The latest title from Kyle Thompson, developer of popular graveyard keeping, the Crypt Custodian and Islets, has arrived in the form of Well Dweller, a gorgeous looking Metroidvania.

Starring Glimmer, your feathered friend, armed with a matchstick, you’ll need to explore a massive world to find the seven golden feathers to rescue your flock and defeat the evil Queen.

It releases on 22 September 2026 for PC, PS5, Switch 2, and Xbox Series consoles. It’s also available day one on Xbox Game Pass. Why not check out our review?

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Well Dweller

In Well Dweller, you will be exploring an extensive map, taking on enemies, defeating sinister bosses and find a whole load of collectibles to upgrade Glimmer. With this beginner’s guide, we’re going to try to cover all the key things to look out for as you work through the world.

Your main objective is to find the seven golden feathers in the game. This will grant you access to the Queen’s castle in The Bog area of the game (yellow zone on the map). You’ll get these for defeating major bosses, or major events in the game. They aren’t hidden, you get these as you progress through the main campaign.

Save Points

Across the map you’ll find tents where you can save your progress. If you die, you’ll respawn at the last tent you saved at. You can also enter the tent to talk to various characters, upgrade trinkets, buy locations for your map, and buy trinkets and items from Looter’s shop.

Save points are indicated by purple tents in a pentagon on the map.

Looter’s Shop

You’ll unlock Looter’s shop once you’ve met him in the second area, the Hunter’s Cabin. He’ll make himself available to you to buy trinkets. He also stocks additional oil vessels for restoring health and vessels. You can buy trinket slots from him too, and he has a massive inventory of about 100 slots. Of course this all costs in-game currency that you acquire from killing enemies.

Exploration

A good Metroidvania allows you to explore and not get completely stuck. Eventually, you’ll find where you need to go. If you can’t access somewhere obviously, assume you need to wait until you’ve unlocked a later ability to progress.

However, if you’re really stuck, you use the map area in the save tent to add main objective marker to the map. This costs a decent chunk of in-game currency.

Make sure you use markers too. If you spot a collectible or time trial you can’t get to or complete, you can add a marker to the map using Y (Xbox). This can serve as a helpful reminder to come back, rather than trying to remember, or spending currency on a marker.

Another thing about markers, when you enter a room with a locked section, the padlock marker will appear in the top right of the area of the room. This doesn’t mean the switch to unlock it or the locked section is located in that space.

Minimap

I would highly recommend heading to the settings menu and enable the minimap display so it appears in the bottom right of the screen.

You’ll spend a lot of time looking at the map, and the mini-map just helps give you an idea of the possible entrances / exits to a room.

Press Start, go to the ‘Options’ tab at the top of the screen, then select the ‘Gameplay’ option. Select, ‘Minimap’ and switch it to ‘On’.

Combat

Combat in Well Dweller is fairly easy to grasp but is a lot of fun when you combine your different skills together.

Your main attack is with the matchstick, on Xbox this is with the X button. You don’t have a stamina bar, so you can keep smashing attack. Some enemies will flinch on hit, other enemies can tank the hit and still attack. You’ll need to keep an eye on the enemies to make sure you don’t get hit. You can evade enemies using RB (Xbox) which slides you out of the way, making you invulnerable for a short amount of time as you dodge.

Your health is limited and the enemies do a fair amount of damage so be careful. Enemies will telegraph their attacks via a noise and a pink symbol that appears above their head. Some enemies will fire projectiles. It’s recommended to give observe an enemy on a first encounter to know what you’re facing. Some enemies explode or fire of a last attack as they die so always have your wits about you.

Vessel

Early on, you’ll unlock the vessel skill, which allows you to throw a flaming vessel at enemies using B (Xbox). Later on, you can find trinkets that boost the vessel, including allowing it to bounce before it explodes. The vessel does a fair amount of damage and is recharged from successfully attacking enemies. They’re particularly useful against bosses.

