Milan-based development studio Avantgarden and 505 Games have teamed up to recreate the captivating story of Naia and Naiee as they embark on an adventure to save their dying father. The title originally came out in 2013 on Unreal Engine 3 and now ten years later has been remade on Unreal Engine 5, and is something that has you in a wow factor the entire time playing.

You embark on a journey as two brothers Naia and Naiee where the journey will take you through some extensive puzzles, boss fights, and like all good adventure games hidden secrets that you can unlock if you look hard enough. Your father is sick and you embark on the adventure to try and help him and save his life. You meet some amazing friends along the way and others you don’t want to trust.

The remake of this title has brought everything up to the latest engine Unreal Engine 5 which has made the graphics, performance, and gameplay all current and it shows how stunning the game is and how rich the environment is. The developers re-recorded the soundtrack with a live orchestra so you get immersed in the adventure and it builds for a great emotional experience. For those who played the original title, you will know all about the secrets and with the remake there has been even more added to involve you in the story even more.

The controls are simple but one you will need to make sure you are concentrating on and hope you also have some hand-eye coordination. You can play the game in single-player which means you control both the brothers, or local co-op which makes life a little more simple.

The left joystick will control the older brother’s movements, and the right joystick will control the younger brother’s movements which you will find you need to work in harmony sometimes to get things done.

You can press “RB” or “LB” to rotate the camera which you will find yourself doing a fair bit to find out the best way to tackle the next bit of your adventure, then “LT” and “RT” are the interactions. I found myself thinking I was controlling something when it was not the case at all as I was doing the complete opposite so my hand-eye coordination is not good. There was no need for any other controls apart from the ones I mentioned, and for how simplistic the game is there was no need for them.

The game’s audio is an interesting one and I found I spent lots of time scrolling through the settings to see if I could fix the spoken dialogue, but you are unable to. The in-game dialogue is a fictional language based on Lebanese Arabic which unfortunately I’m not fluent in, so I did not understand much of what was going on and there were no options for on-screen narration.

I learnt quickly that sometimes dialogue is not needed to understand what is going on as a lot of the story is explained through actions, gestures, and expressions. So you get the idea of what is going on but it kind of reminded me of the Sims, you can never understand what they are saying but you can understand what they need.

The developers did a spectacular job with the environmental sounds from the waters running down the river, to the birds chirping in the background, and to the pesky dogs barking and trying to attack you. The best part about the audio in this title was the re-recording of the soundtrack with the live orchestra. You get immersed into these beautifully made tracks that fit so well into the game and can sometimes even help explain how serious a part of the title is about to get.

If you look at screenshots of the original game or have played the original game you will be in for a treat with the graphics in the remake. The game looks stunning, the character models have come to life, the environment is rich with the shadows and rays from the sunshine, and the water rapids flowing down the river, everything was so finely touched it was stunning and there was nothing you could fault. Paired with the amazing soundtrack it created a beautiful story. There is something about these adventure games that you dive into and when everything meshes it builds a beautiful experience.

If you are chasing a great game to sit down, relax, and enjoy, with beautiful graphics, beautiful audio, and a rich story, then Brothers A Tale of Two Sons is designed for you. The remake brings another level of beauty to the game which you will not be disappointed by.

Written by: Hayden Nelson