ShipShaper: Falconeer Chronicles

• Developer: Tomas Sala
• Publisher: Wired Productions
• Release Date: Out Now (Early Access)
• Platforms: PC

From the mind that gave us Falconeer and Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles comes ShipShaper, a creation game solely focused on the design and creation of sea vessels. Without any previous 3D skills required, use the game’s simple and intuitive tools to pull, stretch, and style your creations. Once you’ve finished your creation, take it out on its maiden voyage in the ocean world of the Ursee, or display it in a bottle or diorama and admire your work.

But what if you could take your vessels beyond ShipShaper? Players can export the FBX or STL 3D files with a license to use how they see fit, from modding to indie development. Owners of Bulwark: Falconeer Chronicles also have the option to import their ships into the game!

Whether you’re a veteran seadog or a novice landlubber when it comes to designing and crafting, ShipShaper gives everyone the chance to be the captain of their own ship.

A demo is available on PC.

Monowave

• Developer: Studio BBB Inc.
• Publisher: Phoenixx Inc.
• Release Date: September 16th (2026)
• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch (PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S)

Go on a heartfelt journey through a world of colour and emotion in Monowave, a side-scrolling puzzle-platformer where you use various feelings to solve puzzles and explore the world.

You are Mono, a new spirit guardian on an adventure to reunite the four key emotions: Happiness, Anxiety, Anger, and Sorrow. Use traversal abilities tied to each emotion, like wall-jumping and squeezing through gaps, and spread them to other spirits by singing, changing how they behave and opening up routes forward.

With its unique linework art style inspired by children’s scratch-art books, the option to play it solo or in couch co-op, and its message about the power of emotions, Monowave is the perfect game for parents to play with their kids.

A demo is available on PC.

Valor Mortis

• Developer: One More Level
• Publisher: Lyrical Games
• Release Date: October 13th
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S

One More Level, the dev team behind the Ghostrunner series, is entering the Souls-like genre arena with Valor Mortis, a visceral, first-person action RPG set during the Napoleonic Wars in an alternate history. As William, you served Napoleon, died for Napoleon, and you will rise again for Napoleon.

A mysterious plague is sweeping across a war-torn Europe, the very same plague that raised you from the dead and now courses through your veins, unlocking powerful supernatural abilities. Pair these newfound powers with a fast-paced combat system built on parries, dodges, and violent finishers to fight your way through the plague-ridden hordes of Napoleon’s Eternal Guard.

What is the source of this strange plague, and why were you resurrected? Take your first steps into a dark world where horror and history bleed together.

A demo is available on PC.

Usual June

• Developer & Publisher: Finji
• Release Date: October 28th
• Platforms: PC

Summer break is different for everyone, but for June and her friends, it means crystal monsters invading the cemetery, talking to ghosts, and a mystery that threatens to destroy their home of Fen Harbor.

Usual June is a third-person action-adventure game that fully embraces the “Weird America” vibe, bringing the supernatural to a sleepy Midwest town where the worst things most teenagers worry about are bad grades and annoying parents. Master a flashy and fluid combat system, successfully dodging attacks to fill June’s super meter for massive attacks, avoiding damage to recharge her armour, and unlocking new abilities, from projectile attacks to summons, as she levels up.

Visit 20 locations across Fen Harbour, meet over 25 characters (both alive and dead), change June’s fighting style by equipping charms, and track everything on your trusty phone. Help June get to the bottom of what is going on, save her home, and maybe figure out what her future holds.

A demo is available on PC.

Elements Destiny

• Developer: ShrooMoon UG
• Publisher: Deck13
• Release Date: Q4 2026
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S, Nintendo Switch

Elements Destiny is a JRPG set in Solitas, where protagonist Erika must gather the descendants of the Clans of Elements to stop a catastrophic threat known as the Dark Foray. Joined by her companions Lia, Maline, and Karen, Erika needs to face her own fears as well as vast hordes of hand-drawn threats trying to stop her and doom the world. 

The world of Solitas is bursting with charm, from the wonderful pixel art of the overworld, the expressive portraits of the characters (each one with an abundance of models for even the smallest change in emotion), and the switch to the hand-drawn background and monster designs during combat. Set to deliver over 70 hours of narrative-driven gameplay, with full German voice acting – courtesy of some big names in the German anime community, no less – and an extensive soundtrack of over 100 tracks. There are also the traditional crafting mechanics for weapons, potions, and trinkets for fans of RPGs to enjoy alongside modern quality-of-life improvements that make it worth a wishlist.

A demo is available on PC.

Hellforged

• Developer: Moonpyre
• Publisher: Grindstone
• Release Date: 2026
• Platforms:

Since the huge success of Vampire Survivors a few years ago, plenty of studios have released their own versions of the Bullet Heaven game. Some of them are a lot of fun, some are very barebones, and most subscribe to the set it and forget it loop that later game runs of Vampire Survivors fall into. Get enough meta progression, pick up a couple of powerful items in the first few level-ups, sit your controller down, and watch the screen become a fireworks display. 

Hellforged from Moonpyre Studios is not that. It’s an extraction bullet heaven, where you need to gather resources, gear up your character, and choose perks from a sprawling skill tree between runs and, if you don’t pay attention, you are going to die. Quickly. You get to choose from a selection of characters, then jump in and try to survive until extraction while activating rifts, completing quests, and gathering as much loot as possible. It’s a really fun take on the genre, with a good balance between the passive abilities and active skills, where you’ll be dodging out of hordes of enemies frantically waiting for skill cooldowns so you can volley off a massive combo.

A demo is available on PC.

