Simogo Sheds Light on the Enigma of ‘Lorelei and the Laser Eyes’

Typically, the process of creating a game starts with a mechanic. Developers often have a specific input method or a compelling storyline that they want to explore in an interactive environment. The game usually revolves around a central theme, based on a genre such as “first-person shooter” or “isometric roguelike.” As the development progresses, the game’s specific details and proper nouns gradually take shape within this framework.

In the case of Lorelei and Laser Eyes, Simogo started as a name.

“There wasn’t a single a-ha moment,” Simogo founder Simon Flesser told ReturnByte. “We had a title that we really liked, and since then we’ve been trying to figure out what laser eyes are.”

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes is the ninth major game from Simogo, the acclaimed Swedish studio responsible for Device 6, Year Walk and Sayonara Wild Hearts. Simogo revealed Lorelei in June 2022 with a noir-inspired trailer that promised a murder mystery, a labyrinth of deceit, and a palace of memories. An elegantly dressed woman moves calmly behind the text of the trailer, her eyes glowing red as she navigates the monochrome area of the large mansion.

Simogo didn’t reveal many details about Lorelei when it debuted, and it hasn’t shed much light over the years. The latest trailer for the game features the years 1847, 1963, and 2014, and hints at international espionage with a paranormal twist, emphasizing the player’s ability to recognize patterns and solve puzzles. “Remember the maze?” the trailer asks over and over again.

So here’s some basic info on Lorelis and Laser Eyes straight from Flesser:

• It’s a third-person puzzle adventure.
• It’s non-linear.
• There are almost 150 puzzles to solve.
• It’s coming to PC and Switch.
• It takes place in the “surreal memory of the house”.

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes plays with cameras in 3D and draws on the best ideas of Sayonara Wild Hearts with varying mechanics and perspectives. It feels mysterious because, well, it is.

“The project has been transformative to do, which is reflected in its themes,” Flesser said. “It is not a single concept, it is rather a collection of ideas from a long time. Thematically, within the stories there are many ideas about stories, stories that reflect each other, memories, dreams, and parallel events and worlds.

Players interact with objects such as cameras, computers, and locks; they read passages from books and magazines; they play games within games, according to Flesser.

“We’re trying to instill a sense that things are not what they seem,” he said. “Not fear, but a constant feeling of ambivalence, a story in which there is no good or bad. And the sense of absurdity—finding yourself in a strange situation where you end up questioning what’s happening and what’s not.”

Simogo basically wants to mess with your mind. This is kind of the studio’s Jami – its previous games like Year Walk, The Sailor’s Dream and Device 6 successfully toyed with surrealism and the paranormal.

“I think something interesting happens when you start mixing reality,” Flesser said. “When [a piece of] media starts talking about our reality as if it were a story in reality, it somehow becomes more real. It creeps into the head in a very special way. You become the story.”

Lorelei and the Laser Eyes doesn’t have a release date, but is being published by Annapurna Interactive and is slated for 2024 for PC and Switch. The game’s second trailer arrived last week: At the end, a series of maze blocks flash across the screen, as if they were words in a sentence. It feels like a challenge or perhaps an invitation to solve one of Lorelei’s puzzles. It feels like the game has already begun.

At least one person on Steam claims to have translated the maze blocks into the perfect idea, and their result seems to fit right in (link here for the curious). I asked Flesser for the correct translation of the mystery blocks, but he did not provide one. Instead, he simply said, “Everything is a puzzle.”