The Knightling Preview – Preview

Gamescom this year brought a lot of different games to play. In fact, I’m fairly certain that I’ve never seen the indie arena booth this packed in all my years of attendance. Though my time was limited for hands-on games, there were a few that I was really anticipating to get my hands on. This write-up serves the purpose of at least trying to share my first impressions from these games. Now most of the games listed here have not yet been announced for Switch. I have good hope that these might make their way to the Switch or its successor at some point, but do keep that in mind for these titles as of writing. All of the demos I played were on a PC and of early builds. Feel free to skip ahead to the games that excite you most!

The Knightling – Developed by Twirlbound, published by Saber Interactive.
Release date: 2025

Disclaimer: For my day job, working on games preservation, I’m currently working closely with Twirlbound on preserving their first game Pine. I have not been involved in any way in their work on The Knightling.

Taking one look at The Knightling, you can’t help but be stunned by the amazing display of style and color on screen. The game is set in an eye-popping colorful world that takes its inspiration from a ton of different sources, like African masks and a backstory to the world that is very intriguing. In fact, if you want to know more, be sure to watch my full developer interview with studio co-founder Matthijs van de Laar.

The set-up is quite simple, you are a servant to a legendary Knight who carries around a mythical shield to protect the people of this realm. But one day the Knight vanishes and leaves nothing behind except his shield. So it is up to his knightling to find him and help the citizens of the realm.

Having a shield as a primary weapon seems like a strange fit for an open world action-adventure game, but it is exciting to see how many different uses the developers at Twirlbound have found for this shield. The first one you’ll notice is the way in which you can use the shield as a method of traversal. By jumping in the air and sitting down on the shield you can slide down any sloped surface. It becomes second nature to try to slide down everywhere and the world is truly accommodating for this design. From the ledges on the walls surrounding the villages to the hills that cover the valley. Combined with the ability to jump around, and even later in the game upgrading the shield to include a glide function, the game is really teaching and challenging you to get accustomed to its movement mechanics.

But the shield also functions as a weapon. Now at first this is pretty straightforward as you can bash, slash and throw the shield at targets and enemies. Whether you’re trying to solve puzzles by hitting targets from a distance or hiding behind the shield to avoid an incoming attack, the sheer variety makes it adaptable in most situations. While I did love the shield throw, especially the little slow-down that takes place when you’re throwing the shield mid-jump, combat was a bit trickier. Combining dodge rolls with blocks and striking when stunning your opponent can get a bit tricky. I found it particularly challenging against stronger and larger enemies, who required some pretty specific timing to break their stance and go on the offensive. In my 15 minutes with the demo it was hard to get a grasp on this combat system, but I’m certainly curious to see how this system will be elaborated upon in the later parts of the game.

Structurally the game is an open world that you are pretty free to explore at your own pace. Though the developers did inform me that the game is more divided into large open areas and will require upgrades and collectibles to advance to later areas. In my time with the demo I was mostly helping out local villagers with an animal that had gone haywire and escaped its pen. It involved a little bit of investigation to find out where the beast had run off to, and opening the different pens by hitting targets from afar with my shield. This side-quest had some quirky writing and fun worldbuilding going on in the background, so as an opener it felt pretty safe. I was told that the game does feature more elaborate dungeons during your adventure and looking at the B-roll footage provided, those areas seem more combat and puzzle heavy.

The comparisons between The Knightling and Zelda might seem obvious when watching the game in action, but while playing I think that The Knightling is truly carving out its own identity. The way of traversal is much more pronounced in this game than Zelda and I loved the way in which the shield is used as your main tool. With the promise of upgrades and dungeons later in the game that will challenge more of your skills and observation, I think that Twirlbound is working on something truly special. It of course remains to be seen how the game will perform on the Nintendo Switch as well as how varied the combat can get in the game. As a follow-up to Pine, Twirlbound’s creative world design takes center stage in The Knightling and is now really one of my most anticipated titles for next year.

Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind – Developed by Digital Eclipse, Published by Atari
Release Date: 2024

I was a little bit hesitant going into Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind (MMPRRR) at first. While I am fully aware of the history and impact of the show and its characters, I never really watched it growing up. Thankfully, those worries were quickly taken away as Digital Eclipse has created a love-letter to the series, that is just as much fun if the references pass you by. The story is incredibly simple, with the arch-nemesis of the Rangers, Rita Repulsa using a time portal to travel back in time and team up with a younger version of herself to fight the ‘classic’ Power Rangers.

