The Pixel Hunt Announces Ithaca, a Narrative RPG About Powerlessness, Violence, and the Climate Crisis

Paris, France — June 5, 2026 — Award-winning French independent studio The Pixel Hunt today officially unveiled Ithaca, a narrative road-trip RPG coming to PC around Q4 2027.

Announced during Day of the Devs: Summer Game Fest Edition, Ithaca follows Penelope, a 30-something environmental rights lawyer who has spent years trying — and failing — to fight environmental destruction through legal means. Today, she’s driving across the country toward a place called Ithaca — with a hostage tied up in her trunk.

As players travel through procedurally generated landscapes, they will shape Penelope’s personality through RPG mechanics, investigate clues hidden inside the car and along the road, build relationships through calls and text messages, and ultimately decide how far they are willing to go in the face of ecological collapse.
The announcement coincides with the release of:

• a brand-new reveal trailer
• the official Steam page
• an open beta demo available now on Steam
• and the launch of a Kickstarter campaign funding the game’s development

• interact with NPCs through calls, texts, and roadside encounters
• ask questions, pass skill checks, and unlock new contacts, hints, and conversation topics
• stop at locations to meet strangers, gain perks, and acquire items
• investigate the inside of the car and visited locations for hidden clues
• piece together discoveries to unlock entirely new narrative paths
• drive through procedurally generated landscapes toward one of seven possible final destinations

Featuring a fully voiced English cast, a large variety of side stories, and multiple endings shaped by player choices, Ithaca aims to combine high replayability with a mature, emotionally grounded narrative.

But unlike many games dealing with the climate crisis, Ithaca does not position itself as a story about saving the world through heroism, spectacle, or the deployment of cutting-edge environmental technology.
Instead, it asks questions.

“For some time now, I’ve been struggling with a feeling of disconnect,” said Florent Maurin, creative director on Ithaca. “Science tells us very clearly that we’re destroying the conditions for life on Earth, and yet politically, socially, emotionally — we seem almost incapable of responding at the scale the situation demands. I think a lot of ordinary people carry that contradiction quietly. This feeling of knowing something terrible is happening while continuing to live normal lives anyway.

We’re not making Ithaca to give players answers, or to tell them what to think. We’re making it to explore what that disconnect does to people. How helplessness can turn into denial, exhaustion, radicalization, or the desire to regain some form of control over the future.”

The studio believes that sitting with hard questions, rather than avoiding them, is how agency — and hope — get rebuilt.

A Kickstarter for a Risky Project
The Pixel Hunt also confirmed that Ithaca is most probably being self-published, with crowdfunding playing a central role in bringing the project to life.

“Games about climate anxiety are already difficult to finance,” the studio said. “Games that openly engage with radicalization, eco-activism, political violence, and moral ambiguity are even harder. But we believe there is an audience for games willing to confront the reality we live in instead of looking away from it.”
The Kickstarter campaign launches today and will help fund the game’s continued development ahead of its planned 2027 release.

About The Pixel Hunt
The Pixel Hunt is an independent game studio creating what it calls “reality-inspired games” — narrative experiences rooted in contemporary social issues and emotional storytelling.

The studio is known for award-winning titles including Bury Me, My Love, The Wreck, and Wednesdays.
Based in Paris, the small independent team focuses on games that explore subjects often overlooked in mainstream entertainment, from forced migration and grief to family trauma and social injustice.

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