Dead Cells developer’s new action-roguelike Windblown is getting a demo and Early Access release this month

Windblown is an action roguelite much like Dead Cells, the previous game from developer Motion Twin, but it trades sidescrolling ‘vania vibes for a 3D and more colourful world, and adds co-op for up to three pals. That sounds plenty appealing, and it now has a release date: October 24th.

Better still, on October 14th, it’s getting a singleplayer demo as part of the Steam Next Fest.

Dead Cells had fabulous-feeling combat and an exciting progression system that made each new run exciting. Despite the change in style and perspective, Windlbown seems to want to offer a similar experience as you dash and smash across floating sky islands.

That dash is seemingly key, based on Edwin’s impressions from seeing a Windblown presentation back at GDC.

“Windblown’s dash seems expressive, at times, of deep impatience towards the rest of the game, which sounds perverse on the surface, but makes sense when you consider the roguelike’s intrinsic element of repetition. It’s a dash dedicated to the experienced player’s desire to immediately return to the biome where they last popped their clogs,” Edwin wrote. “There are some familiar elements that slow you down, however: boss enemies that must be fought to progress the story, and the basic pressure to defeat foes and gather new equipment, or else get your arse handed to you by an unskippable threat in the next biome along.”

My favourite times with Dead Cells came early in its Early Access, when it was likewise a game of dash-rolling impatience, and where most enemies could be bested via turret deployments and ladder-based cheese strats. Once the updates came, forcing me to slow and engage with its deeper systems, it was still fun but no longer freewheeling and frivolous. I’m inclined to hop on the Windblown train early, in case it charts a similar path.

The demo seems a good place to start. It’ll launch on October 14th, and while limited to singleplayer online, progress made will carry over to the full game ten days later. You’ll find a few more details over on Steam.