Gamescom 2025 is over and in total I played 30 different games, spanning a wide-range of genres and developers and in these five previews I want to highlight my thoughts on each one and if I think they are worth your time. As always, there will be links to the game pages for you to wishlist if something catches your eye, and this time I am also including demo links if you want to try the game yourself.

In this fourth set of previews I’ll be talking all about platforming games. Some are more action focused, others are more metroidvania focused and some are just pure challenge. As long as you like jumping and maybe slashing, there will be a game here for you!

By the way, if you are wondering about Bubsy 4D or Silksong, I never actually came across the former while on the show floor and it turns out the latter was the same demo I played back in 2019. It’s good and exactly what you’d expet if you played the first Hollow Knight.

Ninja Gaiden 4

• Platforms: Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: 21 October 2025
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

The definitive ninja action-adventure franchise returns with NINJA GAIDEN 4! Embark on a cutting-edge adventure where legacy meets innovation in a high-octane blend of style and no-holds-barred combat.

The only Xbox game I played at Gamescom (and pretty much the only one coming out I had any interest in) is the return of Ninja Gaiden, by Platinum Games and Team Ninja. In the demo I only got to play as new protagonist Yakumo, fighting his enemies on the top of metropolis buildings, wall-running across billboards and ending in a silver samurai boss battle. It was fast-paced, action-packed and difficult. It also felt exactly like a Platinum Games action game.

My understanding from the trailers is that the Ryu Hayabusa sections will feel like traditional Ninja Gaiden games while Yakumo’s sections are done in the classic Platinum Games action framework, seen in titles like Bayonetta, Astral Chain and Nier Automata. And just like those games there are some differences made to make it feel more like the series it’s based on. In combat I pulled off many of the classic moves, including the well-known Izuna Drop. There’s also a grapple hook which I love in games, and a gauge-based install called Bloodraven Mode.

I’m not sure I fully understand what Bloodraven Form wants from the player though. My understanding is that Yakumo can absorb damage while this is active and then counter/parry attacks to deal back massive damage. It was a requirement to master against the silver samurai boss battle but I found it only worked some of the time, and I had better luck with the tried and true hit-and-run manoeuvre. Not that this worked either in the long-run, mind you. 

Ninja Gaiden 4 certainly retains the difficulty of its predecessors. I was having a blast fighting the mooks and building my way up to the boss, getting sick stealth kills and pulling off big combos on the enemies I came across. But the silver samurai kicked my ass over and over again until the demo ran out. It started to get frustrating and even felt a little unfair at times. I could always drive him to his second phase but then the attacks became too fast, too large and the Bloodraven gauge didn’t fill up fast enough for me to parry anything effectively (when it actually worked).

Maybe I do just need to get good. I won’t pretend that I’m some kind of Ninja Gaiden master or anything. But I didn’t have the patience for it, or the time, during the demo. Instead, I was left with the takeaway that this game is very much a Platinum Games take on Ninja Gaiden. The combat and stylings of the former with all the difficulty of the latter. I saw some people online compare it to Metal Gear Rising in tone and I think that is pretty apt. Yukomo definitely has a bit of Raiden energy to him. Whether that is something you want however, is up to you.

Cathedral: Crow’s Curse

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: To be Announced
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Set in the same universe as Cathedral, but with its own story and style, Cathedral: Crow’s Curse is an action-adventure with tight combat and a focus on exploration. Parry, dodge and fight your way through numerous enemies in a rich detailed world as you uncover the events leading up to Cathedral.

I’d never heard of the original Cathedral before. Released on all platforms, the game is an 8-bit search-action game that immediately brings to mind Shovel Knight at a glance. Open-world Shovel Knight lets call it. So it’s only natural that when making a new game in the entry, the series would jump into the 16-bit and improve upon many of the elements found in the original. But I’m not sure anyone was expecting it to be updated to quite this extent.

Cathedral: Crow’s Curse is a prequel to the original game starring one of that first games side-characters: Crow. Unlike the knight of the original game, Crow is far more agile and ninja-like, and with that comes the must-have feature of any search-action game – good movement and flow. While it needs to be unlocked, Crow can wall-jump, air dash and I would bet on double jump and maybe even a grapple hook becoming features later on. It has a lot of Super Metroid meets Silksong energy to its design.

