As part of Gamer Social Club’s coverage of London Games Fest (LGF), we were delighted to be invited to interview the CEO of Herobeat Studios, Javier Ramello Marchioni to talk about their upcoming title, Rewilders: The Lost Spring.

Rewilders comes from the BAFTA award winning studio that brought us Endling – Extinction is forever. Endling was a single player narrative-led adventure, with Rewilders being a new genre for Herobeat. Though, it retains some of the visual DNA and messaging of the importance of biodiversity and environment.

It is a blend of metroidvania and roguelike, but offers lighter elements to the latter, allowing players to retain more of their items from each run than in traditional games in the genre.

Rewilders Hands-On

Before the interview which you can read below, a brief mention of my time playing Rewilders at LGF’s New Game Plus event. This was my first hands-on time with Rewilders and I came away impressed at the game’s mechanics and visual style. As someone who doesn’t play many roguelikes due to the progression systems, I was very happy to hear that the game offers the ability to retain more items and abilities between runs.

The metroidvania elements to the game means reaching new areas is more accessible as you unlock new abilities such as the grapple hook. The game also focuses on the use of creatures – called Hântu – which you find and present you with new abilities that keep the game fresh. This is alongside its Souls-inspired combat which features light and heavy attacks alongside dodge rolls and parries, though again this is much more approachable.

Whilst only a vertical slice of what’s to come as the game grows during early access, I am confident a competent and approachable roguelike with an interesting story is being developed. So, more importantly, let’s hear what Javier had to say in our interview.

Rewilders: The Lost Spring Developer Interview

After developing the BAFTA award winning, Endling, what was the decision process to move towards Rewilders?

Endling was a game where the main character wasn’t anything spectacular. You played as a mother fox and there was nothing you could do about the current situation of the world. In this game, we wanted to give the players some agency to make a change, right?

So, it’s like a fantasy theme game, like Studio Ghibli does with their movies [in that] they represent a real issue and they bring it to a fantastical world. We wanted to do something similar. So, we thought about some of the of the problems in the real world that were worrying us, and one of them was the how the abuse of pesticide was affecting the pollinators and how that can affect the biodiversity. If we end up killing all the pollinators, then we are facing a real problem, which is an actual problem nowadays. So, we wanted to create a game where we could explore all those topics from a more magical perspective. And that was why we decided to start working on Rewilders.

The roguelike space is slightly saturated, but it seems like you’re trying something new. What would you say about Rewilders to someone who has played plenty of roguelike or roguelite games? What makes it different?

I think the genre still has room to grow to change to adapt. I haven’t seen many cosy looking roguelikes. I think there is a lot of people who like action adventure games, but will like to go through a more gameplay oriented experience. Having replayability, having more development in the mechanics, in the progression of the game. I think telling the story, an emotional story, and to give a little bit of more information about the narrative in each one of its characters. It’s very interesting.

In the trailer, you show how biomes are like new powers. Can you tell us a little bit about the game’s progression and the hook of its systems?

Every time you jump off the sky ship, which is your base, you get to restore a biome or an area of the game. The world is divided in different biomes. Each biome comes with their own Hântu, which are those critters that you can collect. You restore their habitats, so they thank you by joining you so you can use their skills. It’s like having inventory or equipment instead of having weapons or armour. You get one of those creatures that will follow you and will help you to defeat the enemies of nature. So, the motivation of the player of Abi, the main character, is to find her siblings. They are scattered around the world and through the narrative, you will get to know more about that when the game is released later this year.

Every time you defeat one of those bosses – because your siblings have become monsters – you will unlock traversal tools that allow you to explore new parts, get to different places and explore different biomes. Restoring the world is something that Abi is doing on her way to rescue her family, which is her first motivation. But eventually, you realise that everything is connected because you cannot rescue your family members if you don’t restore the world. You realise that there is a bigger goal, a bigger thing that you that you can use, because you will have to defeat a monster which is the responsible for everything which is happening in your world. There is a lot of progression in narrative discovery from the character perspective. She realises that there is something beyond her first objective, so let’s say the goal of the character is evolving during the game.

We had a look at the creatures when we played upstairs and collecting them is a big part of the game. Can you tell our audience how creature collecting works in the game and what the creatures offer to the player?

We didn’t want to have a game in which you are kind of enslaving creatures. We wanted to avoid that. So, instead we thought that it would be cool if the creatures would be helping you because you are helping them. It’s kind of of a symbiosis, you are bringing back the places where they used to live and you are bringing back nature, so they help you by defeat the enemies of nature. They act with a pivotal role in the game because you cannot change your weapons in the game, you cannot equip armour. So they replace that system.

You may have a grass Hântu for instance, they have horns and each one of those has a unique skill, a unique ability you can use in combat. All of the Hântu of that family, they have something in common and it’s that they can knock back enemies. And they [the Hântu] make you stronger, they grant you passives that give you damage bonuses. You can have up to four Hântu at the same time, even though there are plenty of Hântu to collect. If you have four grass Hântu, you will basically be a glass canon character. You will be knocking back enemies all around, you will have a huge damage bonus, but then you are missing the opportunity of having, for instance, a healer Hântu in your team so that drastically reduces your survivability.

Players will have to choose their build. They will also need to feed their Hântu so they can grow stronger, but of course, they will have to choose which biomes they would like to explore in order to find their favourite fruits and the things that they like the most. So, there is a lot of strategy for players to choose where they would like to spend the resources that they have been gathering in the different runs.

The game has a playtest starting on April 20. What can players expect in the playtest before the early access release?

In our previous playtest, we were allowing players to explore the Grasslands, then the second playtest we unlocked Wetlands. Now, for this playtest, we are merging both biomes, with all the Hântu, all the creatures that could be playable in in the two previous playtests. So, it’s kind of a mashup of the previous two playtests, twice bigger and twice the content. If you could only play one of those playtests, you will be able to explore a new biome. If you played both of them, well, then you have the combined elements of both playtess. There will be Grasslands, Wetlands and all the Hântus there with basic skill set for you to mess with. And you have the sky ship, you can plan there for upgrades. Still, you are not able to defeat like the first boss, even though we give a glimpse of that. Sorry! But, that’s like a first look at how the bosses will look like.

Thank you to Javier, the studio and the publisher for their time for this interview.

Rewilders: The Lost Spring is launching into early access later this year on Steam. The game’s third playtest, its biggest yet, began April 20, 2026 and finishes April 27, 2026 on Steam, you can request access during this period. Players who have played the prior two will see features of the previous two tests brought together and more.

The game will also come to console including Xbox Series X|S where there will also be a playtest in the future.

Is Rewilders on your watchlist for this year? Have you played a previous playtest? Let us know in the comments below and come and join the friendly and active Gamer Social Club Discord to chat about all your other favourite roguelike games.