You can buy additional vessels to throw at Looter’s shop in the save tents. There are also plenty of trinkets that affect the vessel and its abilities.

Abilities

As with all good Metroidvanias, you’ll start with basic set of skills / abilities, which you’ll upgrade and add to as the game progresses. We’ve listed all the collectible abilities below so you know what skills you’ll be looking out for, and give you confidence that you’re not missing something if you can’t access an area as yet.

There are eight abilities to get in the game.

• Slingshot – allows you to throw your matchstick. It can damage enemies when you throw it, and if it sticks into a wall you can bounce on it to gain additional height.
• Climb – holding A (Xbox) lets you climb up and down straight walls. You have certain amount of stamina before you let go.
• Tent Travel – let’s you fast travel between save tents. You can fast travel from the map screen, just find the icon on the map and press and hold A to fast travel.
• Wind Ride – lets you fly in wind tunnels, indicated by rushing wind animations.
• Hover – press A midair to hover. You can use this fly across gaps. You have a short amount of time to hover, this can be extended by finding additional feathers scattered around the The Lookout Tower area (pale blue area on the map).
• Endless Climb – lets you climb endlessly without falling from fatigue. Long walls are no longer an obstacle.
• Wall Sling – lets you plant your matchstick in the wall using RT while you’re climbing the wall. This means you can create a platform midway up a higher wall to jump across or get higher (especially if the wall isn’t straight).
• Soar – unlocked at the very end of the game, this lets you slam into the floor (Down + X) and on jumping (A) lets you take off to fly high to previously unreachable places.

Collectables

There are a number of collectables to find in the game:

• Story Pages – floating pages that add to one of three additional stories.
• Spirits – these are trapped bird spirits. They are sealed in stone statues.
• Trinkets – items that can grant additional abilities or buffs to Glimmer.
• Trinket Slots – needed to increase the capacity for carrying trinkets
• Workshop Tokens – used alongside currency to upgrade a number of trinkets up to two additional times, improving their effect.

If you are struggling to find a collectible, you can spend in-game currency to add a location to your map for somewhere where you have previously visited.

Story Pages

Keep an eye out for these to unlock additional lore in the game. They are floating pages and can be well hidden. All but one of these can be found before you reach the Queen’s Castle. The last one is in the castle itself. There are 22 Story Pages to find.

Spirits

There are 20 spirits to find throughout the game. These are trapped in stone statues that you need to attack. This will free the spirit. Once you’ve done that you will have collected the spirit. Return to the area on the map in the Night Garden to ‘return’ the spirit to where it belongs.

You will need to return all 20 to complete the final objective at the end of the game. Returning each spirit will grant you a reward either currency, trinkets, or trinket slots.

Trinkets

You can upgrade Glimmer’s abilities and give some passive abilities through the use of trinkets. There 32 scattered throughout the game to find. Some can be bought from Looter’s shop, and others are found in the world.

Each trinket has a different shape and do a range of different things. Some give benefit in combat, others help exploration.

I would recommend purchasing the Glass Eye and Weathered Coin trinkets as early as you can.

The Glass Eye makes hidden passages easier to spot. The Weathered Coin increases the amount of currency you get from killing enemies, this means you’ll have more to spend on more trinkets and trinket slots.

Trinket Slots

Different trinkets take up a different number of trinket slots. You will need to find or buy trinket slots to increase the number of trinkets you can carry. It doesn’t seem like there’s a limit to how many you can have. I finished the game with 105 slots, and Looter still have about 50 to buy, so there’s certainly the potential to equip a lot.

Trinket slots look like diamond shapes. They glow with a white light.

Workshop Tokens

Later in the game you will unlock the ability to upgrade trinkets in the tent. Use the workshop tokens and the in-game currency to upgrade trinkets. This gives a bump to their effect. Some have one upgrade, some have two. Some have none at all. There are more tokens available than there are upgrades.

Jar Smashing

Keep an eye out for pots and jars to smash. These contain quite a lot of in-game currency. Some of these are hidden in secret passages.

