I genuinely thought my ‘game of the year’ list was pretty nailed down for 2026. Between James Bond, Leon Kennedy, and the various indie darlings that have released this year, I felt pretty confident that I had a solid list of the best games of the year. And then along comes Nova-box, a French 4-person studio that specialises in story-centric games, with their latest title ‘After The Wane’. Now, I’m having to re-evaluate everything because of a game I hadn’t even heard of three weeks ago.
We’re no stranger to Nova-box at Finger Guns, having thoroughly enjoyed a few of their previous titles – Seers Isle, Along The Edge & Across The Grooves. Knowing this, I went in to this title with certain expectations; A well crafted branching narrative with consequential choices that blends elements of relatable everyday life with a sprinkling of the occult or fantasy, topped off with some romance. Oh, and there’s always, always a twist. My expectations were high for After The Wane. They were met, and exceeded.
Pas de deux
In After The Wane, you follow the journey of the fresh faced, starry-eyed Lena. Leaving her childhood home, she travels to the capital in pursuit of two goals. The first – she wants to be come a classical ballet dancer, something she has been training for her whole life. The second – to search for clues about her mother’s whereabouts, having being abandoned by her when she was just a baby.
Broken into three acts, each containing multiple parts, you direct Lena’s decisions and dialogue as she explores the city, meets new people, auditions for an enigmatic troupe of dancers and integrates herself into the community. Each and every decision has an impact on her fate, either furthering her pursuit of her desires or fostering a friendship into a possible romance. As the story progresses however, it becomes clear that not everything is at it initially seems and that there’s a much darker game at play here.
If this sounds vague, that’s because it is. I can’t say much more. Well, that’s not true. I can, but I don’t want too. Dear reader, After The Wane is a game that has the potential to truly surprise you (I will explain, I promise) if you let it. I’d hate to rob you of the same feeling I got from playing this by spoiling too much more content in a review. That feeling is akin to when you played Assassin’s Creed 2 for the first time, or watched Fight Club. Alas, we must continue, but if you abandon the review here with the intention to play the game, I won’t hold it against you.
Reverence for Révérence
What I will say is that After The Wane’s writing is easy to fall in love with. It doses out the narrative one sentence at a time which progresses with a click of the mouse. The descriptions and adjectives that are used are concise, conjuring thoughts and feelings with sharp verbal imagery that dispenses with unnecessary verbiage.
The branching narrative is extensive, often giving you multiple paths to explore, allowing you to follow whichever you feel most appropriate for ‘your’ Lena. While certain scenes will happen for every player, how you get there, in what order, what type of Lena you take into it and with whom at your side is up to you as the player.
It’s striking, having played this game three times now to explore each main ending, how After The Wane manages to respect your choices and reflect the specific context. For example, you can decide to avoid meeting particular characters in certain scenes, opting to meet them later. This changes small snippets of dialogue but also has wider effects on the overall outcome of the game. What seem like simple decisions at the time can have far reaching impacts on the narrative you weave.
I felt consistently impressed by how After The Wane emphasises the choices you didn’t make. Lines of dialogue constantly remind you of a path not taken, of dreams you’re letting slip away in exchange for something else, or how far you’re straying from the person you once were. As a player, it makes you question whether you’re doing the right thing, for the right reasons, and evokes regret when things don’t pan out how you’d hoped.
The most impressive element of the writing in After The Wane is how it takes a staple trope of visual novel games and turns it into a narrative device all of its own. The game plays with a convention of the genre, quietly slipping something by the player in the early game which unveils itself as a shocking twist, especially if you come into the game with as little context as possible. When replaying, you’ll see the foreshadowing staring you in the face, but the game disguises its best plot pirouette very well.
If I was being picky, I would say that there is a mild disparity in the end game paths. In the final act, the surprises will have all revealed themselves, but some paths in this chapter are more dramatic than others. They’re less fulfilling, but they will have you far more hooked on the outcome.
A Watercolour Waltz
The reason that After The Wane can afford to be so concise with its written narrative is that the game contains more than 2000 hand painted scenes that compliment it perfectly. The art work is gorgeous, portraying this dream-like yet ardent world to pirouette through with your decision. There’s a confidence portrayed in the visuals, with the artist comfortable with the aesthetic they’re crafting; they’re not aiming for photorealism here, letting the player see the brush strokes and pencil lines as if we’re exploring Romantism artwork where passion trumps order or reason.
Nova-box have stretched their artistic wings in After The Wane too, including some animation. These come in the form of dancing scenes that are rotoscoped into a frame-by-frame moving scene. These are beautiful in multiple ways – the dancing itself is imaginative and impressive, and when they’re traced into the ethereal art style, they take a wholly new fantasy feel.
I also need to complement the music that ties the feel of this game together. There’s various different melodies throughout After The Wane that complement the tone and context of what’s being shown. Jaunty piano with offbeat time signatures evoke the confusion that Lena and the player might be feeling at times. Slow, gentle strings that evolve and build punctuate dramatic or romantic moments. The game’s not averse to using silence too, when called for it, to great effect.
There’s a noticeable synergy between the writing, the art and the music that create a wonderful experience in After The Wane. You can tell, as you play, that the three elements (or in this case, developers) shared their creative direction and built each to complement the other.
A Short Lunar Cycle
My first playthrough of After The Wane lasted just shy of 4 hours. My two subsequent play throughs, showing quite a lot of new content I’d not seen before, lasted 2 hours each. If you want to see everything that this game has to offer, there’s probably 9 hours of content on offer. Lasting only a few hours, I usual come away from such games wanting more. After The Wane packs a lot into its relatively short runtime, and leads to a satisfying ending regardless which of the three main endings you arrive at.
If you enjoyed the other Nova-box games, this is the team at their very best. If you’re looking for a palate cleanser with a strong narrative and identity before GTA VI arrives and sucks all of the air out the room, I highly recommend After The Wane.
After The Wane is available now on PC via Steam and is targetting a Switch 2 release in early 2027.
Developer: Nova-box
Publisher: Nova-box
Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a review copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.
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