The Cub preview – Mowgli Meets Martians

In the future, humanity has successfully colonized Mars and the last of the rocket ships have departed, taking everyone with them… except you. In The Cub you play as a young child who was separated from their mother while trying to flee a dying Earth. Raised by a mama wolf with her cubs, you learn how to survive in the wild. But then the ‘Martians’ come to Earth, and they want to capture you.

The Cub was a super fun and adorable game I recently had the pleasure of previewing. Thankfully, there was also a demo of The Cub on Steam because my time on the preview was cut short by some technical difficulties. When the Martians come to Earth, our young friend attempts to communicate with them, having learnt how to speak human again (after much time with no human contact) after finding a dropped helmet through which they could hear some sort of radio broadcast. However, the Martians don’t seem interested in talking. Instead they try to capture the child.

In this Jungle Book meets Martians old-school platformer, this Mowgli-esque character will have to run, jump, climb, swing, slide, and, overall, navigate their way through various locations while trying to evade the Martian threat. There are some elements of puzzle-solving as well, such as causing a large vehicle that sits in your way to roll into a pit trap or pushing a large box onto a button that keeps a door open for you to run through. Along the way, the character will face other threats aside from the Martians, such as massive snakes, a crazy mutant hedgehog that shoots its spikes out, and other wild creatures.

The controls are pretty simple, both for controllers and on keyboard and mouse, as I previewed both options. Use the usual ‘A’ and ‘D’ keys for left and right movement, ‘E’ to interact with buttons and objects, and the spacebar to jump when using a mouse and keyboard. On the controller, you’ll move left and right using the left thumbstick and ‘A’ (on Xbox Controllers) to jump. Unfortunately I don’t know what the interact button is for the controller, as that was part of my ‘technical difficulties’ I had mentioned earlier.

The world itself, although apocalyptic, is still very well crafted and colorful. Forests are still teaming with life, tunnels and bunkers are dank and spooky, and there are conveniently placed ropes suspended in midair if you want to feel like George of the Jungle. The radio broadcast you hear coming from the helmet is a mix of some old-timey feeling tunes as well as some personal stories of life on Mars and other dialogs and background noise to help fill the otherwise empty space on a planet without humanity.

I feel like these broadcasts will have more of a story to tell as the game goes on and as the game is played seamlessly, as the demo and preview were both done as excerpts instead of full levels. The suspense is infectious and I can’t wait to see what the whole story will be, though I do kind of wonder if the ‘Martians’ are just the child’s mother trying to come back for them. We can only hope for it to be so wholesome. But, we will have to wait for at least the full review, if not the full release for that, so make sure you check back again for more information on The Cub.

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