A few minutes into my first look at The Midnight Walk, I thought to myself, Wait, is this actually the game? Not a cutscene? What I was watching looked like a gorgeous stop-motion animated short film, but I soon realized the developers from MoonHood Studios were showing me real-time game footage. The Midnight Walk looks so much like a stop-motion film, a la Phil Tippetts Mad God or old Tool videos, in part because the games characters, monsters, and environments are composed of actual physical materials. Klaus Lyngeled of MoonHood says the studio sculpted some 700 objects, 3D-scanned them in, and turned them into polygonal models. Characters are animated with a stop-motion stutter and the camera has a shallow depth of field to complete the look.Lyngeled and writer Olov Redmalm describe their first-person, narrative-driven puzzle game as a cozy horror adventure full of eccentric weirdos and friendly monsters. The story spans multiple chapters of fairy tales, but theres a consistent theme among them: warmth, contrast, and bringing light back into a dark world.Image: MoonHood StudiosThe Midnight Walk starts with the games main character, the Burnt One, digging themselves out of a grave and repairing their body. As they take their journey through the titular highway the Midnight Walk, theyre joined by a charming and goofy little creature known as Potboy. This guide and companion has a little brazier on its head; using Potboys flame and a series of matches, players light torches to bring light to the Midnight Walk and battle enemies.Theres some puzzle-solving and stealth throughout the game, and even a button dedicated to closing your eyes to just listening. (MoonHood promises binaural audio and suggests that players experience The Midnight Walk while wearing headphones.) Theres even some gunplay the developers showed the Burnt One acquiring a weapon that shoots lit matches, giving the player extended range to battle monsters and solve puzzles.While much of The Midnight Walk lives up to its cozy descriptor, largely thanks to Potboy, theres some real horrific-looking stuff in here too. Every monster and boss is some variation on a twisted freak: There are scurrying cyclopean mutants, giant spider-like terrors, leathery weirdos with their eyes sewn shut, and angry-looking slug creatures with rage issues.Image: MoonHood StudiosThe developers listed inspirations (Over the Garden Wall, The Nightmare Before Christmas, David Lynch, Half-Life 2) were apparent throughout my eyes-on preview, but the combination of influences and craft on display makes The Midnight Walk feel distinct from the projects that came before it. Suffice it to say, Im looking forward to MoonHoods new game, something that wasnt really on my radar until last week.Fortunately, the wait to play will be short. The Midnight Walk is coming to PlayStation 5 (with PlayStation VR2 support) and Windows PC via Steam on May 8.See More: