Summer Game Fest showed 2025 is becoming the year of rubber hose game animation.
(Image credit: Traviteam Games)
We're used to seeing devs use Unreal Engine 5 for its capabilities to craft a photorealistic 3D art style. But Traviteam Games' Kalit takes a very different approach. The upcoming survival adventure looks like 1930s Mickey Mouse, with a classic black-and-white rubber hose animation style, zany action and even white gloves.
With Fumi Game's Mouse: PI for Hire already slated for release this year, the style is starting to become a trend. It seems 2025 will be the year that rubber hose video game animation officially became a thing, and I'm all here for it (see our pick of the best game development software if you're looking to work on your own masterpiece).
Two-man Traviteam Games describes Kalit as a unique open-world survival adventure that takes inspiration from Pokémon, Don't Starve, and Cuphead. You farm, mine, capture creatures and build gear, vehicles and a base as you an explore an island, including underground and underwater. The bizarre creatures you encounter have to be tamed to help you and can evolve into more unusual and powerful forms.
The developers say the game is being made in Unreal Engine 5.6 and that every animation is hand-drawn to immerse players in the golden age of animation.
The striking art style would seem strikingly unusual for a game, but we already have the upcoming launch of the cartoon noir first-person shooter Mouse: PI for Hire to look forward to this year. Fumi Games released a new trailer at Summer Game Fest this week announcing none other than Troy Baker as the voice of private investigator Jack Pepper in the Unity-made title.
And, also at Summer Game Fest, Malmö-based She Was Such A Good Horse announced Into the Unwell, which it describes as a "delightfully despondent third-person action roguelite game" starring an alcoholic cat.
MOUSE: P.I. For Hire - Troy Baker is Jack Pepper | Summer Game Fest Trailer - YouTube
Three new games with a rubber hose animation style? It's perhaps a testament to the influence of Studio MDHR's hectic 2017 run and gun game Cuphead. Personally, I love the look, and it immediately draws me to the games. The mix of artistic charm and craft with irreverent humor promises fun and pure escapism in worlds that will feel familiar to many from their earliest memories of film and TV. I'm forward to seeing gameplay from Kalit and Into the Unwell.
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It's also a nice to excuse to look back at the inspiration for this style. Here's Disney's first Mickey Mouse feature: Steamboat Willie from 1928. Mickey didn't yet wear them in this debut appearance, but in later Disney animations Mickey Mouse wears white gloves, starting with The Opry House in 1929.
For more on Epic Games' engine, see our coverage from Unreal Fest last week, including the launch of Unreal Engine 5.6 and The Witcher 4 tech demo. For more gaming news, check out the debate about the feasibility of generative gaming.
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Joe is a regular freelance journalist and editor at Creative Bloq. He writes news, features and buying guides and keeps track of the best equipment and software for creatives, from video editing programs to monitors and accessories. A veteran news writer and photographer, he now works as a project manager at the London and Buenos Aires-based design, production and branding agency Hermana Creatives. There he manages a team of designers, photographers and video editors who specialise in producing visual content and design assets for the hospitality sector. He also dances Argentine tango.
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