Coven of the Chicken Foot is The Last of Us director Bruce Straley's first game since Uncharted 4

“Who the fuck resurrects Ganondorf between every Zelda game!?”

The Last of Us co-director Bruce Straley is making his return to video games with Coven of the Chicken Foot. The Windows PC game is the first project by his new studio, Wildflower Interactive, and it will build on Straley’s previous work at Naughty Dog with a focus on reactive companion characters.

Revealed at the 2025 Game Awards, Coven of the Chicken Foot is an adventure game about a witch and a strange critter that follows her around. The initial trailer brings The Last Guardian to mind, as we see the two characters working together to solve puzzles. Ahead of the show, Polygon spoke with Straley, who explained the level of character interaction powering the deceptively innovative project.

Straley describes Coven of the Chicken Foot as a character-puzzle-platformer. It’s an open-ended (though not open-world) adventure game in which players freely explore contained biomes and solve puzzles within them by enlisting the help of a creature that observes their actions, learns, and reacts throughout the game. The story revolves around Gertie, an elderly witch who doesn’t move or attack like a traditional video game hero. That idea came from Straley’s desire to deconstruct the typical hero’s journey.

“What if you didn’t have the sword or shield? What if you were somehow encumbered? What if you’re a little old lady? What if you’re something other than your typical hero?” Straley told Polygon. “I thought it was really fascinating to think about what makes a hero. A hero is about fighting your way through problems, but it’s also about sacrifice, loyalty, determination, and persistence. What better than to take someone who’s not cut out for this world and say ‘How would this person do it?’”

While Gertie does have some spellcasting abilities, she’s not an all-powerful witch. She’s old and using magic takes a toll on her. Straley also says that she’s not the best witch and is prone to making mistakes, which is where the character’s charm comes from. As you might expect from one of the brains behind The Last of Us, there’s also a bit of darkness to Gertie that helps drive the underlying story. Straley tries to dance around what exactly that means at first, implying that Gertie needs to fulfill an oath that she took to the Coven of the Chicken Foot.

After trying to tease around it, Straley blurts out the question that fuels the story: “Who the fuck resurrects Ganondorf between every Zelda game!?”

“What I’m saying is, it’s Gertie! Gertie and the Coven of the Chicken Foot are the ones who meddle with the dark lord!” Straley said. “That’s why I’m saying that we play with the tropes. It’s a wink and a nod to adventure. There’s dark elements, but there’s a charm to it. I would love nothing more than if somebody would play the next adventure game they play and say, ‘I don’t know if I want to kill those Bokoblins right now!’ Who tends to the Bokoblin? Who cares for them? What happens when they’re hurt!?”

Straley isn’t just bringing The Last of Us’ moral grays to Coven of the Chicken Foot; the game’s companion system is also a direct continuation of what he accomplished at Naughty Dog. The entire idea for the project flowed from one big question: “What if I could make Ellie more dynamic and responsive to the player?”

“The interesting part to me about Ellie’s character was the tech behind when she became more responsive to the situation,” Straley said. “We’re checking: What’s Joel’s health, is he surrounded by enemies, does he have ammo behind the scenes? There’s no meter on the screen, but Ellie is aware of all these things so that she can be reactive and responsive to Joel’s scenario, and that makes the player feel like this character cares for me… Ellie is a spiritual successor to Tenzin in Uncharted 2. For me, this is a spiritual successor to everything I’ve learned about character development and dynamicism in-game, on the stick, with a character in a little bit more of an open-world, with a little bit more player-driven interaction, to see if I could manifest mood swings and reactions.”

While Coven of the Chicken Foot’s trailer shows off some interactions between Gertie and her monster pal, it doesn’t communicate how complicated the underlying tech is. The companion isn’t an average NPC following scripted events; it’s essentially a toddler that reacts to the player. Straley says that it reacts to things in three stages. First, it will exhibit curiosity, something that can result in some dumb hijinks. Then, it will enter a playful middle state where it tries to mimic what it sees. Finally, it will more closely observe and assimilate in order to learn how things work.

For instance, the creature may see Gertie slot a puzzle piece into a statue. In that moment, it understands the act of slotting, though not exactly why Gertie is doing it. In response, it will start picking up random objects and try slotting them into anything it can find, as it’s just mimicking what it saw. (“By the way, it puts everything into its mouth,” Straley added. “It’s got an oral fixation.”) It won’t actually understand what that action means until it accidentally solves a puzzle, teaching it why it is slotting things into other things.

“You see in the trailer that the creature puts a helmet onto Gertie,” Straley explained. “At the start of this relationship, this character knows nothing about helmets and hats and headgear. You as a player have a core mechanic where you can wear anything. You can wear a bucket, a hat, a helmet. When this creature sees you — because it has the ability to observe and adapt and try to respond — and you put a hat on, suddenly the creature’s mind is blown. It will come over and steal your hat and try the hat on. And then everything that looks hat-like in the world is suddenly a new, exciting thing that the creature is going to try out.

“Maybe he’s scared of the dark. As a reaction, if there’s a hat around, he’s going to put a hat or helmet on. Or as a protective part of the relationship, he’s going to think, ‘Well, you need to wear a helmet because we’re in a dark area,’ and he’ll shove a little helmet on you.”

None of this would happen if you never tried on a hat in the game, and that’s why Straley thinks that he has something special on his hands. He wants to create a character-driven game where each player will walk away with their own unique stories to tell. The way the companion learns and grows should be a reaction to each player’s actions. Because of that, Straley stresses that Coven of the Chicken Foot will be a slower-paced, exploration-driven game rather than one that follows a scripted critical path. That might just be the most drastic change from his work on The Last of Us and Uncharted.

“Anytime I tried to put more hardcore story turns and beats, traditional three-act structure, into this game, the excitement fell apart,” Straley said. “The liveliness of this relationship is that you as a player are going to have different sparks and narrative than I will.”

Coven of the Chicken Foot is currently in development for Windows PC. You can wishlist it now on Steam.