Made by Motion Twin, same creators of Dead Cells, Windblown is a very fast paced action rogue-like. The game is still on Early Access, with a release date not yet announced. This game sets itself apart from Dead Cells for being a 3D platformer, instead of 2D. Just by having one more plane to work with, it makes weapons and effects get a lot more fun to play with.
Gameplay
If you never played any rogue-likes, here’s how the main gameplay loop goes: you start the game, get upgrades, try your best to survive, die, and start all over again but with better upgrades. As you can see, the gameplay is very fast, as your character has an almost infinite dash. This makes the combat feel frenetic, since you’re moving around a lot to dodge enemies and projectiles, even though the dash has a higher cooldown on combat. Even in early access, the game contains a nice variety of weapons, along with relics that contain unique effects(like slowing enemies down, summoning a tornado, or summoning a robot that helps you in battle). You can carry up to 2 weapons with you. One of the main combat mechanics is the weapon switching combos, where an icon will show up at the end of your weapon main combo, and if you start attacking with your other weapon, it’ll activate a special attack after switching, and each weapon has its own special attack after switching. The enemies in this game are fair, since some of them have very strong attacks, but you can read their movement really easily after some runs. Bosses and Mini-Bosses have some cool designs, although I have the feeling the true final boss is not yet in the game, since I felt that the final boss was a little underwhelming, which would make sense since this title is still in Early Access. After you beat the final boss(es), you’ll unlock more difficulties, which cuts back on healing and increases enemy difficulty.
Audio & Visuals
This game has a fucking amazing soundtrack. From top to bottom, the tracklist is great, 10 out of 10. Even if you don’t plan on playing the game, just listen to it(Spotify or Youtube). Hard hitting songs, with some really epic toplines and ethereal sounds. The best thing is that the audio complements the visuals really well. The stages have very vibrant colors, and all of them are unique. I really wish they’ll add more than the 5 stages we have now. I can’t talk about the stages without talking about secret areas. This game has so many secret areas, AND SOME OF THEM ARE INFURIATING. I’ve only discovered some of them after 15 hours. Most of them are regular chests, but there’s some secret areas that can give you some high amount of enemies to kill.
Content
Even though the game is on Early Access, it already has a good amount of content, like 5 difficulties, a ton of upgrades to unlock, 10+ weapons, and online co-op(which I haven't tested yet, but heard a lot of good things about). But, not everything is great: The story. There isn’t a lot of explanation about this world, what they are doing there, who are those robots and animals, or why they are fighting. The graphics, level design, soundtrack, all complement each other and can make for a really immersive game, but the lack of a story makes some of the moments feel less impactful. There’s no reason to care about the world and everyone there. Since you've been reading up until now, you deserve a secret code for a website theme: "windblown"
Performance
The game is playable only on PC for now, but the performance is great on a RTX 3060. I haven’t experienced any type of lag, even when playing on a Steam Deck. Bsides the Steam Deck. Also, be prepared to play with a controller. While there is support for mouse + keyboard, it feels terrible
Conclusion
Even without a good story, the gameplay loop is addicting enough for you to lose hours and hours with this game. For an Early Access game, there’s plenty of content there, but it’ll leave you wanting just a little bit more, which makes me really excited for the 1.0 release. Usually games on Early Access have a discounted price, so if you want to pick it up on Steam, it’s a great investment
the game is available on steam
this is the first of many game recommendations! keep an eye here 'cause there's more to come in the following months!!!