Crystals of Irm

• Developer: David Schütze
• Publisher: Deck 13
• Release Date: Q1 2027
• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, XBOX Series X/S, Nintendo Switch

Get ready for an old-school adventure in Crystals of Irm, a retro-inspired RPG that blends elements from dungeon crawlers and strategy games with a unique combat system we guarantee you’ve never seen before!

Take your trio of heroes on an epic quest to find and reunite the three titular crystals of Irm, as is foretold in legend. Explore a vast, 2D world map strewn with locations, points of interest, and secrets to discover, and navigate busy settlements and dank dungeons in first-person. As if that wasn’t enough, the game’s combat is like something out of Undertale, with the player moving around a map grid as enemies fire projectiles at you. Charge your party’s attacks by moving, and activate their icons when they appear on the grid to fight back! Learn enemy projectile patterns, avoid hazard tiles, and activate multiple icons at once to unleash powerful abilities.

It’s a big world out there, so take on some quests for NPCs, level up your party, acquire better gear, and be the first to fulfill a legend later this year when Crystals of Irm launches in ***ber!

A demo is available on PC.

Beyond the Plastic Wall

• Developer: Motvind Studios
• Publisher: ARTE France
• Release Date: 2027
• Platforms: PC

With its stunning 2.5D pixel art and retrofuturistic mechanical puzzles, Beyond the Plastic Wall is an action-adventure game that promises a deeply atmospheric journey through a beautiful world of crumbling cities and vast wilderness. You play as Hal, a scavenger who journeys into the world to find the mysterious woman behind a sealed box of letters, living at the end of the world. 

With a mix of rich storytelling, ‘tech-nostalgic’ puzzle-solving, and a cast of strange and charming characters, it looks to be a poignant experience that fans of narrative-driven exploration won’t want to miss.

A demo is available on PC.

Wilderings: The Lost Spring

• Developer: Herobeat Studios
• Publisher: Kabam Games, Inc.
• Release Date: 2027
• Platforms: PC

Wilderings: The Lost Spring, a blend of roguelite, creature-collecting, and metoridvania design set in a world that has been enveloped in a vile corruption. Dive down from your skyship, restore the ecosystem, and save your world.

With each run, you explore various biomes and face off against twisted creatures, unlocking springs and rewilding the environment, with a slew of traversal abilities, from wall-running to a glider, to navigate your surroundings and enemy encounters. As you heal the world, its original inhabitants, the Hantu, return to assist you on your adventure, fighting alongside you, leveling up, and expanding your skill set.

At the end of a run, return to your skyship to plant seeds for permanent boosts, feed and care for your Hantu, and decorate your floating home in beautiful, vibrant flora. To save a broken world, you must master the Wilds.

A demo is available on PC.

Forge of the Fae

• Developer: Datadyne LLC
• Publisher: Deck13
• Release Date: TBA
• Platforms: PC

Inspired by Celtic folklore, Forge of the Fae is a pixel-art RPG following young inventor Fiora on a quest to solve a series of mysterious disappearances happening in the midst of a violent mining company strike. Blending nostalgic charm with modern design, the game features JRPG turn-based combat where players use elemental magic, combo abilities, and special powered-up Adrenaline Surge moves to fight through the world. The game features a standard point-based level-up system, alongside its unique ARC Crystal System to let you customise your characters’ builds and swap things up to overcome new challenges. 

The demo on Steam covers the first few hours of the game, so you’ll get a chance to get to know Fiora and her Mechanical Faerie companion, experiment with the battle system, and spend some time enjoying the music and characters in this beautiful pixel art world where your choices affect the outcome of the story – for better or worse.

A demo is available on PC.

Spellsided

• Developer & Publisher: Mass Transfer Interactive
• Release Date: TBA
• Platforms: PC

Did you ever make your own paper dice as a child? You could go with the standard 1-6, or put whatever you want on each face. So what if you could use spells and make your own magic die? That’s the premise behind Spellsided, a dice-based dungeon-crawler where you don’t roll a die; you are the die.

I got the opportunity to play a demo for Spellsided at Gamescom, and it was a blast. You collect spells from the levels and map them to a specific face of your die, then manoeuvre yourself into the correct position to cast them. The Gamescom demo had a variety of spells, like one that made platforms appear and disappear if you were on top when you moved, and a big magnet that pushes blocks and enemies when activated. It sounds simple enough, but trying to work out what face is where at any given moment after moving was surprisingly challenging – so you really need to think hard about your next roll. 

The demo currently available on Steam is slightly different, showing off the basics of movement (yours and enemies), combat, and how to pocket spells to make them easily accessible for your next few turns. It’s a delightful little title with gorgeous voxel art in the overworld, and pixel art for the characters; that will definitely be a big hit for puzzle fans.

A demo is available on PC.

Pocket Wheels

• Developer: Florian Wolf
• Publisher: Deck13
• Release Date: TBA
• Platforms: PC

We played a lot of demos at Gamescom this year; almost all of them were brilliant, but Pocket Wheels might have been my favourite. Definitely top 5. You play as a little toy car in this level-based 3D platformer. Yep, jump in – we’re doing Mario 64 as a Hot Wheels car.

It’s exactly as much fun as it sounds, as you rev, ramp, and glide your way across the rooms of a suburban home collecting batteries and juice cans. Each level is its own room, very much set up like a child dragged all the stuff from the cupboards to make the sickest race track possible. You earn batteries by completing races and obstacle courses in your customisable toy car, or by finding hidden challenges in the world (like driving straight into an arcade cabinet screen and turning into a spaceship). It’s colourful, it’s creative, it’s just good fun.

A demo is available on PC.