Motion Twin, the developer of Dead Cells, has given players an early peek at their next game for Steam Next Fest—a roguelike by the name of Windblown, which sees you (as one of several cute animal warriors) thrust into the storm alongside up to two of your buddies.
I was a little worried going in, considering the tumultuous relationship between Dead Cells' former designer and the studio—even if that does mean we've got/are getting three solid roguelikes from Motion Twin, Sébastien Benard, and Evil Empire—the studio that tinkered with Dead Cells' DLCs.
While my fears for the full thing aren't put to rest so much as halfway into bed (the demo is very short), Windblown already feels polished enough to be worth checking out, bare minimum. I can concur with Justin Wagner, who checked the game out for us earlier this month, in that it's already really dang satisfying.
The meat and potatoes of Windblown are as follows: You've got a dash, you've got two weapons, you can get reusable trinkets (such as a big bomb, or a whirlwind of blades) with hefty cooldowns, and you can swipe passive benefits from the echoes of other adventurers who waded into the big tornado.
The "alterattacks" system, where you do a special move if you swap to your other weapon after a certain number of swings, is a little fiddly. It juts up against the core mantra of a roguelike—to avoid damage at all costs—since windows where you're able to pull off a full alter combo are rare. This friction isn't inherently bad, if anything it's a good window for mastery, but I found myself wishing that you had a one-dodge grace window to chain into an alter attack, or something, just so I could make use of them more.
Outside of that, the game feels silky-smooth, everything feels precise and frictionless and exactly how you want a game like this to control. It helps that it's right pretty, too—the trailers don't do its pastel, brightly-saturated environments justice. Character models are a bit jarring at first, with their stark cel-shaded visuals, but I reckon that'll actually help cut through the visual noise which, I imagine, will be a problem once you've three players on screen.
There's not much to write home about otherwise, but only because the game's executing a load of old tricks very competently. If you like a good romp through Dead Cells or a bout of Hades, you'll be well-served by Windblown—besides, the demo (which is available until October 21) is only a couple of gigs and is free to try. You won't have to wait long if you miss it, though, early access drops October 24, though you've nothing to lose by dipping your toe in for free now.
