KIWIWALKS revealed the newest entry in its WitchSpring series, Shade of the Marionette: The Story of Piyorita, in a teaser trailer on the developer's official YouTube channel.
In the 65-second teaser, the game's protagonist, Piyorita, is awoken when some strange voice claiming to be her creator calls out to her. A marionette then drops from the ceiling, supposedly the “food” that'll evolve Piyorita into a masterpiece. Piyorita draws her sword, and that's the end of the trailer.
Cryptic, to be expected from a teaser, but a perusal through the game's Steam page reveals a good deal more info.
When Piyorita's character was first teased at the very start of this year, my hypothesis was that she was the daughter of WitchSpring3's protagonist, Eirudy, and her love interest, but according to the synopsis, she's a doll lacking in memories and emotions, awakening for the first time in the game's setting, a place known as White Nest. And according to developer commentary, Piyorita's name comes from the chirps of newborn chicks.
Shade of the Marionette is shifting from the turn-based battles of prior WitchSpring games for action-oriented combat, which promises to be fun, stylish, and accessible. Familiar mechanics make their return: command over dolls, from WitchSpring3, and crafting new spells, weapons, and now traps. Descriptions on the gameplay sound as though Shade of the Marionette will be a dungeon crawler in which the player explores various areas in White Nest, returning to a home base to rest and craft new tools and such, though the game lacks the Dungeon Crawler tag.
Most of the screenshots on the Steam page are just of Piyorita in her home base, a moonlit bedroom with a giant mirror that serves as the portal into White Nest, but a few are of combat, and the UI in these hint at certain features.
In the bottom-right corner appears to be equipment selection. Starting from the top, going clockwise, we have Piyorita's sword; then a magic sigil for 7-Fork Lightning, the strongest lightning spell from WitchSpring R; at the bottom appears to be a landmine or, at the very least, a button of some sort, meaning this is likely a trap; last but not least is a mechanical-looking spider, almost certainly a doll Piyorita can deploy for battle.
Opposite the equipment diamond are what should be HP and MP bars, seated beside a glowing sword. It's only in the final screenshot where the sword has a red outline drawn around the blade and a gap in the fuller is partially filled. The instructions for pressing the shoulder buttons simultaneously underneath this sword suggest some heavy or special attack of sorts in general, and the red outline and partially filled gap indicate this attack might have a charge that deals extra damage or transforms into a new attack.
There's also a yellow outline of feathers matching Piyorita's headpiece sitting center-right at the screen's bottom, but in the final screenshot, it embellishes the equipment diamond.
All buttons on the UI are for a Playstation controller, but the game will also have Xbox controller support.
The game will be available in six languages: English, Korean, Japanese, Traditional and Simplified Chinese, and German. Curiously, none are marked for voicework.
One of the banners in the description features white-haired characters labeled as “Failures,” one of whom is female and shares the same red eyes as Piyorita.
The T in The in the logo is the jewel hanging from Piyorita's guimpe, suggesting this unassuming jewel is an important artifact for the story.
Long-term WitchSpring fans will recognize Shade of the Marionette as a revival and rework of Shadow of the Witch Marionette, a sidescroller spin-off starring Eirudy that had a prototype released but was placed on the back burner to focus on the mainline titles. Shade of the Marionette shares many similarities with WitchSpring3, from a quiet, emotionless protagonist to a subtitle reading The Story of XX, though it remains to be seen if these are merely holdovers from when this project was a spin-off from WitchSpring3 or if it has direct story connections to that title.
KIWIWALKS plans on releasing more information on the game within the next two or so weeks, along with an official trailer. In the meantime, you can check out the teaser below and wishlist the game on Steam.
Shade of the Marionette: The Story of Piyorita is slated for release in the latter half of 2027 for Nintendo, Sony, and Microsoft consoles, and Steam.
