Beast of Reincarnation Devs Explain Ditching Dialogue

You finally have a date to circle for when review scores hit the internet. According to an insider, the Beast of Reincarnation review embargo lifts on August 3rd. If you're tracking the exact times, that's 5:00 p.m. Pacific, 7:00 p.m. Central, and 8:00 p.m. Eastern. That puts you and everyone else reading reviews roughly a day before Beast of Reincarnation actually launches, which is a fairly normal window these days.

Even so, some fans are raising an eyebrow at the timing, mostly because console footage for Beast of Reincarnation hasn't shown up anywhere yet. If you were hoping to see how the game holds up on console before deciding whether to buy it, you may end up waiting until review day itself to find out.

Alongside the embargo news, a couple of interviews have surfaced that give you a much better sense of the thinking behind Beast of Reincarnation.

Director Kota Furushima spoke about why he steered the game toward a far more realistic art style instead of the cartoony look Game Freak is usually known for. He explained that pushing into new territory was part of the appeal, since he wanted the visuals to feel like they could have come from anywhere rather than being tied to one country's style, and that ultimately it still felt like something only Game Freak could make.

Furushima also admitted that Beast of Reincarnation doesn't look like anything else in Game Freak's library, but he doesn't think that's a bad thing. He said his first instinct was to question whether photorealism even fit the studio's identity, since Game Freak has never really been known for that kind of visual approach.

That said, he doesn't think the team is locked into any one style, and once he started building out the prototype, he realized a more lifelike look was actually the right way to express what he was going for with Beast of Reincarnation. You might find this pivot from Game Freak just as surprising as a lot of fans have.

Seeing this level of realism come out of a studio best known for its Pokémon work is honestly a nice change of pace, and it's a good look at what the team can do outside the franchise everyone associates them with. Another part of the conversation focused on the two protagonists, Emma and her beast companion Koo, who can't talk to one another. That's not a small detail either.

Game Freak has spent years building relationships between humans and creatures without dialogue.

Thanks to its work on Pokémon, that experience carried directly into Beast of Reincarnation. Furushima called the lack of communication genuinely important to the experience, explaining that staying silent lets the game create a feeling that simply wouldn't land the same way if talking gave players any real advantage.

Think about it for a second. A companion creature that follows you around and just starts talking would probably feel a little off, and honestly kind of break the immersion. Silent companions, or ones that can't communicate in a traditional way, tend to work better and leave more room for the player to fill in the blanks themselves. There are exceptions, sure.

Mimir riding along in God of War is a good example of a talking companion done right. On the flip side, you've got something like the chatty cuff in Forspoken, which a lot of players found more grating than charming. Furushima went on to say that building a bond without words creates a different kind of connection entirely.

When characters aren't speaking, your imagination naturally fills in the gaps, and over time that builds into something meaningful. He noted that a relationship can technically form just from the situation characters find themselves in, but that only works if the story itself is strong enough to carry it.

With dialogue ruled out, the team had to build that bond into the gameplay itself.

Because of that, the team leaned on gameplay instead, putting a lot of effort into making sure the sense of partnership comes through how you actually play Beast of Reincarnation, not through cutscenes or dialogue. That approach isn't unheard of either.

Plenty of games manage to tell a real story purely through how they play, without spelling everything out for you. Demon's Souls does this well, and Elden Ring follows a similar path, letting you piece together the narrative through exploration instead of handing it to you directly.

Beast of Reincarnation isn't attempting the exact same thing, but the philosophy behind letting gameplay carry the story lines up with that same idea. Nothing about this is confirmed to work yet, since Beast of Reincarnation hasn't been played by outsiders in any real capacity, but the direction sounds promising on paper.

Game Freak hasn't exactly been known for anything outside its usual output. Yet this project stands out as something genuinely different, and there's a real chance it could open the door to a whole new side of what the studio is capable of if it lands well.

For now, you're still waiting on console footage, and there's no telling exactly how Beast of Reincarnation will run once it's in players' hands. More details could trickle out through additional interviews before the review embargo hits, but the wait for actual gameplay footage on console continues. Once the Beast of Reincarnation review embargo lifts on August 3rd, you'll finally get the full picture of how this one turned out.