Outerloop's previous RPG, Thirsty Suitors, featured an elaborate cooking minigame—complete with quick-time-event handwashing—where you had to prepare Indian cuisine as a way of impressing and subsequently bonding with your mother. What I'm saying is, they've got prior when it comes to games where food is important. Outerloop's next RPG, shown off today on the Day of the Devs stream following the Summer Game Fest show, takes the cooking and makes it central.
Dosa Divas pits you against a fast-food corporation called LinaMeals who serve food in plastic tubes to a pacified population. As one of the heroes sadly puts it, "No one cooks anymore." I'm getting JojaMart vibes. To defeat LinaMeals you have to gather ingredients and cook meals, both to serve local villagers who are starved for food that's been made with love and care, and to physically assault the goons of the LinaMeals corporation with.
There's a whole JRPG-style system of menu combat, and each enemy has an elemental weakness—a flavor craving—that can be set off by attacking them with the right kind of food, triggering a status effect called "Stuffed". You can also hit them with weapons made out of cooking implements, with two of the trailer's featured protagonists wielding a spatula-nunchuck and a shield made out of a barbecue lid.
The third protagonist is basically a Transformer. Yeah, if you thought Dosa Divas was done being weird it's got a ways to go yet. Your partner in cooking is a robot "spirit-mech" called Goddess who communicates in emoticons and who you can ride around in between battles. She's got a double-jump and a grappling hook for when she's not Naruto-running across the land.
Another odd ingredient in Dosa Divas is one that's only hinted at in the trailer. Creative director Chandana Ekanayake sums up the gameloop like this: "Platform through vibrant villages, battle corporate goons, reconcile with loved ones, and eat one last meal together before saying goodbye." I'm sorry, what was that last bit? The tagline is "One last meal" and apparently one of the themes Dosa Divas explores is death, so I guess this is an RPG about cooking and robot-platforming that is also about sharing final meals with your family and friends. Which sounds kind of heavy, but in a filling way.
I liked Thirsty Suitors a lot so I'm intrigued by Dosa Divas. It's got robot crabs too, did I mention the robot crabs? It'll be out in early 2026 and you can wishlist it on Steam.
