Humanity's release date trailer references a golden age of video game TV adverts
The 3D puzzler will launch on May 16th
Humanity is a puzzle game about controlling a glowing Shiba Inu who can drop instructions for a streaming crowd of human beings to follow. It's a concept reminscent of Lemmings, but wrapped in a style that evokes the self-assuredly video gamey early PlayStation era. That's what its latest trailer does, too, while also announcing a May 16th release date.
Here's the trailer, which is actually several live action adverts strung together, each designed to look like a mid-90s or early-00s Japanese TV spot:
Humanity is the work of Tha Ltd and designer Yugo Nakamura. Nakamura is best known for work outside video games, but Humanity is also being published by Tetsuya Mizuguchi's Enhance Media. Mizuguchi is known for games like Rez, Lumines, Child Of Eden and more, all of which seem like stablemates of Humanity.
"We’ve been incredibly flattered to hear Humanity compared to classics of this era like Intelligent Cube, Echochrome, and Devil Dice (among others), even Katamari Damacy and Parappa the Rapper – all fresh and unique designer-led games out of Japan that broke new ground and did it with style," says a recent post on the PlayStation blog. "And whether you’ve played those titles or not, or were even gaming back then, we hope you’ll enjoy that same spirit in Humanity: stylish and different, but with a deeply satisfying experience at the core."
The same post also recommends checking out the early PlayStation adverts which inspired this Humanity trailer, and you can do that with this YouTube video. Be warned that you might lose 90 minutes to it, as I did. I love the period's graphic design, more than I love that era of video game design, even. I don't want to play Ridge Racer again but I would hang it on my wall.
Humanity will be available via Steam on May 16th. It'll run on Steam Deck, too.