Call Of The Sea dev’s latest is a mix of The Truman Show and Logan’s Run

The studio behind the 1930s supernatural mermaid-filled adventure Call Of The Sea have announced their next game, and it looks like a tonally bang-on pastiche of reality shows, social media saturation and 1970s dystopian sci-fi. Published by Raw Fury, American Arcadia centers on Trevor Hills – an average bloke in flares, tank top and ‘tache – who is a bit too boring to survive the unwitting reality show metropolis of Arcadia where he lives. Cue a mysterious guide who may or may not be trying to help Trev escape. It’s good to hear that Yuri Lowenthal and Cissy Jones are back on voice duties, presumably as Trevor and his new pal, after their top-notch performances in Call Of The Sea.

American Arcadia is presented in the form of a documentary, with interviews and interrogation scenes. Out Of The Blue are expanding on the first-person puzzles from Call Of The Sea by introducing some 2.5D platforming this time around. One of two playable characters will do the jumping and the other will be the first-person expert. Maybe they’re not great multitaskers? It hasn’t been revealed who the other character you’ll play as is, but I’ll bet on Trevor’s mysterious guide. Both types of play promise stealth and puzzles, but it sounds like the platforming sections will see more action and the first-person bits will focus on fiddly stuff like hacking mini-games. Hopefully the latter will end up in a museum one day.

Even though it’s just been announced, American Arcadia has made the cut for this year’s Tribeca Festival. It’s one of nine official selections for this year’s festival, which also includes Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course, A Plague Tale: Requiem, Oxenfree II: Lost Signals, as well as Sam Barlow’s latest, Immortality. A short demo will be on show from June 11-19th if you happen to be in New York City then. More details about the game should be forthcoming at the Summer Game Fest in June, too, according to Out Of The Blue.

That’s hopefully when we’ll find out American Arcadia’s release date, but in the mean time, you can head to its Steam page if you want to keep an authoritarian eye on it. If you’re particularly snoopy then there’s more info on its official site too.