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Cutout lets you sever an enemy’s arm and make it your own
Most action games reward a fight with another weapon. Cutout would rather give you the arm that was holding it. 906 Games has revealed an action-horror game that takes its paper world literally: characters can be cut apart, rebuilt and changed during play.
By Kader Cutout 
Cutout was unveiled on August 26 during Gamescom's Find Your Next Game showcase. Italian indie studio 906 Games is developing it, with Big Blue Sky Games publishing.
The basic shape is a side-scrolling action-horror adventure set inside a dark fairy tale. Its defining mechanic begins once an enemy loses a limb.
That arm or leg does not disappear as combat debris. Lena can pick it up and attach it to herself.
Cut & Paste turns enemies into equipment
906 Games calls the system Cut & Paste Combat.
Enemy arms can provide new attacks, while legs can change movement abilities. One example supplied by the developer involves Velcro-equipped legs that allow Lena to scale walls.
The result connects combat rewards to exploration and build crafting. Instead of receiving a conventional item after an encounter, the defeated enemy's actual body can become the upgrade.
Enemies obey exactly the same rule
Lena is not exempt from dismemberment.
A successful enemy attack can remove one of her valuable limbs, and the opponent can then claim it and attach it to itself.
That creates the possibility of a fight changing its rules halfway through. A movement or combat ability that belonged to Lena can become part of the creature facing her.
906 Games also says players will be able to craft replacement limbs and experiment with multiple combinations.
Her body effectively becomes the character build
That is where Cutout becomes more interesting than a dismemberment gimmick.
Changing a leg can affect traversal. Replacing an arm can alter attacks. The same configuration determines how Lena fights, moves and explores Learwood Forest.
It borrows a familiar progression principle from exploration-driven action games but expresses it physically rather than through a collection of abstract upgrades.
The story begins with a forest that has literally lost its heart
Lena is the last child born from a dying forest and has grown up rejected by the neighboring village.
Years earlier, a tyrannical king stole the forest's heart and used it to create a sceptre capable of granting dominion over the land and its people.
When that king dies, Lena joins the race to claim it.
906 Games says player choices will help determine who Lena becomes, including the conflict between seeking acceptance from people who rejected her and restoring the forest that created her.
The violence follows the logic of paper rather than flesh
Steam's mature-content description makes an important distinction.
Cutout contains stylized fantasy violence and severed limbs, but enemies break apart and dissolve like paper rather than producing blood, gore or realistic injuries.
The horror comes instead from the decaying environments, creatures, skeletal imagery and the simple unease of treating a body as replaceable material.
Cutout is now targeting 2027
Early announcement material did not initially provide a firm launch date. The current Steam listing now places the PC release in 2027.
The game is planned for both Steam and the Epic Games Store.
Gamescom attendees were able to play a demo at Indie Castle, and 906 Games says closed playtests are also planned during development.
That leaves one particularly useful question for testing: how much of Lena can be replaced before the character build becomes somebody else entirely?