A contemplative experience that explores grief through colour. The animated watercolours are breathtakingly beautiful, and the gentle, danger-free progression makes it more an emotional journey than a challenge. The score elevates every frame into a painting.
Your verdict
Category
Platformer1 player7+
Description
A young girl overcome by grief journeys through a faded world that slowly regains its colours. Published by Devolver Digital, released worldwide in 2018. A wordless tale of mourning, abilities that bring the scenery back to life, gentle platforming and gorgeous animated watercolour.
Gris review
MAX
Art direction
★★★★★
"Iconic"
MAX
Music
★★★★★
"Legendary"
4/5
Story
★★★★★
"Captivating"
A living watercolour where colour gradually returns to a world first drained of hue. Every scene looks like a framed illustration, the palette mirroring the story's emotions. This graphic poetry, free of violence and text, moves you through sheer beauty alone.
The Berlinist collective wraps this tale of grief in post-rock and ambient music of rare delicacy: hushed piano, ethereal voices and pads that swell as color gradually returns to the world. The sound responds to the heroine's movements, blurring the line between composition and interaction. A score of quiet beauty, inseparable from the emotion the game radiates.
Gameplay
"Masterful"
Progress here isn't about winning but about reviving a drained world, one band of color at a time. Each new ability reopens the scenery rather than ramping up difficulty, movement stays gentle and a fall never punishes. That choice will leave challenge-seekers cold, but as a contemplative walk carried by sublime animated watercolor, the emotion remains wholly intact.
Fun
"From the very first seconds"
A watercolor stroke comes alive at your fingertips, and motion alone becomes a pleasure: every jump, every slide flows with an almost danced grace. Color seeps back into a grieving world, carrying a muted, gentle emotion. Far from punishing challenge, the experience invites you to savor the beauty and simply let yourself be carried along.
Its watercolor beauty was shown off so widely that some dismissed it as a pretty interactive postcard. That's unfair: beneath the wordless surface, its platforming reinvents itself as new abilities arrive, carrying a meditation on grief of rare delicacy. Anyone seeking a contemplative, moving interlude rather than a challenge should revisit it without preconceptions.
Is Gris still worth playing in 2026?
Gris is less a platformer than a visual and emotional experience. Its wordless tale of grief advances through stages of color that gradually return to a faded world, each new ability reviving the scenery. The animated watercolor is one of the loveliest art directions in indie gaming, carried by a sublime soundtrack. On challenge it is deliberately gentle, almost failure-free, which will disappoint players hunting for tough gameplay. But as a contemplative, poetic journey it keeps all its force.