Another game that Crow’s Curse reminded me of that might not be immediately apparent however, is FromSoftware’s Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice. Unlike other FromSoftware games, the combat of Sekiro is very parry focused. Facing off against your enemy face-to-face and timing your blocks and counters perfectly. Crow’s Curse is extremely similar and equally satisfying. I’ve played quite a few search-action games that utilise a parry mechanic, including Nintendo’s own Metroid Dread, and Crow’s Curse may very well be the best execution of it. 

There’s some rhythmic about the parrying in Crow’s Curse. Every enemy feels like it’s moving to a beat and when you pick up on that the parry becomes second nature. One really neat spear enemy I fought left me satisfied as I learnt its rhythm and pulled off several consecutively successful ‘block, block, parry’ maneuvers, stunning the enemy and leaving it open to an assassination. That’s another mechanic in this game, the ability to stun opponents and close in for a more cinematic insta-kill. It has to be done to get a certain resource and almost every enemy can be killed in this way, so it is heavily encouraged. 

As a lover of platformers and search-action games, I really enjoyed Crow’s Curse and it has gotten me interested in trying out the original game. The game was only just announced so it seems like it will be sometime until it’s released, but it is a game that I am choosing to keep my eyes on.

Constance

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
• Release Date: 24 November 2025
• Demo?: Yes
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Constance is a 2D hand-drawn action adventure featuring a paintbrush-wielding artist, striving to escape from a colorful but decaying inner-world, created by her declining mental health.

Everyone is hyped for Silksong next week, a hype that is deserved, but I don’t believe it will be the only top tier search-action game of 2025. Constance is another title in the genre with an equally similar build-up. I remember seeing the game on Twitter back in its early days but it’s only now that I’ve gotten to play it. And I’m pleased to share that it is a really good time.

The main gameplay gimmick of Constance that makes it stand out is its paint mechanic and how that ties into a form of resource management you don’t usually see in this genre. Resources in a search-action game are often tied to ammo or magic, and can hit zero making that weapon unavailable. Think missiles in Metroid. In Constance, your paint is a tool that is used for the majority of moves in the game from special attacks to movement options, and is a resource that will slowly regenerate over time, rather than one you have to collect items for. 

The game asks you to manage this bar with carefully planned out moves, not rushing your way through the game’s many battles and platforming challenges, and avoid taking damage. It has an interesting penalty for death where the player can choose to reset themselves back to their last save point, or return to the start of the room they died in but at the cost of losing ¼ of their paint bar. This makes the punishment for death either a loss of progress or a more difficult time pushing forward, really forcing the player to start planning their movements out more carefully.

There’s also another punishment to losing paint, and that’s a temporary fatigue status where Constance’s hair turns black and damage is increased. It’s a cursed effect that some enemies also have and forces the player to start thinking defensively until they’ve recovered. It’s a way to discourage brute force and promote a smart playstyle, which I appreciate.

I know I’ve made it sound like the game is very punishing, but I think these kinds of limitations are useful in making a better experience. Balancing punishment for failure has always been a tricky one that not even veterans of the industry like Nintendo have solved, and I think what Constance has implemented here works for the genre.

The other part of Constance I really liked are its environments. So often are games of this genre set in dark ruins, or underground caves. There’s a lot you can do with that basic setting, but even with its variations it does still feel a tad repetitive. The art world in Constance that I got to play through was a refreshing biome that rarely gets seen in games like this. It was brighter and more aesthetically interesting, even if it was still using the abandoned city idea. It goes to show what a good colour palette and music can accomplish. 

So while I am looking forward to playing Silksong, I am equally as excited to try out the full version of Constance in a few months. There’s a demo available on Steam right now, so if you want to get a bit of a fix ahead of Silksong next week then go try it out now.

Grime II

• Platforms: Windows
• Release Date: 2025
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

Become the stealer of forms in GRIME II, a surreal action-adventure metroidvania. launch tendrils made of hands to absorb foes and summon molds in their shape, as you explore a bizarre lived-in-world obsessed with art.

A game where saying I got ‘hands-on’ with it has never been a more apt description. The original Grime is a critically-acclaimed, Souls-like search-action RPG that saw the player going through a dreary, ruined world fighting against monsters. Grime II appears to be more of the same but with a really cool art direction and character design that makes heavy use of the ‘hands’ motif. In a way, it’s another very artsy-focused Metroidvania.