The game is a very classic beat ‘em up multiplayer brawler. You can control any of the five rangers and walk from left to right, defeating waves upon waves of enemies. Dashes, grabs, juggles, combos and special moves, you know what to expect. The visual style is delightfully retro, with some absolutely gorgeous pixel art that immediately invokes the feeling like you’re playing a classic arcade game. I was reminded of games like TMNT IV: Turtles in Time and that’s probably the highest compliment I can give.

While I wasn’t able to play those levels myself, I was informed while playing that the game does try to spice up the gameplay by switching genres in the later levels. Because obviously, you can’t have a Power Rangers game where the rangers don’t hop into their Megazords at the end and combine their powers. These fights look spectacular and shift control from the individual rangers to their big vehicles. This is also where the curtain will be lifted and the game will play with your expectations. Segments that function as on-rails shooters with fast-moving and rotating backgrounds are really interesting and show that Digital Eclipse is using their experience on creating the TMNT Cowabunga Collection to put something truly original together. Alas, it was a shame I was not able to play these segments myself, but for fans of the Power Rangers and retro-style Beat ‘em ups, this should have you really excited.

The most fun while playing is really in the multiplayer aspect of the game. Whether it is one player distracting a big boss while the other smacking it in the back, or each taking on a wave of enemies on each side of the screen. The game adapts based on the amount of players involved, so especially if you’re playing with the maximum number of players you should be in for a ton of fun on the couch. It’s a shame we can’t fast forward to Rita’s Rewind, but it will release later this year for Switch and all other platforms.

King of Meat – Developed by Glowmade, Published by Amazon Games
Release date: 2024

Keen readers of Nintendo World Report will already have seen a preview of King of Meat by Alex on our site. Alex got a chance to play the game before its announcement at Gamescom this year. I also got my hands on the game during Gamescom and played about three matches while being guided by the folks from Glowmade. Much like Alex I was unable to try out the dungeon-building aspect of the game, but I did have quite a lot of fun playing the game with others.

A quick refresher: King of Meat is a co-op party game in which you compete in matches in order to traverse dungeons that are built by other players. Your goal is to collect as many points as possible and keep the audience watching this fictional game show engaged, which multiplies your score. The game has a large focus on collaboration and customization and is very colorful. While this PC build did sometimes struggle a bit with a few bugs when jumping around, the core foundation is extremely solid.

One thing I did like that Alex did not mention in his preview is the fact that while the game is co-operative, I found that you can easily just ignore whatever other players are doing. This isn’t a team game like Fortnite where you have to actively work together as a squad. Rather, these dungeons require some teamwork for missions, but you do not need to communicate every second with your teammates. I think that is a true strength for people like me that like to occasionally play a multiplayer game but don’t want to go through the trouble of getting the same group of people together every time. I was easily able to ignore my teammate and go out platforming to collect the most crowns. Now initially, I thought this was because there would be a winner at the end of a match, but no, all scores are tallied for the team. This meant I could just focus on the parts that I was good at, and leave combat and throwing bombs to my teammates. It’s a small distinctive difference, but really helped me to stay so engaged with King of Meat that, once I’ve left the booth, I would be totally down to play another round. That’s probably the highest mark I could give to a multiplayer live-service game, so let’s hope that Glowmade sticks the landing and that the Switch version of the game can compare to the other versions!

Wilmot Works it Out – Developed by Hollow Ponds, Richard Hogg and Published by Finji
Release: October 23rd, 2024 (PC/MAC)

Wilmot’s Warehouse was one of the biggest puzzle surprises when it was released in 2019. It has slowly gained popularity over the last five years and even has a super cool looking board game coming out later this year. But an even bigger surprise is that the Wilmot franchise is expanding with a pretty unorthodox, and yet perfect, follow-up.

You know that Wilmot works at a factory all day, but did you ever think to consider what he does in his free time? That’s right, Wilmot is an active fan of puzzles and receives boxes full of puzzle pieces every single day. So in this game that’s what you do. You open up boxes in your living room that contain puzzle pieces and you fit them together to make paintings that you can hang on the wall of Wilmot’s room.

