1666 Amsterdam is out and unfinished – but that's the whole point

1666: Amsterdam trailer shows a woman walking through a crowd with a gray sky in the background.

Finding something genuinely exciting and fresh in the world of video games is getting harder by the year. Not that I think the pursuit of novelty supersedes all else – some games work best when they deviate as little as possible from their well-established subgenres. But 1666 Amsterdam already feels like the perfect Early Access game for all the ways it defies expectation.

Helmed by Patrice Désilets, the founding father of Assassin's Creed, Panache Digital Game's hard-won-back IP existing in a playable state in 2026 feels like a victory lap in itself. That said, experiencing the witchy action-adventure first-hand during a 1666 Amsterdam preview did expose some of its more obvious teething problems.