Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina)

I put this one on during a grey afternoon and did not look up until the credits rolled. Two Falls (Nishu Takuatshina) is a first-person narrative experience structured across seven chapters, each named with a term drawn from Innu culture, and it commits fully to that framing. The title itself, "Nishu Takuatshina," translates to "two autumns," and the whole game feels like that season: something beautiful in the process of changing into something harder. You alternate between two protagonists whose paths are converging without either of them fully knowing it. Maikan is an Innu hunter tracing the source of a supernatural disruption in the forest, an early frost, a slaughtered white wolf left without ceremony, and a spirit growing restless. Jeanne is a devout French woman, sole survivor of a shipwreck on the Canadian coast, accompanied by her dog Capitaine, trying to reach Quebec on foot with a fur trader named Pierre as her uneasy escort. The chapter structure swaps between them at a deliberate rhythm, and the contrast in worldview is exactly where the writing earns its keep. Maikan reads the forest as a living, relational thing. Jeanne reads it as an obstacle between her and God's plan. Watching those lenses grind against each other, and occasionally soften toward each other, is the game's real engine. The developer, Unreliable Narrators, is a Montreal-based studio, and indigenous creators were involved throughout the project from the writing stage, with the game's writer Isabelle Picard being of Wendat heritage, and with consultation from the Nionwentsio Office. Composer Eadse, from an indigenous community in Canada, built the soundtrack by weaving traditional instrumentation into something that feels like ambient fog with memory inside it. That score, layered over the Unreal Engine 5 wilderness visuals, is the experience's most consistent strength. The forests glow with that specific late-autumn quality where light seems to be saying goodbye. The environments are the real characters here. On the mechanics side, nobody should come in expecting puzzles or combat. This is a walking simulator with dialogue choices and occasional light QTE sequences for action beats like dodging falling trees or making split-second decisions about strangers in distress. The choices themselves shape character traits over time, nudging Jeanne toward questioning faith or deeper dogma, letting Maikan grow more open to outsiders or more guarded. The catch, flagged by multiple players, is that dialogue preview text can be vague enough that you sometimes commit to a tone you did not intend. The choices matter, but they do not telegraph loudly, which is either a feature or a flaw depending on your patience. The whole thing runs four to six hours, which is the right length. It knows when to end. There are real rough edges. Some character animations can jitter, a handful of textures pop in late, and at least one reviewer hit a softlock that cost a few minutes of progress. The visual style itself divides people, with some finding it painterly and expressive and others finding the character models underpowered compared to the landscape work. Voice acting is competent for the leads, uneven in the minor roles. None of this broke the spell for me, but spectacle-first players will notice. What the game does not do is waste its subject matter. The colonial history is treated with complexity rather than simplicity, the characters contain genuine duality rather than easy heroes and villains, and the Winter Spirit thread gives Maikan's half of the story a mythic undertow that I found genuinely affecting. This is exactly the kind of small, handcrafted thing I advocate for, a debut from a studio with something specific to say, saying it with care.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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