Abelina Preview: A Surreal Platformer From a Former League of Legends Animator

A new surreal platformer called Abelina is heading to PC in 2027, and it arrives with a creative pedigree that demands attention. Gabe Askew, who worked on CG cinematics for Valorant, League of Legends, and Love, Death + Robots, is leading development, while Weapons and the recent Resident Evil movie's composer Ryan Holladay is on the soundtrack for Abelina. The combination suggests a game where visual flair and audio design share equal billing with the platforming itself.

The premise centers on Vasily, a man who "died a while ago" and wakes in Abelina, an odd, nature-filled afterlife where he tends gardens, carves masks, and tries "not to think about what this place might really be." A mysterious rabbit-cat guide leads him through branching paths and open vistas. For players, this setup promises exploration-driven platforming where the environment tells as much story as any dialogue — the gardening and mask carving imply quiet, tactile side activities that ground the stranger metaphysical beats.

Platforming That Demands Thought

Abelina does not present itself as a puzzle game, but the platforming requires deliberate planning at key moments. The game features flying sequences, dungbeetle-esque rolling mechanics, and precise jumps that punish careless timing. Branching paths and open vistas suggest multiple valid routes through each area, rewarding experimentation over rote memorization. This design means players who enjoy reading a level's geometry — spotting the less obvious ledge or the alternate angle on a jump — will find more to chew on than those expecting a pure reflex test.

The rabbit-cat guide adds an unusual narrative layer to navigation. Rather than objective markers or waypoints, a character with its own inscrutable logic points the way forward. That choice reinforces the afterlife setting's ambiguity: you are following something you don't fully understand, through a place that operates on rules you're still learning. If the platforming feels as distinctive as the art direction suggests, this could become a rare platformer where movement and storytelling advance in lockstep.

A Visual Identity Borrowed From Obscure Cinema

The game's aesthetic draws immediate comparisons to Soviet stop-motion animation — specifically the kind only dedicated Letterboxd users have catalogued. Textures appear hand-crafted, lighting feels deliberate rather than procedural, and the color palette shifts between muted earth tones and sudden, surreal accents. This is not a style that chases photorealism; it chases texture, imperfection, and a specific kind of uncanny beauty that CGI often sands away.

For players, that visual language translates to environments that feel authored rather than assembled. Every garden bed, mask fragment, and winding path carries the weight of intentional placement. In a genre where many indie platformers default to clean vector art or pixel nostalgia, Abelina's stop-motion-adjacent look makes it instantly recognizable in a crowded Steam library. The risk is readability — highly stylized art can obscure jump arcs or ledge depth — but the precise-jump emphasis suggests the team is aware of that tension.

What This Means for Players

Abelina lands at an uncommon crossroads: it’s a platformer that truly aims to push mechanics, and its creators come from top-tier commercial animation and film scoring backgrounds. Askew’s film experience may inform how scenes are paced, shots are framed, and stories are told visually — skills that many indie groups develop over time. Holladay’s involvement suggests a soundtrack that could feel heavy with emotion rather than just functional. Should the gameplay live up to the careful navigation promise and let the rabbit‑cat guide grow into a real ally, Abelina might join the ranks of indie platformers that feel critical, not just good enough.

The 2027 window is distant, but the Steam wishlist page is live now — an early indicator that the team wants community eyes on the project throughout development. For anyone tracking the next wave of auteur-driven indie games, this one warrants a folder bookmark. The blend of surreal afterlife metaphysics, stop-motion aesthetics, and precision platforming suggests a game that knows exactly what it wants to be, even if the rest of us are still figuring out what to call it.