CreSpirit Confirms Tevi DLC Is Currently Under Development

Story Highlights

Tevi is an action-adventure 2D platformer released on November 30, 2023.
Aside from the console releases, CreSpirit is already working on a DLC to complete Tevi’s storyline.
We had the CEO of CreSpirit, David Tang, answer some of our questions over an email interview.

Tevi offers the traditional slash, dash, bullet hell metroidvania experience mixed with a vibrant environment. It somewhat builds upon the success of CreSpirit’s Rabi-Ribi, released in 2016, which found great success, amassing nearly 10,000 “overwhelmingly positive” reviews on Steam. Due to the similarities in gameplay, Tevi has also grown quite popular as the sequel to Rabi-Ribi.

While it is the spiritual sequel, Tevi may have also just paved the way to Rabi-Ribi 2. The game’s launch made it clear that the community would love more from the IP, and CreSpirit has taken note of that. Therefore, we took the opportunity to speak with David Tang, CEO of CreSpirit, asking him about the game’s future and the team’s plans for both metroidvanias.

Read ahead for the full interview.

You have been at CreSpirit since its creation if I'm not wrong. As such, you have been involved in other titles from the studio in some capacity. Are there any similarities between Tevi and some of the other games by CreSpirit?

David: Yes, I joined the studio shortly after CreSpirit was established and participated in various projects. In the early days of the studio, we tended to do whatever good ideas came up, regardless of what kind of genre or how well the market was performing. Therefore, the outcome of those projects was rather unpredictable. Tevi was developed by the team behind Rabi-Ribi and has made many attempts and improvements: enhancing the art style and combat experience, adding a more complete story, and adding voice acting. This makes Tevi the most content-rich project in our studio compared to other projects.

Outside of your own catalog, what are some other games or pieces of media that the team has taken inspiration from?

David: Some say art creation is a way to present one’s life. To me, game creation is quite the same. I was mostly inspired by daily life experiences, which sometimes contribute to thought or design that might be interesting to implement into a game.

Several indie developers consider the Xbox Game Pass to be a big help for indie releases. Will Tevi make its way there as well in the future?

David: We did discuss joining Xbox Game Pass. We also often received questions about whether Tevi is planning to join Xbox Game Pass. But as you know, joining Xbox Game Pass is an important business decision, and we have not had enough understanding of how Xbox Game Pass works. So, we decided to go with the ways we are more familiar with first before we try out other distribution strategies.

After seeing the combat trailer, I can definitely see a huge step up from Rabi-Ribi. The character action elements are much better, and the dodge roll gauge is also interesting. What are some other elements that the team sought to improve in Tevi?

David: After the release of Rabi-Ribi, we went through the experience and gathered data when we were doing the promotion for the game. We analyze some factors that we believe are the obstacles to Rabi-Ribi’s marketing, such as a weak storyline or anime art style that might not be very appealing in the Western gaming community. So our attempt for improvement is: with the foundation of strong gameplay, we try to add more storytelling, change a visual style, and further enhance the action content. All these adjustments are aimed at a broader audience.

Would you say that Tevi's story is complete now? Or are you planning to expand it in the future?

David: The story of Tevi will not end here. We are already planning future content to complete the story.

One interesting thing I noticed from the demo was that the game does not give any currency upon defeating enemies. The currency can be acquired via overworld caches or money spots. Was this implemented to prevent players from infinitely grinding or farming the currency?

David: The reason we tied character strength with map and story progression is we’d like to encourage exploration rather than farming. Nearly all of the currency in Tevi is gathered through storyline or breakable money blocks. Although enemies still drop resources for crafting, the strength boost from money is way higher than the resources gathered for the crafting system.

The game sometimes allows players to use the environment, like the bombs in trees, which not only pose a threat to the player but can also be used against enemies. On the other hand, there are also some tough puzzles involving abilities. I'm really curious to know why and how these and other such features have been implemented in the game alongside its typical slash, dash, bullet hell metroidvania elements.

David: We tried to add some more content besides hacking, slashing, and bullet-dodging for players to have more things to enjoy in terms of environment interaction. After several attempts, we kept some features that match our expectations.

Some people are calling this Rabi-Ribi 2, mainly due to the similarities in terms of the gameplay. What would be your take on that? Do you think it can act as a spiritual sequel to the 2016 game?

David: Yes. You can say Tevi is the spiritual sequel to Rabi-Ribi; however, it is not Rabi-Ribi 2. Both games have the core gameplay of Metroidvania and Bullet-Hell features. We’d like to introduce this type of game to more players.

What would be the next step for CreSpirit? Can we expect more such titles, or will the next project differ greatly from what we have seen?

David: We will try to improve ourselves and keep trying to make games with different styles and gameplay. Additionally, there will not only be another spiritual sequel, but an actual sequel might happen in the future!

Does that mean we will get a potential sequel for Rabi-Ribi or Tevi in the future?

David: Sequels for both Tevi and Rabi-Ribi are possible in the future, but to be honest, we are still evaluating the possibility. We definitely what both sequels to be bigger and better, but as you may know, game development is a long-term commitment and will take a lot of effort to achieve it. We still want to share exciting news about the upcoming update: The DLC for Tevi is under development. It will have more gameplay content and complete the storyline.

Tevi was developed by Ein Lee, Waero, and GemaYue and published by CreSpirit. The action-adventure 2D platformer was released on Nintendo Switch and PC on November 30, 2023, and will be released on PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2024.

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