Unravel is a game created and developed by Swedish indie studio Coldwood Interactive and is being published by one of the biggest gaming companies, Electronic Arts. To start, I must say that seeing EA publish an indie game was one of the factors that made me interested in Unravel since it was announced at last year’s E3. There aren’t many big companies interested in publishing games from indie studios. What peaked my interest was the stunning gameplay trailer shown at last year’s E3 by Martin Sahlin, the Creative Director at Coldwood Interactive, and the mind behind Unravel. Mix all of that together and you will understand the hype that I experienced for this game. Many titles out there usually don’t live up to expectations but thankfully that isn’t the case for this one. I was completely satisfied by the game itself.
In Unravel you follow the story of Yarny, the little hero made from a single line of yarn that goes on a quest to mend a broken bond. While he is on this adventure he will face various challenges and it is up to you, the player, to help Yarny overcome these challenges without…wait for it…unraveling him. Yarny might be a small and fragile character created from yarn but his courage, cleverness and persistence are what keep him going.
One of the features that make Unravel so good is the stunning and immersive environment of the game that will take you to northern Sweden. Some of its charismatic nature features are beautiful. I’ve been there once and really loved it, and seeing it be an inspiration to the game’s environments is definitely something that pleased me. The scale at which the game is played is smaller than the majority of games with stunning environments, and seeing the amount of detail used in Unravel makes it unique on its own. The backgrounds are all a bit blurry, but don’t let it fool you because even in a blurry way the backgrounds have a good amount of detail. The environments are also full of clues and hints about the game’s story.
Unravel is a physics-based puzzle game, and the key to solving the various puzzles presented in the game relies upon Yarny. You will use the yarn that forms him to solve the puzzles and overcome the various obstacle in the game. You will use the yarn for everything, like creating bridges that, besides being used to carry objects to certain places, can also be used as a trampoline to help Yarny reach higher places, to swing across puddles of water, and even push or pull some objects. But be careful, although some puzzles seem easy to solve, others are a bit more complicated and require a bit more thinking in order to be able to complete them without spending all of your yarn. Although it appears complicated or with a lot to do, the gameplay is very intuitive and easy to catch on.
Another important and, in my opinion, the best feature about Unravel is definitely the soundtrack. The main objective of the soundtrack of any game is to provide the atmosphere of the game, and in Unravel that objective is 100% accomplished. The soundtrack of Unravel was created by two artists, Henrik Oja and Frida Johansson, and it was inspired by the local folk and traditional instruments of Sweden which grants the game, using a Swedish word to best describe it, a “vemod,” which mean a beautiful melancholy. The soundtrack is one of the key features of the game since it’s so well created and fused with the actual gameplay that, by itself, will let you feel some emotions related to Yarny’s quest and the game’s story, as well as the beautiful game environments.
Unravel doesn’t have any voice acting, which is not a fault at all, nor a bad decision because even without it, you will be able to understand the game’s story and even create some bonds with its main character, Yarny. The voice acting seems to have been replaced by the fantastic animation given to Yarny. It’s possible to understand and feel attached to him just by the way that he reacts to the environment’s conditions, such as sunny, rainy, or snowy weather, as well as some of the animals and insects present in the levels.
Unravel features a total of 12 levels, and in almost all there are 5 secrets to be collected. Some will be easy to find and catch, while others will be easy to find but will take a bit more work in order for you to be able to reach and catch them. There are also the ones that will test you to find and be able to catch them. One feature that Unravel also provides is the replayability of every level, either to collect the secrets or to complete them once again to grab those achievements.
Summary
I didn’t want to spoil the story of Unravel since it’s one of the key features of the game, but I must congratulate Coldwood Interactive for the amazing job that they did. To be honest, the story itself was one of the features that pushed me to play and finish the game in less than a day after receiving the review code. The fact that the story isn’t directly told to you but instead relies more on the discovery of it throughout the entire game, with small hidden details among the various level environments, is definitely proof that the team behind Unravel did an awesome job developing it. Add to this unique story, the amazing and beautiful soundtrack, plus the awesome artwork of the level environments and I must admit that Unravel is one of the best games that I’ve played. The fact that it was created by a small indie studio makes me appreciate the game even more. I definitely recommend Unravel to be played by everyone. It doesn’t matter your age or if you are a fan of puzzle games or not, Unravel is a great game and I would love to see more adventures of Yarny in the future.
João is a games journalist, Senior Editor at XDA Developers. They contributed 156 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: previously reported for Neowin before joining XDA Developers in 2021, where he leads coverage of Windows, Microsoft, and hardware.