Mother Games drops first trailer for surrealist RPG Le Zoo

Mother Games this week dropped the teaser trailer for its upcoming title, Le Zoo. According to the studio, Le Zoo is an “emergent RPG” with surrealist animation, as shown in the trailer. The game is apparently a blend of online gameplay and live-action story, currently in private alpha with testers, and Mother Games plans to launch it to the public later this year.

Le Zoo is built using a proprietary dataset that includes ancient literature such as Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, with an in-house AI layer called Womb, which will also debut in 2025. In addition to surrealist design, Mother says the game also features introspection and humor, with the experience tailored to the player and encouraging them to explore their inner selves through the medium of gameplay and cooperative experiences.

The game allows players to choose the way the game progresses for them, by “exposing the code that runs beneath the surface of our daily lives,” according to the developers. Its animation is directed by Disney veteran Giacomo Mora, with its sound and production led by Brian Alcazar, formerly of Rockstar Games.

Mother Games launched from stealth last year with $5 million in pre-seed funding for Le Zoo. The game is its first project and the developers intend to create “transformative experiences designed to awaken players to their own mental programming and expand their inner worlds through play.”