The Knightling Preview: A charming and charismatic action-adventure

Steam Next Fests can be wonderful places to get a taste of some of the lesser known upcoming indies and AA titles. While there are countless demos available to check out during these festivals, for the February 2025 edition, one game that should be at the top of your testing list is without a doubt Twirlbound's The Knightling, and I say that as someone who has already been able to experience the demo that the developer has prepared for the wider public.

The Knightling is a lovely and charismatic action-adventure game that follows a knight's squire who is called up to take action and protect his people after his mentor disappears without a trace. Armed with solely a shield that can be used as a melee tool and a ranged weapon that can be hurled like Captain America, The Knightling is asked to explore a vibrant world, helping locals with minor tasks and challenges, and ultimately uncovering the truth behind what happened to the legendary knight Sir Lionstone.

The Knightling is a pretty familiar example of the action-adventure formula but it does what you expect incredibly well. It's set in an open world that is best described as The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild-like, with a great variety of verticality and colourful fantasy cities, towns, and villages that all are presented in a similar art style to Nintendo's acclaimed title. You can adventure around freely and even utilise your shield to more easily move around by using it as a sledge, but unlike BOTW, the movement is actually more akin to a platformer, with double jumping and sliding systems, mushrooms to bounce on to reach new heights, and other niche mechanics that more closely resemble a Spyro the Dragon game than that of hijinks in Hyrule.

Then there's the combat, which is also very action-platformer in nature. Sure, there are combos and various complex abilities to perform, but the majority of the action revolves around simple shield melee assaults and hurling your shield to injure distant threats. The Knightling is a very straightforward and familiar experience in how it presents its adventuring and combat elements, but it's also clear that Twirlbound has put a lot of emphasis on ensuring these systems are refined and feel top-notch, because they play and handle like a dream and make this game stand out.

While the world of Clesseia - which I was only privy to a portion of known as The Outskirts - does seem to offer plenty that makes you want to explore, there are seemingly only a handful of ways to actually occupy your time. You can battle monsters and creatures that litter the land to protect the common folk and even take on side quests, many of which have environmental puzzling elements baked in. This could be fixing a broken aqueduct by moving gears into the right place, or having to platform in a certain way to reach an objective, these are some of the more compelling parts of The Knightling. What is less so is the additional ways that the world is packed out. You can find chests to open that hold useful resources, and frankly if it wasn't for the input sequencing minigame required for each chest, this would seem like an incredibly dull addition to the overall whole. The same applies to the resources themselves. The Knightling clearly has a very basic and youth-friendly design to it, as the best way I can describe how the resources act and how you spend them on upgrades and improvements for the hero is to compare it directly to Ratchet & Clank. Insomniac's platformer is a timeless classic, but its upgrading and resource systems have never been particularly exciting. The same applies to The Knightling and how you amass collected essence and additional mechanical parts to increase the shield's damage or to unlock new abilities by spending them at a vendor.

Now, what I will say is that the abilities do help enhance and improve the gameplay and combat, as occasionally you might meet an enemy type that can only be injured in a certain way. For example, this might include armoured enemies that need to be knocked up before they can be damaged and eventually have their armour manually pulled off, and this does change up and overhaul the action when mechanics like this are occasionally introduced. It's also worth noting on this front that the enemy variety is excellent in The Knightling and there are countless foes to face down with, each of whom have their own attack patterns and moves.

After just a couple of hours with The Knightling, it's immediately clear that this is a game with immense charm and personality. It's delightful and effortlessly fun and it's very obvious that Twirlbound has a knack for unique creating action-adventure experiences. I am a little cautious about the wider whole and if the exploration elements and the collectibles and so forth will hold up as the game expands, or likewise if Twirlbound has some additional tricks up its sleeve. But, this doesn't change the fact that the Breath of the Wild-like presentation and world, the tone, and the charismatic protagonist and NPCs impressed me and piqued my interest even after just a few minutes. We still don't know when The Knightling will debut, but it definitely looks to be one to watch out for all the same.