After the Wane comes out November 10 on Steam and GOG: what to know about Nova-box’s hand-drawn Paris dance visual novel, demo and Switch plans

After the Wane, the sixth interactive graphic novel from French studio Nova-box (Bordeaux), is scheduled for release today, November 10, 2026, on PC, Mac and Linux/SteamOS through Steam and GOG, and on itch.io according to the studio’s press kit. You play Lena, a young dancer who arrives in Paris to make her name on stage and to find out why her mother, also a dancer, abandoned her. The game is fully playable in English and French. Two things were still missing when we checked the stores on November 10 at about 10:00 a.m. Paris time: the price and the exact unlock time. Both the Steam and GOG pages still showed the game as “coming soon”. A Nintendo Switch version is planned later.

It is a branching visual novel: every dialogue offers choices that change Lena’s path, her personality and, as the Steam page puts it, “the nature of her story itself”. Lena gets caught between two rival worlds of the Paris dance scene: Deborah’s elitist company, based in a theatre with an uncanny atmosphere, and Fernand’s fiercely independent community centre. On top of that, a voice lives in her head that only she can hear, and you decide whether to cooperate with it or resist it.

The Steam page warns that the game is intended for mature audiences: mild horror scenes (including spiders), alcohol and tobacco, and consensual sex with veiled nudity. The press kit suggests a 16+ age rating.

A free standalone demo is available on Steam and GOG. Nova-box describes it as about 40 to 45 minutes long, and the press release says it had 97% positive reviews on Steam. Since the demo update of May 28, 2026, the studio says demo saves are transferred automatically to the main game. The second major demo update, on October 26, 2026, replaced the virtual instruments with recordings by real musicians, redesigned the symbols that show the consequences of your choices, added a short tutorial and proofread the text. Demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4308660/

The September 7 press release says a dedicated Nintendo Switch version will follow in “early 2027”, while the press kit still lists the Switch date as “TBA”. No Switch 2 version has been announced. On November 4, Nova-box also released the title song, “After the Wane”, written by Nicolas Fouqué and Geoffroy Vincens, composed by Julien Ponsoda and Camille Marcos (Illustrason) and sung by Marianne, known on YouTube as LittleBigWhale. Nova-box’s previous games include Along the Edge (2016), Seers Isle (2018), Across the Grooves (2020) and End of Lines (2023).

Sources: Steam store page for After the Wane (date, platforms, languages, features, requirements, content warning), checked November 10, 2026 at about 10:00 a.m. Paris time: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2742720/After_the_Wane/ ; GOG page (coming soon, checked the same day): https://www.gog.com/game/after_the_wane ; Nova-box press release on Games Press, September 7, 2026: https://www.gamespress.com/New-Trailer-and-Release-Date-for-the-Handcrafted-Visual-Novel-After-th ; official press kit (stores, 16+ suggestion, Switch “TBA”): https://afterthewane.nova-box.com/press/ ; Nova-box Steam announcements: “Newsletter #51”, September 7, 2026: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2742720/view/707782088403716094 ; “Major Demo Update #2”, October 26, 2026: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2742720/view/697653428543822063 ; “Major Demo Update #1”, May 28, 2026 (demo save transfer): https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2742720/view/667240813476971010 ; Steam page of the demo: https://store.steampowered.com/app/4308660/ ; title song video, Nova-box YouTube, November 4, 2026: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbryis9o4k8 ; all checked November 10, 2026. Image: official After the Wane screenshot from the Nova-box press kit, © Nova-box.