A lighthouse stirs on a forsaken shore.
There are no ships left to guide, as humans haven't been seen in centuries. After what seems like a brief eternity, there is a rumbling, a shaking. The lighthouse shifts, first gradually, almost imperceptibly, then more violently, back and forth, back-and-forth. Then without warning, its torso shatters and the upper section of the lighthouse crashes to the ground.
Spiderly legs sprout from its base like fungal roots after rain. It wobbles forward, beam sweeping the haze, its beacon light blinks like a human eye clearing morning sleep.
Is it...alive?
This is Keeper. Double Fine Productions' newest release, and their first game fully developed under the shade of Xbox Game Studios' umbrella.
You may remember Double Fine from other creative outings like Costume Quest and Psychonauts, among many others.
To understand Keeper it's helpful to understand its development studio, and more importantly the studio's founder: Tim Schafer. Tim Schafer got his first game industry job working at Lucasarts, and his first major project was The Secret of Monkey Island. Schafer became known for his storytelling and comedic style, which has carried into his works even to this day.
Schafer worked at Lucasarts until January 2000 when he left to form his own production studio: Double Fine Productions, where he created the creative platforming game Psychonauts for the original Xbox, PC and PS2.
While Psychonauts didn't sell well initially, it was critically acclaimed and eventually found commercial success.
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| Psychonauts on the Original Xbox |
After being acquired by Microsoft, some fans feared that Double Fine might lose its creative edge, or worse. Microsoft's stewardship of acquired studios has often prioritized short-term metrics over sustained creative investment, casting a long shadow over outliers like Keeper. Since the 2019 Double Fine acquisition, fans feared similar fates for Schafer's team amid a pattern of closures and mismanagement.
For example:
- Tango Gameworks: Closed in 2024, shortly after the acclaimed Hi-Fi Rush (2023)
- Arkane Austin: Developer of the acclaimed 2017 Prey. Shut down in 2024 following Redfall’s troubled launch (2023)
- Rare: Previously a major hit-maker for Nintendo, including seminal titles like Battletoads, Donkey Kong Country, Banjo Kazooie, Perfect Dark and Killer Instinct. Post-2002 acquisition, its output has largely been limited to Sea of Thieves (2018) as their one major hit.
If you want to read about Xbox's studio layoffs and closures, you can reference this excellent article from gameindustry.biz.
These closures, part of broader 1,900+ Xbox layoffs in 2024, highlight a troubling trend, even as Microsoft boasts successes like Game Pass's 25 million subscribers and consistently excellent Forza franchise entries.
In light of this, Keeper's emergence feels like a rare triumph: Double Fine retained the autonomy to craft something strangely poetic on a modest scale, unburdened by AAA bloat.
In an industry where risks are increasingly punished, Keeper's survival underscores what's possible when a studio's funding is assured and its creative vision is protected. It's a beacon, but one that illuminates how many others have dimmed.
But for all of Microsoft's faults, the sheer range of games they make available day one on Gamepass, allowing more gamers to discover and play strange and wonderful gems like Keeper, is incredible.
Between the value price-point of the Xbox Series S, and the relatively low monthly cost of Gamepass, Xbox is still delivering one of the best deals in gaming for people who like to discover and play new and interesting games (and yes, I believe, despite the recent price increases, this combination is still one of the best deals in gaming).
So what about Keeper itself? What makes it so good?
Well... it's just so damn strange, and beautiful, and poetic.
...and it's also frustrating and sometimes obtuse, and if you don't find the optional achievements you don't get any sense of the story
...and it's freakin' cool that the only written story text is told via the in-game achievement pop-up messages
...but then it's kind of boring to just walk around as a sentient lighthouse and shine your light at things
...and just when you think you might give up then you burst apart and are reborn as a ship!
...then you transform again to become a flaming wheel of death, and end up playing some of the best Sonic the Hedgehog-type speed and loop sequences you've ever seen
...and it all culminates in a very strange climatic ending, and...
it's all so very satisfying.
Seriously, if you are the kind of person who started playing Keeper but fell off when you were still playing as a lighthouse, you should go back and just power through it. Trust me. The best is yet to come.
If you haven't had a chance to play Keeper yet, you can see some beginning gameplay in the YouTube video below:
So... this is Keeper, and I'm so very glad it exists.
Double Fine’s surreal pilgrimage; a poetic triumph born under Microsoft’s shadow.
In an era of studio closures and squandered talent (Tango Gameworks shuttered, Arkane Austin axed) Keeper’s existence is a rare beacon of creative freedom, amplified by Game Pass’s reach.
But despite all of the layoffs and studio closures, I'm glad if Double Fine's Microsoft acquisition allowed Tim Schafer and team the financial backing to be able to take the time and have the creative freedom to keep making wonderfully strange games like Keeper.
Yet their success only underscores the deeper tragedy:
Why can’t Microsoft nurture more studios to shine this brightly?
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