Unlike other jigsaw puzzle games, you don’t move individual pieces around in a grid, but rather control Wilmot as he picks the pieces up and moves them around. You also do not need to rotate pieces in the game, which makes the puzzling experience super relaxing. That truly is the key word here, relaxing. The comparison I made while playing was a game like Stitch, that was released earlier this year. There are no time limits, you don’t get more points if you finish a puzzle more quickly, but just see the pieces strewn about on the floor and put them together. It sounds boring when writing that out, but fits so well in the Wilmot franchise and is a joy to play. Perfect as a focused play session or to keep your mind occupied while listening to a podcast or having a show on in the background. During the demo I was told that you can upgrade and unlock cosmetics to dress up Wilmot’s house and make it all your own.

While the game is releasing soon, there is no word yet of a port to Switch or other systems. Needless to say, I will be exercising some self-restraint to not double dip with this and a steamdeck version, because Wilmot Works It Out seems perfect after a long day of work.

A free demo of Wilmot Works It Out is available on Steam for a limited time!

Cairn – Developed and published by The Game Bakers
Release date: 2025 (PC & Consoles (TBA))

The Game Bakers have a pretty great track record. First jumping onto the scene with the boss-rush game Furi and then followed up by the narrative heavy exploration game Haven, both of which we reviewed at NWR and found to be excellent in their own right. But Cairn looks to be on a whole different level as it aims to be a survival climber game. Now, I’ve never been climbing in real life, but I am a big fan of climbing as a game mechanic. From Grow Home to last year’s excellent Jusant and of course the ability to climb anything in a game like Breath of the Wild and Tears of the Kingdom. So when I was given the controller for this demo I was eager to jump into my first climbing wall. But this wasn’t as straightforward as climbing had been made out to be in other games. With what can only be described as playing a 3D-version of the game QWOP I fumbled around making my way up on that first wall. Not a great start for either my expectations or getting to grips with the game.

But once I managed to climb up the third wall and was greeted by an actual mountainside, something started to click. The direct movement of limbs as you guide them upwards while holding on to the smallest grips and ledges started to feel natural. It’s hard to explain but the way you decide which limb you move by tilting the joystick really helps you to come to grips with how to control Aava’s body. With the help of her little Climbot, you can also install pitons on the mountain, but since these are incredibly limited in supply, you want to be careful with not wasting them. The tension between navigation, positioning and keeping an eye out for your stamina and health really makes you connect with Aava, as she starts to pant and scream while hanging from ledges. The haptic feedback from the controller also plays an important role here and I am incredibly curious to see how this would feel on a controller that supports more advanced rumble than the Xbox controller I was using to play.

In-between climbing areas you have a backpack and tent with you to rest up. Here you can manage stats for Aava’s wellbeing like drinking water, eating food and dealing with the extreme temperatures you’re faced with on the mountain. I love how the UI for the backpack shows all the items tumbling around in the backpack and I hope that there will be some interaction with objects to make it truly a survival experience. That survival aspect wasn’t the focus in the demo, but you can easily see how this can become a challenge in harsher environments where you need to scavenge for water, food and other materials to help you make your way to the top.

Where Haven was a narrative heavy experience, Cairn is going back to a more mechanics heavy game for The Game Bakers. It truly is climbing like you haven’t experienced in another game. But as intense as scaling these mountains will be, the visual beauty of the mountain and stunning sound design promise to make it an incredibly memorable experience. It remains to be seen how this game will make its way to the peak of Mount Kami, but the first steps of this journey leave a mighty fine impression.

Usual June – Developed and published by Finji
Release Date: 2025 (PC/Mac)

Finji has been on quite a roll lately. Not only did they publish some amazing titles like Tunic, Chicory: A Colorful Tale and I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, but the style and ‘vibe’ of their games is always something to behold. Usual June really leans into these features while trying to tell a story about death, the afterlife and June wrapped up in all of this.

My demo dropped me in the middle of a scene where June and her friend are exploring an abandoned building. June, who is able to see ghosts and travel, tries to hide from her friend that she’s seeing the person who’s notes they are trying to understand. But suddenly she is taken away to the other world to find the source of corruption.

