Hi folks!
My name is Dave Mervik and I am the Narrative Director for Tarsier Studios, creators of the soon-to-be-released co-op horror game Reanimal, which launches on PS5 Feb 13, 2026.
For those of you new to the world of Reanimal, it is a story of a group of orphans bound together by the world they grew up in, and torn apart by what that world became. The Boy and The Girl are your playable characters in this story and they find each other very early on at the beginning of the game. After they’ve said their hellos, they set off in their boat to find and reclaim their missing friends – Hood, Bucket and Bandage – from a variety of unpleasant places and even more unpleasant monsters. It’s fair to say that these kids have a complicated history with this place, so don’t be surprised if they’re a bit nonplussed to see you at first, but all good friends come to those who wait!
This year we have travelled to both Gamescom and Tokyo Game Show to demo Reanimal for the public and the reaction has surpassed all our wildest dreams, hearing the screams of both joy and terror as players worked together to survive has been music to our ears and is exactly what we had hoped for when concocting this idea of being Scared Together. So to all of you who gave of your time in Cologne and Tokyo, we give our most heartfelt thanks. It’s that kind of reception that makes the many years of hard work worth it. Just about!
As the release of the full game hoves into view, we would like to take this opportunity to announce to you here today that pre-orders are now open! All pre-orders of Reanimal unlock a pair of exclusive masks – Foxhead and Muttonhead – which can be used by either character to make your travails in this hellish world a bit more fun, or to blind you to their horrors!
As a studio that cut its teeth making hats and costumes for LittleBigPlanet, it feels strangely appropriate to be back here all these years later talking about the masks of Reanimal. Those of you who have already played the Reanimal demo will know, our latest range of headwear has gone to a much darker place! Yes, gone are the days of donning your silliest hat to gambol with carefree abandon through a world of happiness and creativity. Reanimal is a wildly different beast, it is a world of loss, violence and being scared together, a birthday cake hat would ruin everything!
At Tarsier, we try to make our worlds as rich and full of character as possible, where the story lives as much in the world around you as it does in what our characters say and do. It’s both fun and rewarding to pay attention to the little things, filling the background with details that tell us more about the world we’re in and the world we came from. Masks and costumes fall into this category too. Decorating the head or obscuring the face needn’t always be a meaningless act, and in many cases the mask (or the reason for it) is as much a part of the story as the person behind it.
The process of creating masks for Reanimal begins in much the same way as in past games, the artists begin sketching ideas around the core themes that we explore in the game and then iterating these until they hit that elusive Tarsier Quality Bar™. The Foxhead and Muttonhead masks resonated especially well because they had that bestial flavour that we were looking for; while their predator/prey characterisations quietly reiterate the game’s thematic undercurrents. They felt like a fitting pair to release as exclusives, as they come with plenty of baggage, just like our protagonists.
So, while out looking for your friends, even though you may dread to do so, it is worth exploring the world around you to see what secrets might be lying around. There are extra story snippets, hidden morsels of lore, easter eggs; and, of course, some of the most unpleasant masks we’ve ever created. We can’t guarantee that wearing them will keep you safe from what lies ahead, but you will at least look like you belong here!
