The Best Dog Game You’ve Never Played Is Waiting Patiently for You on PS Plus

In 2018, Nomada Studio broke hearts with Gris. It’s a beautiful platformer with a gorgeous, painterly artstyle and an exceptionally moving soundtrack. Without dialogue, it tells a universal story about depression and navigating grief. Basically, if you want a good cry in between platforming challenges, Gris is the game for you.

Nomada Studio released its next game about six years later. 2024’s Neva is every bit as stunning as Gris, and adds new gameplay and narrative elements to what makes Gris work so well. It’s one of the best games of the 2020s, no “indie” qualifier needed, and you can check it out with a PlayStation Plus Extra or Premium subscription.

In Neva, you play as Alba, a young woman living in a forest painted in green and pink hues. Corruption is spreading throughout her world, and Alba is just trying to survive. She’s not alone, however. Where Gris was dialogueless, Neva features one spoken word: “Neva,” the name of Alba’s dog companion. Sometimes she’ll say Neva’s name softly in tender moments; other times, when Neva faces danger, Alba will shriek in a way any dog owner can unfortunately relate to.

Both Neva and Alba are struck by a shared tragedy that opens the game, upending their worlds. They persevere, and their mostly wordless bond grows stronger every step of the way. They are each other’s worlds, just like how our real-world dogs are our everything.

Neva begins the game as a small puppy and gradually blossoms into a canine that would fit right alongside Princess Mononoke’s massive wolves. That growth is reflected in the gameplay, because Neva isn’t just a platformer; Nomada added combat and fail states (which weren’t in Gris) to reflect the dangerous world Alba and Neva exist in. Where Neva might not be able to hold their own in an early game fight, the pup becomes a formidable force over time, becoming an essential companion to Alba when the pair is in danger.

Black creatures with white masks — they look like monstrous versions of Spirited Away’s No Face — await the pair at several turns. They’re frightening creatures, bulbous masses of inky flesh that just won’t leave that poor pup alone. Alba’s arsenal is simple and limited, but that limitation feels right for a game that’s more about the emotion behind combat than the combat itself. I hack and slash away at thousands of enemies in video games. Very rarely do those hacks and slashes carry as much emotional heft as Neva’s.

Image: Nomada Studio/Devolver Digital

Combat is just one part of the mechanics. Most of your time will be spent platforming, and those sequences are as good in Neva as they were in Gris. Alba can hop around in ways I only wish my knees would allow. She and Neva travel atop towering trees, across ruined and imposing architecture, beneath an ominous red sky, and more. Each area is as gorgeous as the last. If a picture is worth a thousand words, then a screenshot of Neva’s beautiful landscapes is worth a thousand and then some.

Neva won’t take you much more than four hours to complete, making it a perfect weekend binge game. It has all the emotional complexity of Nomada Studio’s Gris and pairs that emotion with exciting combat and platforming. And if you like what Neva has to offer and want to shed some more tears, the Neva: Prologue DLC launched earlier this year, showing how Alba and Neva came into each others’ lives.