Sky: Children of the Light brings a classic Moomin story to life in a gorgeous, touching way

Sky's Season of Moomin is a touching, emotional journey through a delightful children's story

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Sky: Children of the Light is an emotional game. It’s a social experience, like many others from thatgamecompany, but it’s so much more — it’s designed from the ground up to make you trust, make you fear, and make you feel something. It’s very effective, and it’s hard to get through the game without tearing up at least once. 

So when new content comes out for the game, I’m always curious about what emotions it’s going to stir up. In the case of the upcoming Season of Moomin, I was filled with sorrow, joy, and surprisingly, it forced me to sit back and take stock of my own life, thinking about the people in it and what they meant to me. 

Sky’s Season of Moomin has players abandoning their usual corporeal form, instead taking the form of a butterfly and diving into one of the most memorable stories from Moomin, The Invisible Child. Over a series of chapters, you’ll travel from point to point, discovering a gorgeous rendition of this classic story, watching Ninny – the invisible child herself – get accepted into the Moomin family and learn to accept herself. 

I won’t spoil the story, as it’s worth experiencing first-hand, but having played through a healthy dose of the season’s chapters, I was absolutely overjoyed with the experience. The chapters themselves are fairly low on gameplay, instead having players simply experience the story at their own pace, but that’s okay — trying to shoehorn gameplay into the beloved story would only take away from it. 

In a game that’s almost always dialogue-free, having speech bubbles and subtitles on the screen was a bit of a surprise, but how else would you tell such a story? It’s handled well here, almost like playing through your memories of your favorite childhood storybook. 

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There’s a lovely visual component to the story, too, with much of the world being in black and white to begin with, but with small bursts of color being slowly introduced with each chapter. It’s quite a looker, honestly, and Moomin fits in perfectly with the aesthetic tone of Sky. 

As for the chosen story, I don’t think there could have been a better choice than The Invisible Child. Not only is it one of the more memorable and recognizable stories from the franchise, it’s also one of the most touching. Seeing Ninny slowly reappear is exciting and satisfying, and knowing that it’s because she’s experiencing the warm glow of being loved for the first time is both heartbreaking and so intensely joyful. 

There are cosmetics to unlock and a few other things to discover, but I’ll let you do that yourself when Season of Moomin starts in Sky: Children of the Light on October 14, 2024. 

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