Kiwi Walks reveals Shade of the Marionette, a darker WitchSpring RPG

Kiwi Walks has unveiled Shade of the Marionette: The Story of Piyorita, a story-driven 3D action RPG heading to consoles and PC in 2027. The Korean studio behind the WitchSpring series is stepping away from that game's cosy fairytale tone, though the two share a world.

You play as Piyorita, a blank doll who wakes in a place called the White Nest with no memory and a voice for company. To become the Masterpiece she has to absorb the life force of other dolls, fighting through rooms that sit behind a mirror. The Steam page describes fast, stylish combat layered over a crafting system, with the order in which you unlock those rooms changing which scenes you see and how the story unfolds.

A quieter kind of action RPG

Kiwi Walks is promising "accessible" combat rather than a parry-timing exam, and the branching room order suggests a game built for conversation more than a single guided corridor. Supporting languages already listed on Steam are English, Japanese, Korean, Simplified and Traditional Chinese, and German, with full controller support and adjustable difficulty. The release date still reads as coming soon.

The announcement continues a strong run for Korean independent studios on Japanese-adjacent RPGs, and it arrives with a name that carries an audience: WitchSpring R has sold well past 200,000 copies and holds an Overwhelmingly Positive rating on Steam.

Our opinion

Piyorita is the most interesting thing here. A protagonist defined by absence, whose only instruction is to consume others and call it completion, is a sharper hook than most action RPGs manage with a whole cast of voiced companions. If Kiwi Walks lets that discomfort sit rather than sanding it into a power fantasy, this could be remembered for its writing rather than its combo counter.

The risk is the schedule. A 2027 window with no month attached, revealed through a Steam page and a teaser, is a studio still early in production. Kiwi Walks has earned the benefit of the doubt, but it has also set expectations that the Crafting and branching structure now has to carry through a much darker register than its previous work.