When you pull up the map, you’ll only get a vague indication of where Tchia is on it. Tchia goes one step further by pulling back on the map’s utility. Like Sable or Breath of the Wild, there’s always something within your sightline that’ll encourage you to explore. While there are specific story objectives to complete, Tchia is also structured in a way that allows players to fully immerse themselves in a foreign landscape. That’s just one of the many things players can do while venturing across New Caledonia. Players can earn new songs to use with the ukulele by completing rock-balancing puzzles scattered across the open world. Image used with permission by copyright holder The results of these tunes range from simply changing the time of day to giving Tchia a buff that allows her to breathe underwater infinitely. While you can play whatever you want, specific melodies have additional effects, The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time style.

Oh, and did I mention you can play the ukulele? Because Tchia features a fully playable ukulele.Īt a couple of narrative beats during my preview, I encountered rhythm-game-like segments as Tchia performed specific songs, but I could also play the ukulele at any time while I was exploring if I wanted to. Tchia makes exploration feel fantastic, as you’ll immediately feel like you have all the tools to make this world your oyster. I could then let go of that glide to do tricks in the air or soul-jump into an animal, allowing me to explore the world in a new way. Although I had some objectives, it was just as fun to climb up the trees near the starting town and fling Tchia into a glide to travel a longer distance. The story was fairly light in what I played, but the gameplay really shined. I had the chance to play some main story missions during my preview where Tchia befriends a young girl and explores one of the game’s biggest islands, completing various objectives and even hunting for treasure. These each add even more gameplay gimmicks that enhance exploration and help Tchia solve puzzles.

While players have the stamina to climb up buildings and trees, swing from them, and even swim, dive, and sail around these islands, they can also soul-jump into lots of different animals and objects. Tchia is an open-world game following a little girl (named Tchia) trying to find her missing father on an archipelago inspired by New Caledonia, a tropical archipelago in the Pacific Ocean where some of the game’s developers are from.

Tchia ps5 release date