Finji's Usual June mixes spectral crabs, ghosts, and Devil May Cry combat into an October release

Finji's next in-house game, Usual June, now has a release date of October 28, positioning the action adventure for the Halloween season. The game follows the titular June, a young woman in college who has no idea what to do with her life, during a quiet summer break that is interrupted when crystalline crabs attack the local cemetery and ghosts begin appearing. June and her friends, one of whom is a ghost, set out to figure out what is happening, with an interdimensional vortex beneath a 100-year-old cemetery at the center of the mystery.

The game comes from Finji, the Michigan-based publisher that has become a quiet kingmaker of indie tastes. Finji has published breakout hits including the Zeldalike Tunic, the adventure game Chicory: A Colorful Tale, and the narrative platformer Night in the Woods, but it also develops its own games, and Usual June is its next original project. Polygon offered an exclusive look at the game for its annual Fall Preview.

Finji landed on the project after deciding what to make next back in 2020 and 2021. "We were R&Ding and deciding what to make next back in 2020, 2021, and we did not make a fishing game based on Animal Crossing," Finji cofounder and CEO Rebekah Saltsman said during a group interview attended by Polygon. The team instead settled on a genre-bending adventure that mixes coming-of-age narrative exploration with Devil May Cry-style combat.

The setting is the fictional Midwest college town of Fen Harbor, and Finji is using it to carry real-world commentary. "When things come to an end in the Midwest, historically, it's because billionaires are done harvesting stuff there, and move on," Adam Saltsman, Finji cofounder and Usual June's game director, told Polygon in an email. Adam and Rebekah Saltsman are married. He described the game's theme as the Midwest's relationship with billionaire patrons and "wondering whether or not they'll allow your city to continue along its present track, or if they are going to put their fingers on the scale again."

Hands-on impressions from Rock Paper Shotgun describe combat with a snappiness and crunchiness comparable to Kingdom Hearts, with Hades-esque movement. There is no blocking; play revolves around dodging and parrying at the right time while stringing together combos with a morphable wrench. The genre stops at action adventure, with no platforming, and the writer noted an "uncomfortableness" to not being able to jump that interrupted the flow at times, though the game was not yet finished when previewed. Cara Ellison, a former RPS writer, is a writer on the game, per RPS's disclosure.

The game's story begins on June's birthday, June 17, according to an in-game smartphone that serves as the menu, when she and her friends explore the local cemetery. A hands-on demo arrived in late August, and Polygon's preview picked up about 25 minutes into the game. RPS described the tone as cozy in the manner of Over the Garden Wall, with an underbelly of something darker running beneath the autumn atmosphere.

Usual June is available to wishlist on Steam ahead of its October 28 release. Whether the game's Midwest billionaire commentary extends into its ending, and how the finished combat handles the jump-less flow that previewers flagged, remain to be seen when the game ships.