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Mio
September 12, 2026 at 11:01 PM
Initial version: the three cat forms, stamina and recall, autonomous fighting, behaviour cues, rapport and planned features (2026-09-12)
Mio (米欧) is the cat that accompanies Molly through Ylem's Cat, and the system the whole game is built around. It appeared on the day the planet heaved and a newborn giant rose from the ground, saved Molly from the collapse, and has shared a heartbeat with her since. Molly named it for the sound it makes.
Mio is not a follower that trails behind the player. It changes body size on command, fights on its own initiative, reaches places Molly cannot, and behaves enough like a real cat that its idle behaviour doubles as the game's hint language.
Mio can be switched between three body sizes at any time. Each has a distinct role in combat and in traversal. The forms below are as they worked in the demo build shown to press in August 2026.
Form | Role |
|---|---|
Big cat (大猫) | A rideable mount for crossing ground, and the strongest attacker: heavy frontal blows and area attacks, enough force to smash through obstacles, and a leap that can strike enemies out of the air. The producer has said mounted combat opens up through skill upgrades rather than being available from the start. |
Medium cat (中猫) | The utility and puzzle form. It squeezes into gaps Molly cannot reach and trips mechanisms on the other side. In a fight it lands faster multi-hit attacks and works best flanking or striking from behind. |
Small cat (小猫) | The tired form. Mio reverts to it when its stamina runs out, and it rides in Molly's hood while it recovers. It is fragile and needs protecting, but it regains stamina fastest and can still be sent out to attack. |
Mio draws on a stamina pool while it is out fighting. The player can recall it before that pool empties, which reverts it to the small form and lets it recover quickly. Letting it fight down to zero reverts it anyway, and it cannot re-enter the fight until it has fully recovered. Judging when to pull the cat back is presented as the central economic decision of a fight rather than a background resource.
Mio attacks without player input. The producer has offered this directly as the game's answer for players who are not strong at action games: the cat will keep fighting whether or not the player coordinates with it. Its own attacks do not change in kind as the game goes on, staying with claws and pouncing leaps; growth goes instead into linked attacks that combine Molly's moves with the cat's.
Enemies in the demo build shown to press in August 2026 did not target Mio at all. The producer has said that is specific to the opening and is laying groundwork for the story, and that later enemies will go after the cat and will be able to disable some of its abilities.
The studio's signature claim for the game is that Mio behaves like an actual cat, and that its behaviour is readable. What looks like idle animation is usually information:
Behaviour | What it tells the player |
|---|---|
Chasing a laser pointer | The player can aim a laser and Mio will chase the dot. This is the main way of steering the cat onto a switch or into a gap, and it doubles as a puzzle tool in knowledge-driven exploration. |
Pointing with its tail | Mio's tail may swing toward something it finds interesting, which flags a spot worth investigating. |
Batting objects off ledges | A cat-typical nuisance behaviour that can also dislodge things. |
Pouncing at nothing, scratching, resting | Idle behaviour whose mood and frequency shift with what is around it, giving a read on the area. |
Purring | Mio purrs when it is near someone it likes. |
Puffing up | The coat stands on end near enemies, which is a danger cue before the enemy is visible to the player. |
After a fight the player can crouch and pet Mio, which raises the rapport the game tracks between the two of them (默契). Overdoing it has the response an owner would expect: the cat turns its head away. Rapport earned in combat is also the currency that upgrades the cat's side of the skill tree.
The team has said it is considering making Mio genuinely uncooperative at points later in the game, at both the mechanical and the story level, while being careful not to make the cat feel like an annoyance early on.
Two descriptions of Mio's colour circulate and both are correct at different levels. Asked whether the design prototype was a blue cat, the producer confirmed that it was; in the game itself, the animal that arrives on the night of the disaster is described as pitch-black, and it reads as a black cat in play. Official screenshots show a long-furred cat with bright green eyes that photographs as grey-blue in soft light and near black in the field.
Its fur uses the engine's built-in hair system, with level-of-detail work so that a long-haired cat that can grow to the size of a bear still runs on the studio's minimum graphics target.
A cat-customisation system is planned, which the producer has likened to editing an animal companion in a hunting game but intends to make more convenient, so that players can put their own cat into the game. Colour changes are specifically mentioned.
Mio's movement is itself knowledge-locked. The producer has said the cat does not simply go anywhere, and that its movement limits are tied to the same design that governs puzzles: an ability may be there from the start, with only the player's understanding of it arriving later.
Aerial and jump attacks, which the demo did not have, are planned.
No individual ability or linked attack of Mio's has a published name.
The full set of non-combat interactions has not been enumerated, and nothing has been published about what rapport does beyond feeding the cat's skill upgrades.
Nothing has been published about what Mio actually is. The store text raises the question and leaves it open.
