prequel DLC enriches a beautiful game

Last week, I received a text from my mom that the family dog, Sophie, who we got when I was in high school and who I really still think of as “my” dog, had broken her leg. It was scary news to receive about a dog who weighs maybe 15 pounds and is on the eve of her 15th birthday. I had to put it out of my mind for the moment as I was just a couple minutes away from joining an interview. When our chat finished, I quickly called my mom to hear what happened. In short, Sophie fell while at the vet, breaking her leg, but she’s doing fine now and should make a full recovery.

I couldn’t stop thinking about Sophie while playing Neva: Prologue, a new expansion for the 2024 action-platformer from developer Nomada Studio. The DLC was announced during February’s State of Play Stream and tells the story of how player character Alba met her wolf companion, Neva, when she was just a tiny puppy. Just like the main game, the Prologue DLC is harrowing and heart-breaking; I loudly gasped when Neva fell through a brittle walkway and yelped “Give me back my dog!” at my TV when she was taken by the game’s antagonist. The developers at Nomada Studio, also the makers of 2018’s Gris, are masters at imbuing their video games with strong emotion, and Neva: Prologue just further flexes that strength.

Neva: Prologue opens with Alba alone in a forest, the trees, flowers, and sky all various shades of pink. She gleefully chases after butterflies before finding herself in a dreary swamp. Enemies, the No Face-like creatures from the base game, pop out from the earth to attack her. Eventually, she finds and chases after a lonely wolf pup. After catching up to the wolf and fending off more goopy bad buys, Alba befriends the pup, whom she eventually names Neva. For stretches of Prologue, Alba carries Neva tight to her chest, just like how I used to carry Sophie around; I’d cradle her just like a baby, her head bobbing as she watched whatever was at my back.

In the DLC, Neva isn’t yet the force of nature that she becomes during the main game. She’s just a puppy, frightened and defenseless. During those sections together, Alba’s limited in what she can do. Hugging Neva firmly to her body, Alba can’t double jump, dash, or attack, but has to persevere through danger regardless.

In the most memorable section of Prologue, a giant, almost slug-like, boss chases after the pair against an inky black background. It’s followed by a sequence where Alba, having set Neva down so the pup can escape through cracks in the architecture, has to sneakily platform out of the monster’s sight. It’s a classic “move during darkness and hide when lightning illuminates the sky” video game sequence, and this time you’re trying to make it back to your newly adopted pup in one piece.

Eventually separated, Alba must journey through various platforming challenges and combat encounters to rescue Neva. Her baby’s been taken, and she won’t rest until that little white wolf is back in her arms. Anyone who’s loved a pet can relate; it doesn’t matter if you’ve had your dog or cat, lizard or bird, for 20 minutes or 20 years — you’re bonded for life.

Sophie was ever-present on my mind during this final stretch. Despite still calling her “my dog,” between college and moving states post-graduation, I’ve spent much more time away from her than with her. Every time I’ve visited my parents in recent years and seen her, I’ve had to accept it might be the last time, and the broken leg in her twilight years doesn’t help with that reality. Fifteen years is a long time for a dog; our other dog Casper, the sweetest bichon you’d ever have met, passed away at 14 years old in 2018.

No matter what happens, to quote Nicole Carpenter’s 2024 review of Neva for Polygon, “Something beautiful will grow. We’ll just move forward. Alba and Neva do, too.” With Neva: Prologue, Nomada Studio has done it again, finessing the power that video games have as an outlet for our grief and other complex emotions. It also serves as a reminder to hold your pets tight for as long as you can.

Neva: Prologue is out now on Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.