While games based around exploration often get criticized for their lack of "true" gameplay, I find the genre to be quite fascinating as the lack of combat requires the developers to get clever with both the storytelling and the visual design.

A good example of this would be the recently announced exploration/adventure game, The First Tree, which offers up a rather intriguing premise and some striking visuals to go along with it. Here's the trailer to hopefully give you an idea of what I'm blabbering about:

At this point I would usually try and give you my summary of the currently available information, but as of right now the following quote is literally all you can discover about The First Tree and its overall story:

"The First Tree, a third-person exploration game centered around two parallel stories: a fox trying to find her missing family, and a young couple dealing with a tragedy in theirs. Players take control of the fox on a poignant and beautiful journey that crescendos at the source of life, and perhaps results in the understanding of death.

Along the way, players can uncover artifacts and stories from the young couple’s life as they too become intertwined in the fox’s journey towards The First Tree."

The story premise aside, The First Tree is being made by a solo developer and as such its expected to last only around 1-2 hours, though the price tag will be appropriate for its short stature. As for the release date, its set to arrive at some point in early 2017 for PC and Mac. While it might seem like a long wait now, hopefully it'll be enough time for the developer to clean up the animations as their current quality is far below that of the artwork, an unfortunate blemish on an otherwise rather fetching visual design.

If you're interested in learning more, or at the very least checking out a few screenshots, head over to the official website.