Clair Obscur’s Publisher Explains Why It’s Launching A Physical Gaming Magazine In The Year 2026

Publishers used to be the way that developers got their games manufactured and stocked on store shelves for people to buy. As games have gone digital, the purpose of publishers has expanded and evolved. They can provide financial backing, marketing power, and the resources for QA testing and localization. Publishers can also be markers of taste, signaling which games people should be paying attention to. And few publishers have aimed to cultivate a reputation around hyper-selectivity and high-quality design more than Clair Obscur publisher Kepler Interactive. A new physical magazine called Reset is the label’s latest way of expanding that footprint and elevating the cultural conversation around games and the creativity that goes into making them.

“We always value the analogue and the tactile,” Alexis Garavaryan, CEO of Kepler Interactive, said in a press release. “As the world moves increasingly towards the ephemeral, we wanted to celebrate permanence and legacy. Reset is the embodiment of that, and it was our goal to create something beautiful. An object that can be held, experienced and kept as a lasting point of reference.”

The first issue of Reset will be sold directly by Kepler Interactive through its new online store, with plans to eventually try to get it distributed on physical store shelves as well. It features cover stories on Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 creative director Guillaume Broche, fashion designer Yaku, and artist Mélanie Courtinat, as well as interviews with Yoto Taro (Nier: Automata), Ville Kallio (Cruelty Squad), and others. The essays, conversations, and extended visual treatments position game design alongside more established cultural disciplines and explore the ways in which creators take ideas and inspiration from all walks of life.

“Why would that be not obvious to everyone that video game designers and developers are the same as architects or fashion designers or musicians, and that they all take inspiration from each other and loop in and around?” creative director Simon Sweeney, who was brought on at Kepler three years ago specifically to help launch the magazine, told Kotaku. “Kepler is a space that wants to kind of celebrate that and highlight that…this idea that games could be seen as an art form in the same way as design or architecture or music, and that we were going to champion that primarily, rather than being the insular kind of traditional video game publisher, felt like a no brainer to me.”

reset.

a new kind of video game magazine. pic.twitter.com/aib4ogy9Jj

— Kepler Interactive (@Kepler_Interact) May 6, 2026

Kepler was formed by seven indie studios from all over the world in 2021 and quickly established itself by signing a lineup of eye-catching games like Sifu and Scorn. Garavaryan previously bragged that the publisher evaluates over 1,000 games every year while only picking two or three to work with. The key ingredients for getting Kepler’s attention are innovative game mechanics and a distinct aesthetic. This has encompassed everything from Pacific Drive, a sci-fi survival crafting sim about driving a station wagon through a dangerous Pacific Northwest, to Rematch, a flashy but intuitive third-person soccer game.

Helped by a $120 million investment round from Chinese gaming giant NetEase, the London-based indie label funded the development of last year’s mega hit Clair Obscur, which has since gone on to win almost every gaming award imaginable. This year, Kepler is launching the psychological thriller Ontos, a spiritual successor to the 2015 cult-horror hit Soma, as well as Orbitals, a sci-fi co-op adventure that looks like if Deep Rock Galactic was turned into an anime by Studio Ghibli.

“We’ve reached almost, not a tipping point, but a gathering point of awareness of what games are in the kind of general cultural zeitgeist,” Sweeney said. “It’s not a small industry anymore. The ways in which games are breaking through all over the place shows that quite clearly in terms of film adaptations and things like that.” Now that a generation of people have grown up with gaming as a natural part of the fabric of pop culture, he hopes their “reference points will be a little bit more loose and a little bit more open” when it comes to how different artistic traditions and mediums influence one another.

The electronic music composer Soichi Terada is a perfect example of an artist bridging those divides. He was DJing in the late 80s, went onto create music for games including Ape Escape in the late 90s, and continues to produce albums that mix house and hip-hop influences with retro game sounds. Kepler approached him for Reset but the composer didn’t bite. “I’ve seen him play live a couple of times here in London and in Amsterdam as well,” Sweeney said. “He’s an amazing musician and yeah, he just didn’t understand it I don’t think. I think he was like, ‘it doesn’t seem real.’ So we’ve already got his address and we’re sending him copies showing how real it is.”

Inspiration for the look, feel, and layout of the magazine come from defunct print publications like NGC Magazine but also modern design publications like Kaleidoscope and Capsule. “The dream obviously would be 50 years from now, there’s a bunch of issues of Reset and they tell the story of the things that Kepler was interested in and the spaces that they wanted to kind of explore,” Sweeney said. “We’re interested in the analog and the physical, and that’s where the magazine lies, and we want to make that personal human connection with people.”