Pera Coda: A Istanbul Story That Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer and Variety All Wanted to Cover
Istanbul-set neo-noir RPG Pera Coda from Turkish studio Elyzio landed coverage in Rock Paper Shotgun, PC Gamer, IGN, Variety and Vice. SetiPR led the global PR campaign for the reveal.
3 min read
The brief for Pera Coda's global reveal wasn't really about coverage. It was about framing.
The game had a striking origin: three architecture students at Istanbul Technical University making concept videos of a surreal, neon-lit, isometric Pera, built around a lawyer named Deniz stuck between life and death. Elyzio, the studio behind Warden's Will, found those videos and brought the three on board in 2022 to build it into a full game. That's a good story. But good stories get misread all the time.
The risk with a Turkish game set in Istanbul, especially one this visually specific, is that international press files it under "exotic setting" and moves on. Pera Coda didn't deserve that. The Istanbul here isn't atmosphere dressing. It's the logic of the game, the same way Paris is the logic of Disco Elysium's politics, or Revachol's geography is inseparable from its mood. Getting that across required deliberate choices about which outlets to approach, how to frame the setting in the media kit, and what the lore documentation needed to convey before anyone wrote a word.
Setimedia ran the global PR campaign for the announcement. Narrative-focused press first. Localized kits with art and lore that gave context rather than just assets. The Istanbul framing was positioned as cultural specificity, not local color.
The response was direct validation. Rock Paper Shotgun called it a new heir to the genre and made the Disco Elysium comparison the game's tone genuinely warrants. PC Gamer said it was eager to see where it takes that influence. Vice predicted the story would land hard if the writing holds. Variety, IGN, 3Djuegos covered the visual language and atmosphere. Turkish outlets picked it up too, where the Istanbul setting carries a very different kind of weight.
Within days of the reveal, Pera Coda was on multiple most-anticipated lists for 2026.
The three students who drew a surreal version of their city in their spare time are now building it for an international audience. Setimedia's job was to make sure the first impression matched what the game actually is. It did.
