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Stop-motion adventure Out of Words was one of the most striking reveals at this year’s Summer Game Fest. While most games are built from code, Out of Words is made from clay, fabric, and glue: a love story literally crafted by hand that even caught the attention of Metal Gear creator Hideo Kojima (“The biggest praise we could imagine,” game director Johan Oettinger says.)
Oettinger dreamed of making a stop-motion video game since he was 12, when he first played 90s point-and-click claymation game The Neverhood. After years working across films, commercials and installation art, Out of Words became the project to merge these two lifelong passions.
The process of bringing clay to life is as unusual as the game itself. The 40-strong studio in Aarhus, Denmark developed a pipeline of custom scanners and photogrammetry to bring handcrafted assets into Unreal Engine, paired with stop-motion cutscenes that see animators move puppets 12 to 24 frames per second. “Something magical happens when real materials are formed to represent a character … [it] gives a sincerity that makes the character more real than any other form of storytelling,” Oettinger says.
This means that the studio is as likely to be immersed in glue, wood and clay as it is in programming. “Yes – and we’re just as likely to be singing the best Disney songs than to be in the most focused silence,” game developer Mariano Pugliese says. “The same enthusiasm is shared between the puppet maker turning wood and iron into a character and the CG artist adjusting the sets in the game.”
The story of Out of Words centres on Kurt and Karla, two young characters on the brink of first love. “I want to tell a story that meditates on the split second where you are looking for the right words to say to the one you are falling in love with, and this is of course almost impossible, especially if you are an early teen,” says Oettinger. “The split second becomes a whole inner journey of light and darkness … in our story this journey is shared between the two characters, the split second becomes their inner world of finding the right words and hopefully coming out on the other side of the game holding hands.”
Out of Words is a co-operative adventure controlled by two players, either in person or online, with the journey the game’s leads go on mirroring the players’ evolving relationship.
“The co-operative play element is at the very core of the game design,” says design lead Jeff Sparks. “Players experience all the highs and lows together, guiding Kurt and Karla through a world full of unexpected challenges.” Trust is a key theme, while the co-op action has been designed to reflect the evolving bond between the characters.
Even its strangest puzzles are built on emotion. One features a giant clay face, Sparks explains: “When Kurt and Karla walk on to his mouth, it twists and shifts around, almost like they’re tickling his lips … at its core it’s just an elaborate door, but with all the creativity and mechanics layered on to it, it comes alive in a way I’ve never seen before.”
In the end, Out of Words isn’t about bosses, but the adventure of human personal connection. “You must treasure the immense adventure it is to express your love to someone for the first time,” Oettinger says. “The dream is that you experience this and it forges a deep connection between the two of you playing.”
The ambitions are lofty: “We basically want you to remember this experience for the rest of your life.” And what could be more fitting for a game made by hand, than to be all about what happens when you finally reach out and take one?
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Out of Words is set for release on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox in 2026
