The game is called Sheep Lad and its indie dev, Robin Poe, calls it a spiritual successor to Zelda 2, and this pixel art adventure is racing to the top of the must-play list.
The game takes inspiration from Nintendo's Zelda 2 but with a focus on then kind of Soulslike combat that has made pixel art games like Blasphemous 2 so popular. The dev promises not to disappear down a cul de sac with button-basing and combos to remember, and instead the focus will be on well-timed parries and counters.
While many new 2D, pixel art Metroidvania focus on the dungeon aspect of the genre, Sheep Lad will be bigger, calling it an "intercontinental platformer / RPG" on Steam. The game features a role-playing 'overworld' with "caves, "caves, forests, mountains, towns and dungeons with secrets, oddities and danger everywhere you go".
The developer wrote on Steam: "I'm very passionate about making a world feel like a living breathing space, where every NPC, home, and village feels like a small part of a larger living, breathing world. There are secrets hidden behind every corner, people with routines and relationships, places with cultural beliefs and histories."
The Steam account has a number of screenshots and gifs from the upcoming game, including a large pixel art rendition of the main character, an actual dog-headed person. It's all a bit weird, but that Zelda 2 inspiration has already caught me.
Visit the developers Sheep Lad Steam page for more details, or follow him on Twitter. If you want to follow Poe and create your own game, take a look at our guide to the best laptops for game development and read up on Unreal Engine 5 and Unity, for the two leading game developer platforms.
