Imprinted sounds like it's getting close

• Announcements by Jack Allin
• Published:

Narrative-driven, OS-based music engineering thriller coming to Steam later this year

If you've ever been fascinated by records played backwards in search of hidden messages, or wanted to be a music producer but never had the talent, then indie German developer Cobalt Lane's upcoming narrative-driven OS thriller Imprinted may just let you finally live the dream – at least, if you can maintain your sanity long enough to prevent it from becoming a nightmare instead. 

Vincent Brandt is a creatively frustrated songwriter who has resigned himself to utilizing his skills as an "audio restoration and forensics expert." His job is to restore "heavily damaged audio recordings, from helping musicians with botched live performances to supporting the police with forensic evidence." His latest assignment seems like more of the same, as he's tasked with recovering the "musical body of work" of Viola Fossati, a "1970s experimental musician believed to have been involved in the occult" before her disappearance under "suspicious circumstances." Vincent must meticulously go through all of Viola's recently recovered cassette tapes that "conceal haunting melodies and other fragments of her mysterious life." Before long, however, the job threatens to ensnare players in a "spiral of creative obsession" as you start "falling into a rabbit hole of conspiracy theories ... unsettling found footage posted in obscure forums, and the ghosts from [Vincent's] own past."

Just as you get to sit at your own computer to explore Vincent's life, so too does Vincent spend all his time at his workstation exploring Viola's. Imprinted takes place entirely within a "fictional operating system" called ArdesiaOS. There Vincent keeps not only his audio-engineering tools for work, but also his personal emails, direct messages, and a variety of files and photos that become corrupted by an unexpected glitch that takes time to fully recover from. In between his professional responsibilities, Vincent will need to tend to his relationships and perhaps even nurture his own creative ambitions, though he seems reluctant to dig deep into his scattered trove of "unfinished songs, fragments of lyrics, album covers for records that were never made, [and] guitar riffs that stop just short of becoming something real." 

The real heart of the Imprinted experience, however, is Vincent's deepening obsession with Viola and her music. To restore her recordings you'll use a variety of audio engineering programs like WaveSplice, each created by the developers to simulate "real tools, real audio practice," so that any technical details like "waveforms, meters, plugins, and file structures" are "inspired directly by real audio restoration and sound design workflows." Fortunately they're all broken down into easy-to-manage functions for players who don't come equipped with a degree in music production, allowing you to easily perform tasks like eliminating unwanted reverb or isolating vocal layers. 

While every tool has its use, one particular program, called Nuvola, becomes "the space where Vincent’s world and Viola’s world finally begin to overlap ... where fragments answer each other, where sound calls out and something else responds" like a "conversation that is carried on between decades." It's here that "Viola’s sounds are met by Vincent’s software: workflow answering creative instinct, restoration answering the consequent corruption." As the player, your actions will bring "Vincent and Viola together, shaping how they overlap, interrupt, and resolve each other." Ultimately, this "narratively-driven psychological mystery" becomes a "ghost story about creativity; about two musical worlds colliding, about the discovery of a forgotten artist and the past she left behind, and about a presence that feeds on doubt, obsession, and the darker thoughts we try to ignore." 

If you like the sound of that, there isn't too much longer to wait, as Imprinted is due to launch on Steam sometime in 2026 for Windows, Mac and Linux. 

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