‘A dance with the mountain’: can Jusant take video game climbing to new heights?

Co-creative directors Mathieu Beaudelin and Kevin Poupard are tight-lipped about the story but their meditative take on mountaineering gives players a taste of being an elite climber

For those whose feel the call of the mountains, video games have proved abundant recently: Death Stranding, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild, and Sable all feature enticing summits, enveloped in clouds, with makeshift rock-paths towards them. Now there is Jusant, the latest title to turn vertiginous traversal into a puzzle, inspiring wanderlust from the comfort of the sofa.

It is the new game from Don't Nod, the French studio behind the hit adventure series Life Is Strange. However, unlike that famously chatty franchise, there isn't a single word of dialogue in Jusant. Rather, all its talking is done through dizzying, gravity-defying action. Co-creative director Mathieu Beaudelin wants to give players a taste of being an elite climber, he says, to become one with the massif. He describes the pursuit poetically: A dance with the mountain."