In Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, Mowgli is left in the jungle as a child and taken in by a pack of wolves, raised as one of their own. Mowgli adapts to jungle life, able to survive its dangers and communicate with the animals that live within it, while other humans become alien to him. In The Cub, the boy is left on Earth following the Great Ecological Disaster and is raised by wolves, adapting to survive the dangers of a collapsed civilisation. The Cub wears its narrative influence on its sleeve, but adapts it enough to create a new story accompanied by great visuals and an engrossing soundtrack.
The Cub is a 2D platformer set in the ruins of the city of Alphaville and the overgrown wilds around it. It’s set a few years after the richest of the rich fled Earth on rockets to settle on Mars, leaving everyone else to deal with changes in the environment and ecological collapse. The majority of humanity did not survive, with Earth becoming a mass graveyard. The Cub is an orphan who has adapted not just mentally to the world, but physically, enabling him to handle the new atmosphere. He leads a generally peaceful life, until the humans, now known as Martians, return to assess Earth’s living conditions. The Martians are not able to survive long on Earth without suits, the planet having turned against those who fled it while the animals that stayed behind adapted. What starts as a research mission turns into a hunt, with The Cub as the target.
The gameplay experience consists of navigating levels, finding paths amongst the debris. There are an array of hazards in the environment from mutated animals, such as giant hedgehogs that can fire their spines to electrified plants, and high falls. The Boy is relatively fragile and contact with any hazard is instant death, but the checkpoint system is forgiving enough that you’re never sent too far back from where you died. There’s also a decent amount of variety in The Cub, with the game not just limited to running, and climbing. One section requires players to leap from minecart to minecart over broken tracks, while another has you soaring through the air avoiding birds and missiles. It’s safe to say, these sections require precise timing. Generally, there’s trial and error involved when navigating the levels and while there is some difficulty, nothing here is an insurmountable challenge. Even with the number of deaths during my play-through, the time it took to get from start to finish was about two and a half hours.
Where The Cub really shines is through the environmental storytelling, using both collectibles and the soundtrack to give context to the world. The audio is not just comprised of music but stories too. The Cub finds a Martian helmet and through it he can hear Radio Nostalgia, a radio station broadcasting from Mars. This radio switches between different songs, all of which are genuinely good, and stories from those who left Earth. One story is about someone who misses riding their motorbike, while another is about a man filled with regret having left his family behind on Earth. The host of Nostalgia Radio makes announcements, approved by the Tesla City Council who are the Martian rulers.
These range from general updates to the citizens of Mars about what is going on with the research expedition, to denying the rumours of a child running around on Earth. What makes the broadcast feel more realistic is that the signal can be lost, such as when going underground. The voice acting of the host, the storytellers, and The Cub are all excellent, really drawing you into the world of the game.
The collectibles include books, newspapers, USB sticks, and teddy bears to hug. The USB sticks and newspapers especially give more context to the world. The front pages show an evolution of change and hope, from initial reactions to climate change, all the way to the breakdown of society. The USB sticks then give more personal stories with people’s thoughts about the changes taking place, as well as their last messages. These collectibles don’t just expand your understanding, they encourage exploration too. Thankfully, they’re easy to spot.
The visuals of The Cub are excellent too. The world is detailed extensively with so much colour, showing an Earth still full of life even after the majority of the humans have left. The pathways are easy to discern amongst the rest of the artwork. The design of the main character is very well done, as are all characters. What drew me out of the world was the on-the-nose names of companies splashed across newspapers and buildings. These included Fakebook, Faux News, and Googple. It really broke my immersion as in reality no company would be called any of those names, and it would have been better to have unique ones or no names at all.
