A young girl and her loyal friend embark on a rescue mission through a colorful world full of cold machines and unfamiliar creatures.

Set on an alien world, Planet Of Lana tells the story of Lana and her loyal animal companion Mui as they embark on a rescue mission to save her sister. This touching tale is experienced through the lens of a cinematic side scrolling gameplay format, as players explore a colorful world full of stunning environments, strange creatures and dangerous machines. From a gameplay perspective, Planet Of Lana is an adventure filled with daring platforming, engaging puzzles, tense stealth sequences and a companion mechanic that connects Lana and Mui, allowing for unique gameplay and story moments using their abilities in tandem.

This off-world odyssey is tied together with a completely unique visual style that combines hand-drawn artwork, complex parallax layering and subtle use of 3D graphics to give the look of an interactive painting. On high-end PCs and Xbox Series X, Planet of Lana will run at a native resolution of 4K (2160p) at 60 frames per second, allowing its incredible artwork to come to life.

Publisher Thunderful and developer Wishfully announced that Planet of Lana will launch with Game Pass when it releases on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC (Steam/Win10 Store) in Spring 2023 (originally planned for late 2022)

This new date will allow Planet of Lana some additional development time, in order to fulfill the ambitious potential Thunderful and Wishfully believe this cinematic puzzle adventure has. 

“We’re sorry that completing development on Planet of Lana will take longer than initially expected, but we promise it will be worth the wait,” said Wishfully director Adam Stjärnljus. “Planet of Lana has been a passion project for us for a long time, so we want to ensure that when it’s finally available that people are getting it in pristine condition. Plus Game Pass users will get to play it on launch day, which is exciting to us as it means we get to share it with as wide a fanbase as possible!”

Planet of Lana is set on the planet Novo. The story begins as a hostile robot army descends onto this lush haven, and Lana, a young girl native to the planet, is caught up in the invasion with her sister. As they attempt to flee, Lana’s sister is caught by the attackers. With no other option, Lana heads for safety. Alone and afraid, she finds herself at the mercy of the hostile Novo wilderness. However, she soon meets Mui, a cute cat-like creature who consoles her and they quickly befriend each other. Strengthened by this sudden show of companionship, Lana embarks on a journey across her world to find and save her sister and unravel the mysterious origin of the mechanical invaders, with Mui at her side.

The first biome in Planet of Lana is filled with lush forests, expansive fields of grass, rocky cliff sides and a few cavernous areas dug deep into the stone. During their time in this area, Lana and Mui will begin to get to know one another. Our gameplay possibilities expand as their relationship does, allowing Lana to direct Mui to certain areas, or to accomplish tasks Lana cannot. Not only will the pair be traversing this landscape and figuring out environmental puzzles together, but they will also have to navigate some tense encounters with the robot invaders. In these cases, hiding in the shadows or crouching in tall grass will keep Lana and Mui hidden from the robot sensors. Holding down the LT trigger will get Lana to crouch, where she will move slowly and quietly, while also automatically hiding in tall grass.

So, how do you guide Mui across the game? She will naturally follow you, but there are also commands you can give her. She may look like a cat, but you can think of Mui’s behaviour closer to that of a dog. You can ask her to stay in place, to follow you, and you can also direct her to particular places. The stay and follow commands are both mapped to the B button on your Xbox controller. A tap will make Mui stay in one spot, while holding the button down will get her to follow you.

Mui is a lot smaller than Lana, so there are places she can crawl into that Lana cannot. Mui is also really nimble, so she can even jump across large gaps or up to high places with ease. When directing Mui to a specific point, holding down the RT trigger will bring up an on-screen UI that signals where you are pointing to in the game world. You can move it around freely with the analogue stick and it will also smartly snap to particular points of interest, too. Once you have chosen a spot for Mui to get to, simply press the A button and she will dash over there.

There are times where Lana and Mui will be briefly separated while figuring out a particular puzzle. You may need to head onward in order to move something blocking Mui’s path, or Mui may need to keep a button held down somewhere which opens a door or hatch containing something you need. You’ll often have these mini environmental puzzles where Lana and Mui are in different places, using their abilities in order to progress to the next part of the game. When this happens an animated icon dynamically pops up, showing you which direction Mui is located in and what her status is. For example, if she is sitting or moving towards you.

What’s something else dogs and cats do? Bite, of course! There are times where Lana will need Mui to use her teeth to chew through bits of rope or other materials. When there’s a contextual action that Mui can perform, a prompt to press Y button will dynamically pop up. Mui may chew through some rope, push objects down to you, or other similar actions. In this example from the demo, she can chew through the rope that is holding up a drawbridge.

These examples are just a few of the scenarios you will find across your journey through Novo with Lana and Mui. As your adventure progresses and their relationship grows, new abilities will be available to both characters. Your odyssey will also take you across the varied and beautiful landscape of this wondrous planet, from the lush green hills you’ve seen here today, to the deep blue expanse of the sea, swamps, old forgotten shipwrecks and finally into the golden sands of the desert lands.

What surprises lie in store for our dynamic duo? Publisher Thunderful and developer Wishfully will be sharing a few more secrets next week at gamescom, where you can play the demo for yourself. For those who can’t make it, catch the game live on the Xbox gamescom 2022 Stage on August 25th for an extended look at the demo, where they’ll share even more details about Planet of Lana.

Key Features:

• Unique companion-based gameplay
• Solve puzzles with diverse challenges and quirky twists
• Carefully navigate dangerous situations using stealth and wit
• Use your reflexes and survive challenging action sequences
• Discover an epic story that stretches across galaxies and centuries

Planet of Lana’s soundtrack is composed by D.I.C.E. and BAFTA-nominated composer Takeshi Furukawa, known for his work on The Last Guardian. This off-world odyssey is tied together with a completely unique visual style that combines hand-drawn artwork, complex parallax layering and subtle use of 3D graphics to give the look of an interactive painting. On high-end PCs and Xbox Series X, Planet of Lana will run at a native resolution of 4K (2160p) at 60 frames per second, allowing its incredible artwork to come to life.

Planet Of Lana is coming to Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One and PC in Spring 2023.