Gibbon: Beyond The Trees is a gorgeous 2D tree-swinging adventure

Gibbon: Beyond The Trees is a 2D adventure in which you swing between treetops and slide down branches like Disney’s Tarzan or an arboreal skateboarder. It’s Gibbon’s Pro Skater. GibbonGibbon World. It’s from the creators of Old Man’s Journey and looks similarly gorgeous, and it’s due out in early 2022. Watch the announce trailer below.

I feel I say this twice a week, but grappling hooks really are the best things in video games, and gibbons are basically nature’s grapple hookers. Their long arms are just short grappling hooks.

Described as a “hand-drawn ecological adventure,” Gibbon: Beyond The Trees tells an hour-long story that moves from jungles to cities and incorporates issues such as deforestation, poaching and climate change.

The core of the experience is mastering its movement system, whereby you swing from branches to build momentum and can perform special moves like swinging from other gibbon’s in mid-air. Alongside the story mode there’s also a procecurally generated “liberation mode” you can play to refine your swinging and sliding.

I can’t quite tell from the trailer how you’re controlling that movement system – how much input is involved in swinging your way along a branch, for example. Gibbon: Beyond The Trees will launch on Apple Arcade first, on February 25th, which maybe suggests its not super-involved in terms of button presses.

After its Apple debut, Gibbon will arrive on Steam (and Switch) sometime in early 2022. You can wishlist it on Steam now. If you missed their previous work, Old Man’s Journey is still well worth checking out.