Xbox Game Pass Adds The Most Surprisingly Original Monster Collecting Adventure Of The Decade

Video game protagonists have a weird relationship with nature. When you come across a wild animal in a typical action game, it normally means you’re going to have to fight the poor critter, or at least — just point it at the infected critter and hold down the trigger until its healing energy cures them, only in this case you’re dodging attacks from the enraged enemy itself rather than from an opposing team. As you play more, you’ll get upgrades that let you cleanse and dodge more effectively, but these sections aren’t really the meat on Creatures of Ava’s bones.

After charming a creature, you gain the ability to control its movements directly, which leads into the game’s puzzle-solving side. You’ll need to use each animal’s special abilities to move through the environment. The world of Ava is strikingly gorgeous, so even when the game’s mechanics aren’t doing anything particularly new, it’s a joy just to move through this alien planet and see everything it has to offer.

Where Creatures of Ava really shines, though, is in its story. As Vic goes about her work, she helps pass a message to neighboring groups of Naam that it’s time for a reunion. Despite the world-ending threat facing them, the Naam seem unconvinced by Vic’s plan, and she hopes that by helping them, she’ll be able to talk them into evacuating. What happens instead is that Vic comes to learn that there’s more to Ava and the Naam that she thinks, and maybe assuming she knows what’s best for them isn’t actually doing them any favors. The interactions between the Naam and Vic also provide for plenty of humor in the game’s near-apocalyptic story, as the people of Ava are endlessly amused by the anxious and overconfident human in their midst.

Creatures of Ava walks a fine line between falling into common gaming tropes and subverting them. Despite her seeming role as lone savior of the Naam, Vic’s real story lies in understanding that she doesn’t know everything and coming to see the people of the world as being as competent and clever as she is. Creatures of Ava isn’t always thrilling in its moment-to-moment creature taming, but its smart twist on a familiar story makes it an original adventure worth tackling.

Creatures of Ava is available now on Xbox Series X/S and PC.