Publisher All In! Games (Ghostrunner) and developer Ovid Works will soon bring to life Franz Kafka’s celebrated The Metamorphosis in the interactive medium. Metamorphosis is currently in the works as a first-person adventure title, set to launch at an unknown time for the PlayStation 4, Nintendo Switch, PC via Steam, and Xbox One platforms. Similar to Kafka’s novella, the game from Ovid Works will star Gregor Samsa, who awakes one day to find himself mysteriously transformed into a bug.
All In! Games released the following trailer, showing Metamorphosis‘ surrealist world in action:
Based on Metamorphosis‘ description, it will take quite a few creative liberties, which is unsurprising given that Samsa in Kafka’s work primarily remains locked in his bedroom. In the game from Ovid Works, Samsa will set out on an “extraordinary journey” to uncover the truth behind his strange transformation. The novella, however, does not explore the mystery in any real depth.
As such, it should be interesting to see what conclusions Ovid Works is able to draw thanks to the ambiguity of Kafka’s tale. In fact, the latter never directly references the kind of insect Samsa becomes, though some of the more popular theories posit he is either a roach or a beetle of some sort.
Kafka’s The Metamorphosis was first published in 1915 as the German title, Die Verwandlung. It has since been translated several times over. Anyone interested in reading the novella themselves can do so for free, thanks to the accessibility of Ian Johnston’s English translation online.
[Source: All In! Games]
