Duskfade, the new action platformer from Weird Baluga and Fireshine Games, feels like a throwback. I grew up on action platformers like Jak and Daxter, Ratchet and Clank, and Kingdom Hearts, and Duskfade very obviously wears its inspirations on its sleeves. It feels like a game from that PS2 era, plucked from time and brought forward to 2026. It lovingly borrows from all those titles, taking bits and pieces of inspiration and making them its own. Duskfade is a great action platformer with a solid story, gorgeous and creative level design, and decent combat, even if some parts of the package don’t live up to others.
Duskfade puts you in the shoes of a young boy named Zirian, on a quest to save his sister after an experiment gone wrong. He’s quickly joined by Cuckoo, an amnesiac little animatronic bird, and together they set out to break chains to a clock tower that holds his sister. It’s a fun and surprisingly endearing story about death, mourning, and letting go, genuinely catching me off guard at some points. While some plot points are more obvious and tropey than others, it’s earnest in its delivery and message, making it easy to like.
Zirian and Cuckoo travel through land after land, making their way to chains that need to be broken to access the clocktower. Each of these levels is gorgeous and looks hand-painted, with some stunning environments and locales. I worked out the screenshot button heavily, bright purples and greens blending together to incredible effect. The presentation here is one of the best parts of the package, and I genuinely looked forward to whatever came next just to drink in the visual splendour.
“Duskfade is a great action platformer with a solid story, gorgeous and creative level design, and decent combat…”
That creativity in the art style bleeds through to level design. Each level has different verticality and platforming goals, but more than anything, it nails a sense of distance. My favourite platformers are the ones that push you to use your entire movement kit to jump across great distances, and Duskfade nails that feeling. The jumps are floaty but usually precise, combining jumps, double jumps, air rolls, and more to cross chasms and reach platforms that look just out of reach, but aren’t. Each platforming section is a satisfying mix of movement and reading the space properly.
Combat is largely relegated to attacking with Zirian’s sword, and a handful of abilities are doled out over the course of the adventure. It’s largely fine, albeit with one note in its early hours. As you start to upgrade Zirian with a mix of crystals and collectibles found in the environment, Zirian starts to feel more fluid and capable. The issue with combat is that it never really evolves much, with most fights boiling down to hitting, rolling, and hitting again.
It starts to get repetitive as the hours tick by, and even though Duskfade has a pretty decent enemy pool, they can all boil down to the same strategies. Zirian doesn’t ever really feel suited to handling fights with large crowds of enemies, with attacks pouring in from all sides. None of his combat or movement kit feels suited for dealing with multiple aggressive enemies, and some of the monster closets can get frustrating.
The bosses, though, are fantastic. Each one may be similar structurally — do damage, platform, do more damage, platform, and so on — but every fight is memorable and tweaks things enough to feel different. They’re great skill tests that, final boss aside, don’t feel too tough or unfair. You have a limited number of health potions to help with fights if things start getting hairy. The final boss does ramp up the difficulty considerably, with multiple stages that can get frustrating, but the rest of the bosses are great. One boss encounter with a giant cloud king is particularly awesome, as you dodge his massive sword and move across platforms as the fight continues.
Once you’re done with the story, there’s plenty of reason to keep playing. Each level has a number of collectibles hidden around that take you off the beaten path. Some areas are inaccessible without later upgrades, so coming back is necessary to grab everything. The teleporter shows you how much you have in each space, meaning there’s more to find after you roll credits. Duskfade is also solid on Steam Deck, with the Steam Deck preset keeping it a relatively constant 40fps with occasional drops while still looking beautiful.
All of this ends up blending together to create a really solid action platformer that is a joy to play. Duskfade’s platforming is fantastic, with great level designs that nail a sense of motion and distance. Combat is solid, even if it does get repetitive, with the bosses being the stars of the experience. Duskfade feels like a love letter to the genre and everything that came before it, while doing enough to set itself apart.
