No game has ever read The Master and Margarita as much as Indika has read The Master and Margarita. A third-person adventure game from Odd Meter, a Russian studio that left the country after the invasion of Ukraine, Indika already seems like so much more than that clatter of marketing-team-whiteboard genre adjectives makes it sound, and its Steam Next Fest demo has instantly made it my most anticipated game of the year so far.
The game stars Indika, a Russian nun with the devil in her head who's on a journey through an alternate 19th-century Russia. The demo—so far as I can tell—drops you some way through the game: Indika and her companion/abductor Ilya awaken in the snow, the latter's arm a sickly criss-cross of frostbite and rot, and have to make their way to safety through the scattered remains of an exploded (and enormous) dyeworks, pursued by a shaggy, snarling behemoth of a dog.
