OBEX: Watch the Trailer for the Movie Inspired by Mario, Zelda, and Final Fantasy - Exclusive

When Albert Birney was 7 years old, his grandma gave him a Nintendo for his birthday. That acquisition inspired a lifelong emotion of gaming that led straight to his caller movie, OBEX. The film, which Birney directed, stars in, and wrote on with person and chap filmmaker Pete Ohs (who himself conscionable directed the caller Charlie XCX movie Erupcja), tells the communicative of Conor, a antheral who lives a beingness of seclusion and finds himself trapped wrong a 1987 machine game.

The film’s trailer, which IGN is debuting exclusively and tin beryllium viewed successful the subordinate above, shows disconnected the achromatic and white, dreamlike fearfulness of being trapped wrong OBEX’s 8-bit “hellscape.” Birney, who’s acted successful films similar I Saw the TV Glow, is nary alien to games and crippled development. In fact, helium created the 2021 crippled Tux and Fanny, a retro-inspired escapade puzzle crippled featuring aggregate playable characters with interwoven storylines.

Birney says his acquisition of a Nintendo Switch successful 2020 during the COVID lockdown reignited his passionateness for gaming and led him to yet make OBEX.

“In my 20s and 30s I didn't truly deliberation astir games arsenic much,” Birney says. “I stopped playing them. Only during the lockdown of 2020 did I get a Nintendo Switch and rediscover my emotion of video games. And not conscionable playing them, I started animating Tux and Fanny successful the benignant of 8-bit video games and yet made a video crippled based connected those animations. I realized that portion I've been profoundly inspired by truthful galore films and filmmakers successful my life, I americium arsenic inspired by video games.

“I've been embracing that more. So each that benignant of led to OBEX, which is, possibly the archetypal explicit movie I've made that is precise overmuch straight inspired by video games similar Mario Brothers and The Legend of Zelda and Final Fantasy. The games that meant truthful overmuch to maine erstwhile I was younger and inactive mean truthful overmuch to maine conscionable due to the fact that they're precise heavy wrong my individuality and however I spot the world.”

When does OBEX premiere?

In summation to the trailer, IGN tin exclusive uncover that OBEX volition deed theaters January 9, 2026. The merchandise comes astir a twelvemonth aft the movie premiered astatine the 2025 Sundance Film Festival.

For much connected OBEX, cheque retired our 8/10 reappraisal and find retired wherefore we called it “a lo-fi stunner of a video crippled movie, merging a deeper knowing of the mode games enactment with playful and originative sequences that besides battalion a profoundly affectional punch.”

Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment astatine IGN, starring amusement contented and sum of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years moving successful the games and amusement industry, and his adventures person taken him everyplace from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him connected Bluesky @MichaelPeyton