Panache Digital Games has premiered a new Gameplay Feature for 1666: Amsterdam, introducing the dual protagonists at the centre of the studio’s story-led action-adventure. It’s the second such feature the Montréal studio has released, and it focuses squarely on who you’ll be playing as — and how the two of them are bound together.
The pairing is unusual enough to be worth stating plainly: one protagonist is an heir to an ancient lineage, and the other has been summoned three hundred years into the past and trapped inside the body of a cat.
Meet Noa and Aaron
Heir to an ancient lineage of Zaindaris, tasked with hunting down the Originals. The game follows her Commencement as she inherits the mantle of the Collector — and the mystical tools and powers that come with it.
Mysteriously summoned three centuries into the past and trapped inside the body of a cat. However he got there, he’s now a participant in something considerably older than he is.
It’s a smart structural hook. A dual-protagonist story where one lead is displaced in time and stuck in an animal’s body gives the writers a built-in outsider perspective: someone who can ask the questions a native of 1666 wouldn’t think to ask, while being physically limited in ways a human protagonist wouldn’t be. Whether that translates into distinct gameplay for each character is the obvious next question, and one this feature only partly answers.
A City Shaped by Secrets
The framing Panache is using leans heavily on cycles and inheritance — a cycle ending, another beginning, a mantle passed down, traces left behind. Players will choose the companion who walks beside them, follow those traces through Amsterdam, and unravel a mystery spanning centuries.
The new feature also offers a closer look at the mystical tools and powers shaping Noa’s journey, though Panache is still holding back on the specifics of how the moment-to-moment game plays.
Who’s Making It
Désilets is one of the more recognisable names in narrative-driven action-adventure design, and Panache’s stated focus on player-driven narrative and emergent systems is very much in keeping with that. 1666: Amsterdam has been a long time coming, and this is the second Gameplay Feature the studio has put out as it steadily lifts the curtain.
No release date has been announced. For now, the new Gameplay Feature is the best look yet at who you’ll be playing as when it does arrive.
For more gaming news and reviews, check out our reviews section.
