An atmospheric first-person narrative exploration game centred on the Japanese ritual of Nezunoban — the wake held the night before a funeral — where memory, morality, and mourning converge in a single, quiet night.
Set within a meticulously reconstructed family home, the player takes on the role of a family member tasked with keeping watch over the deceased until dawn. As the incense burns low and the house settles into silence, the boundaries between memory and the present begin to dissolve.
Night Watch is built around quiet observation and environmental storytelling. There are no enemies, no fail states — only the slow accumulation of understanding. Through interactions with objects, letters, and scattered photographs, the player pieces together the complex life of the person they are honouring, one room at a time.
"Constraint is the point. The ritual imposes duration, presence, and care — the same qualities we are asking of the player."
— HERE & NOW Studio, Design NotesThe game's technical backbone — Reality Capture photogrammetry for environmental reconstruction and MetaHuman characters combined with spatial audio — is designed to produce a sense of material authenticity. The spaces feel inhabited. The absence of the deceased is felt as a texture, not a narrative beat.
The Ritual
Maintain the sacred candles and incense through the night. Quiet, repetitive tasks that anchor the player in the physical weight of mourning.
Memory Echoes
Discover moments embedded in the house and gardens that shift and deepen as your understanding of the deceased grows.
Environmental Narrative
Every object, every room arrangement, every faded note is part of a life story — no dialogue trees, no exposition. Only space.
Photogrammetric Spaces
Reality Capture-scanned environments give the home a physical weight and presence that procedural geometry cannot replicate.