Assemble Entertainment officially announces Verne: The Shape of Fantasy, a Jules Verne-inspired adventure game coming next year to Steam. This cat actually got out of the bag with the launch of a playable demo for the February Steam Next Fest. This demo remains available as a Windows and macOS sample of what to expect. Here's a new Announcement Trailer showing off the game's pixel art graphics along with some details:

Verne: The Shape of Fantasy is a narrative-driven experience based on the real-life works by Jules Verne, the author most famous for novels like Journey to the Center of the Earth, Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea, and Around the World in Eighty Days. Leveraging Verne’s one-of-a-kind storytelling and science fiction prowess, Verne: The Shape of Fantasy delivers a magical gameplay journey where players will encounter many friends, villains, and deep-sea monsters of legend.

Set in an alternate 1888, the war against the dreadful “Nation” has reached its breaking point, devastating the land of Hemera, the fantastical world created inside the mind of Jules Verne. Aboard the mighty Nautilus, Jules Verne, Captain Nemo, and the courageous crew struggle to uncover the secrets of Atlantis, the fabled utopia that faced mass destruction from the very power source Verne and his crew aim to locate: the Flame of Hephaestus.