-yet-unspecified consoles, and you can sign up for updates from the developer's website.