But that’s all aesthetic. The gameplay is quite varied and brings to mind the Castlevania approach to the genre, more specifically Aria of Sorrow. One of the key mechanics in Grime II is the mold feature, which allows the player to latch onto and absorb injured enemies, creating a mold of them. It’s similar in idea to the souls of monsters mechanic from Aria of Sorrow that allowed Soma to steal and use moves based on the monsters he fought. In Grime II however, the mold is obtained through a special stun kill instead of by random chance.

You might think that makes Grime II’s version of the mechanic a lot easier to obtain, so to counter-act this, in Grime II you must hit a minimum required molds before the ability unlocks. The two powers I got, one a physical flick from a finger monster and the other a spiky shield, required me to kill at least 10 of each in this special style before the power became mine. This may still sound easier to some but I like that it rewards skillful play rather than random chance, and it will allow these skills to be more required down the line if the devs feel like it.

There’s a lot of hype behind Grime II online in the Metroidvania community and I can see why. It’s a game with a strong atmosphere and good controls. Plus, I still can’t get over how good the character design is. It may not look like it but the protagonist’s cloak is made out of hands. He has more hands on him than Shiggy from My Hero Academia. The game has such strong art direction, that alone is making me appreciate it a whole lot more. Hopefully it does make its 2025 release date.

Super Meat Boy 3D

• Platforms: PS5, Xbox Series X/S, Windows
• Release Date: 2026
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

The infamous, tough-as-nails platformer – now in 3D!

I had completely forgotten that a 3D Super Meat Boy game had been recently revealed so I was surprised to come across it during Gamescom. I enjoyed the first one quite a lot and was very curious to see how the game would translate into 3D. I’m happy to report that it translates surprisingly well. It has some hiccups, I had the occasional depth perception problem where I didn’t realise I was close to the back wall and got sliced by something on the z-axis, but for the most part the game has been designed in a way that captures the exact feelings of the original, just with more polygons.

And  there are a lot of polygons here. On top of the gameplay transition from 2D to 3D feeling very natural, the game itself looks really good. It’s a perfect version of the Team Meat style in 3D, able to capture the cuteness of its characters along with the gross out parts, with the titular living slab of meat leaving trails of meat juices on his path.

I don’t really have much more to add to this really. If you played the original Super Meat Boy then you’ll know exactly what to expect here. More tight and difficult platforming that requires a full mastery of the mechanics to get a good time in – now in 3D.

PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC

• Platforms: Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, Windows
• Release Date: 25 September 2025
• Demo?: No
• Wishlist: Steam Page

PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC modernizes, updates, and enhances the fan favorite 3D Platforming adventure in nearly every way! Venture across PAC-LAND to reclaim the golden fruit and put a stop to the ghosts and their dastardly boss, Spooky!

The PAC-MAN WORLD series is a blind-spot of my childhood. The only PAC-MAN I grew up with is the classic one… on Game Boy and Game Boy Advance. My first experience with PAC-MAN WORLD was the first Re-PAC game and unfortunately I didn’t think it was anything special. I got a few worlds into it and then just gave up. It felt very dated.  Thankfully, PAC-MAN WORLD 2 Re-PAC is a much better game, from what I have played so far at least.

It’s a far more open 3D platformer with bigger levels, more secrets and more abilities while still retaining many of the classic PAC-MAN elements that the first World game implemented. Collecting pellets and turning into mega PAC-MAN when consuming a power pellet, allowing you to chomp down on those pesky ghosts. Combat is simple but effective and the charge-dash attack works wonderfully to speed through the level while ploughing through enemies. It feels like an evolution of the first game, in a good way.

My only real issue with the game was the boss battle at the end of the demo against Pinky in a giant mechanical polar bear. That fight wasn’t complicated but it went on for way too long and the punishment for death is to start the whole fight over again. It was a slog to get through and eventually I just gave up, I didn’t have the time to wait around for the single move she has that I can counter. Truly boss design of its era, that should have stayed in its era.

Preview 1 (multiplayer, cozy) | Preview 2 (horror, adventure) | Preview 3 (RPG) | Preview 4 (platformers, metroidvanias) | Preview 5 (rhythm, roguelite and FPS)