Time Trials

Occasioanlly, you’ll come across large bird statues. Interacting these will take you to a time trial level. These provide a range of platforming challenges against the clock. You’ll have to be quick and make next to no mistakes to succeed.

Success means access to a locked that will usually contain a collectible such as trinket, spirit, or trinket slot. You may need to come back to these when you’ve unlocked additional abilities.

Combat Challenges

Occasionally, you’ll come across bubbling skull cauldron’s. These will activate a combat challenge where you need to defeat a number of enemies to progress. Once you have passed these, if you leave the room and return, you’ll see a floating animated skull that you can interact with.

If you do, this will start a combat challenge where you can earn a 100 of in-game currency if you complete the same combat challenge without taking any damage. If you take a hit, the challenge will immediately end and you will receive a few hearts to top up your health.

Bosses

There’s a whole load of bosses to take on in Well Dweller and they provide a good challenge. Some are simpler than others and some can feel overwhelming on a first encounter. You should take a bit of time to learn the attacks, they tend to repeat the order of attacks, or at the very least you’ll have an idea of what to expect.

Some of the later bosses require you to use some of your abilities to dodge environmental hazards too. Most bosses tend to change their attack patterns at half health, you’ll notice the music shift that indicates this. Again, learn the moves and expect to die.

If you’re struggling, have a look at your trinket loadout and see if any other might help. If you’re still stuck, go kill some enemies, gain some currency and buy additional health, vessels, or trinkets to give you an edge.

Point of No Return

There is no point of no return in Well Dweller. Once you have taken on the Queen, you return to the map and can continue exploring to pick up anything you’ve missed.

All collectibles can be grabbed before you go to the Queen’s Castle apart from one of the pages linked to ‘The Witch’s Bargain’ tale. You’ll know you’re there because you’ll need to have all seven golden feathers and returned to the gate in The Bog area.

Reunite the Flock

The game isn’t over once you’ve beaten the Queen. You will be given a final objective once you’ve acquired the Soar ability to visit locations that aren’t on the map. This will be to collect Spirit Fragments. There are five to collect. Once you have done that, return to the location where you return the spirits you collect to complete this final objective.

As I collected all 20 spirits before taking on the Queen I don’t know if this would trigger if you don’t have all 20, but why wouldn’t you want to save them all anyway?

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We hope you found this guide helpful. Check out more Well Dweller guides below:

Well Dweller Guides

• Well Dweller Achievement / Trophy List
• Find the Elevator Parts in The Drains
• Extend Your Flight Time in The Lookout Tower, Feather Locations
• Solve the Orb & Pillar Puzzles guide in the Autumn Forest
• Find the Gate Stones in The Docks
• Find Ilda’s Siblings in the Queen’s Castle
• Unlock the “Bouncing Bottles” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “Snatched Up” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “A Warm File” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “Hide and Seek” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “Taking a Break” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock “The King’s Cap” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the Golden Gates and the “Stitched Up” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “Late Night Guest” achievement / trophy guide
• Unlock the “Together at Last” achievement / trophy guide

Collectibles Guides

• All Trinket Locations (“Hobby Collector”, “Experienced Collector”, and “Expert Collector” achievements / trophies)
• All Spirit Locations (Full Flock and “Halfway There” achievements / trophies)
• All Story Page Location “The Tattered Doll”, “Above the Kingdom” and the “First-Born Daughter” achievements / trophies)

Boss Fights

• The Groundskeeper – Night Garden
• The Swarm – The Bog
• The Lady of the Drains – The Drains
• Lida the Terrible – Graven Valley
• Shrine of the Seven Sons – Midnight Drench
• Starsinger – The Lookout Tower
• Forest King – Autumn Forest
• Creature from the Deep – The Docks
• The Colony – The Depths
• Dollmaker’s Mirror – Dollmaker’s House
• Gravedigger – Burial Vault
• Silver Doll – Queen’s Castle
• The Queen – Queen’s Castle