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Penguin Colony
It's the Word
I'm going to take a risk and guess that when you picture penguins in video games, Club Penguin probably springs to mind (or the Surf's Up adaptation, if you're feeling bold). There aren't many titles featuring these flightless birds, and when they do appear, they're usually on the more lighthearted side, given penguins are amusing little creatures. Penguin Colony, the upcoming release from the creators of Umurangi Generation, doesn't completely ditch that humor, but it adds a dose of cosmic horror and human arrogance into the mix. Its initial demo definitely lays the foundation for a familiar yet fresh experience.
In Penguin Colony, you take on the role of a penguin. One of many, actually. You can slide on your stomach, jump, and swim, with a stamina meter reminiscent of Shadow of the Colossus limiting your ability to scale steep, icy cliffs and similar obstacles. However, you're not stuck as this single penguin. These tuxedo-clad animals are scattered across the game, varying in size, species, and offering different advantages and drawbacks. If you approach a baby penguin and swap to it, you can squeeze through a gap under a fence, but attempting to swim will kill you, while taking control of a fully grown adult gives you more stamina.
Controlling the penguin(s) is admittedly a bit clunky, in a way that feels incidental rather than intentional, yet it still fits the experience well. Waddling around feels stiff and unsatisfying, but have you ever seen a penguin move gracefully on two feet? That's why you need to slide as much as possible—that's where things become smoother.
Then there's the Lovecraftian insanity. As you press forward, always onward, initially toward the flare of a human stationed in the Antarctic, later toward an obelisk structure that the Nazis (the original ones) claim is tied to an ancient Aryan race, the voice of Disco Elysium's Lenval Brown ominously narrates his experiences in this frozen wasteland. It's unsettling and strangely isolating, and I'm eager to see more in the full game.
You can collect glowing orbs along the way to restore some stamina, with random words appearing as you gather them, like indigenous and encyclopedia. They're not just scattered across the landscape either. At one point, I encountered a man who dropped to his knees, violently shaking his head before it exploded, producing an orb for me to add to my collection. The word it yielded was "sex."
Penguin Colony's demo is brief, but it at least establishes the foundation for a unique critique of fascist ideology. Who would have thought you'd get that while playing as a penguin! It currently has no release date, but it's slated for 2026, and you can try its demo on Steam right now.