Visually the game sports an incredible style that often reminded me of animated films like Spider-Men: Into the Spider-Verse, with characters moving every other frame, while still feeling quite smooth to play. The demo was split into a narrative half and a combat-focused half. In the narrative you go around rooms and talk to characters and try to find clues about a mystery that’s been hidden in the town. It’s fairly straightforward with a ton of charming writing and characters speaking in an animal-crossing/sims-like language instead of being voiced.

But the combat really piqued my interest. I was expecting something akin to combat arena’s, dodge rolls and short encounters, but what surprised me was that the combat features a building system. As you defeat enemies, you gather orbs that can be used to create items to ward off opponents. There’s throwables that damage the creatures directly, but you can also place walls to prevent them from getting close to whack them with your sword. The rhythm in combat makes Usual June feel pretty distinct from other third-person action games. While it is a bit of a barrier of entry, I do think that this system will provide players with a lot of versatility.

This demo was still quite new and while it gave me a good impression of what to expect of the game, I am mostly curious about the larger narrative and story to really get pulled into the world of June. Thankfully the game is still quite some time off from release, but the initial impressions are solid. Especially if you love visually pleasing games you’ll have a great time exploring this mysterious world as June.

Usual June has a demo available on Steam until September 2nd.

Neon Blood – Developed by Chaotic Brain Studios, Published by Meridiem Games, Astrolabe Games
Release date: 2024

Neon Blood is a stunning looking narrative adventure game developed by a new indie team based in Spain. The three developers, who were kind enough to provide context during my time with the demo, started working on the game as a graduation project. I played about thirty minutes of the game and can say that for those of you who love to get swept away in a visually stunning world with engaging writing and characters, this is one you should definitely keep an eye out for.

You play as Alex McCoin, a detective who lives in Bright City. The city, controlled by a mega-corporation, is filled with inhabitants, most of whom are cybernetically enhanced and either/or addicted to Spark. Alex deals with this himself as he is down on his luck at the beginning of the demo. That is until he is roped into a murder mystery, of an assassin going around killing people around the city. It is up to Alex, to figure out why these murders are taking place, who is responsible for them and how he finds himself at the beginning of a revolution.

While the plot in the demo was a bit convoluted, though the main writer kindly explained where I was starting in the story, it immediately sets the tone for the atmosphere in Bright City. Above all, you will be stunned by looking at the impressive visual style that the team behind Neon Blood have managed to craft. The game uses high quality pixel-art for the characters and objects, but for the world itself it uses a voxel 3D-style that is reminiscent of PlayStation 1 and N64-era graphics. What makes this especially impressive is the blending of these two styles. The characters sitting on chairs, next to doors or just walking around never feel out of place with the overall style. Combined with some seriously impressive lighting, I found it just engaging enough to walk around Bright City, as I was chasing clues and fugitives. The game mostly takes place in a 2.5D world, so you can walk back and forth in the background, while you traverse across the screen. The developers have spared no effort in making the city come alive with background animations, pedestrians walking on the streets and even some fun interactions Alex can do when not investigating.

Gameplay wise Neon Blood does not reinvent the wheel. It is a linear narrative adventure game and you will be walking and running from place to place talking to suspects, witnesses or chasing criminals. I think that playing a game like this at a major event is quite a challenge, because it is hard to keep yourself focused on the narrative in a limited timeframe and while chatting with the developers, but I did quite like the way in which the writing was portrayed. More surprising was that the game features turn-based combat, that mainly uses dice in a roleplaying game fashion to progress. The combat didn’t really click with me, as it mostly boiled down to rolling dice to attack and hoping that enemies would roll badly. I hope that the final game will play a bit more with this and perhaps introduce some variety in the moves and status ailments one can afflict. I was told that the game is about 75% narrative and 25% combat, so you probably will not have to deal with it quite that much. But some more flexibility and creativity is something that would spice up the gameplay.

Neon Blood is shaping up to be a visually stunning and narratively gripping game. The developers are aiming for the Switch version to run at a locked 60FPS, so it should really be something that fans of narrative games can keep an eye on. Whether Neon Blood will fall into the trappings of repetitive gameplay and its slightly unengaging combat system remains to be seen, but my first impression is really solid. I can’t wait to see what stories Bright City will hold when Neon Blood launches this year on all platforms.