Nomada Studio: "most people misunderstood Neva's ending"

On the eve of The Game Awards, we were able to talk with Roger Mendoza during the BIG Conference in Bilbao. In the following video, the Nomada Studio co-founder talks about the title they released at the end of 2024, Neva, which won in the Impact Video Game category and received nominations for Best Independent Game and Best Art Direction. "Of course, nominations are always exciting," he says in the video, "we weren't expecting another nomination for The Game Awards. Obviously, you always dream about it, but we weren't counting on it, let alone three."

Nearly four months after its release, the title starring Alba and Neva has left some question marks for a certain sector of gamers. Some of them 'got' the conclusion the studio had in mind for the ending, but "most people didn't quite get the ending, at least not the one we wanted to give", Roger acknowledges.

"A lot of people think of loops, life cycles, and things like that. That's okay, if that's the idea people get. It's not what we had in mind from the beginning. But I think the whole life cycle also works well and works well in the theme of parenthood, new life. That's why we were aware that a lot of people maybe wouldn't understand the proper ending."

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Mendoza also reiterated how fatherhood influenced the development of this project and in turn Neva's gameplay mechanics:

"Well, I mean, I started the game when I was not a dad. Now I finished the game and I am a dad. And well, my kids are still small, but the part that I see myself more reflected is that the wolf does whatever he wants. It doesn't listen to you. You have to run after him. It's like, no, this way. And the kids are like that. So that's super cool, though, because I feel like I'm connecting with the game at a different level. And I think the game succeeded well in that, and the fact that, for example, you start protecting the wolf, the wolf ends up protecting you, which is something that hopefully will happen with my kid."

Finally, we asked how the gameplay has evolved from GRIS to Neva, now that we had played it.

"The game is more complex than GRIS, I would say. There's people like my dad, who hasn't been able to finish it so far, Neva. He finished GRIS, not Neva. So, for him, he always says, it's a bit too difficult. We wanted a change, making combat fluid and simple so we didn't lose players from one game to the next and we've had a very good reception from the public." And we didn't want to miss the opportunity to ask him which seasons or chapters of the video game are his favourites. In terms of gameplay, which is something I like a lot, it's definitely the winter one. In winter, there's this chapter with invisible platforms that people really like their brain explode because you need to play on a mirror. Controls are reversed. And it's super simple, but people really love it. Art wise, I really like fall because it's one of my favourite seasons. So all the red colours, the oranges, the yellows."

You can check out the full interview (fully subtitled in your local language) below to discover more exclusive details Roger shares about the development of Neva. And if you want even more, we have interviews with Berlinist and Conrad Roset.