Remnants of Naezith trailer shows off its grappling hook platforming

Every so often I like to spend a weekend buried in an action platformer, trying my best to master its mechanics and climb the leaderboards. It barely ever works (I'm far too panicky in tense moments), but I have a blast. So I'm looking forward to seeing how Remnants of Naezith turns out when it launches next month. Its hook, literally, is that you use a grappling hook to swing yourself around its levels.

Those 80 levels, across four chapters, look pretty impressive, with lots of blocks of bright light and plenty of lasers to dodge. Each has its own quirk: one packs lots of spinning saw blades while another gradually fills the screen with water, for example.

Speed is very much the focus. You're always accelerating, and developer Tolga Ay says there's no speed limit. You can browse the leaderboards and watch the top players' best runs to pick up new tricks, which is a good idea. The hook itself looks flexible, and you can use it to carry on forward momentum, pull yourself up to a ledge or change direction in an instant.

I like the visual effects, too: your hook gives off a trail of sparks and your character leaves streaks of bright energy behind them. The game will also ship with a level creator that looks intuitive (skip to 1:08 in the video), which means there will be plenty of user-created levels to speed through.

We'll have to wait and see whether it has much longevity or not, but I think it's worth keeping an eye on. It's out on February 6, but doesn't have a price listed yet. Here's the Steam page, if you're interested.

Samuel is a freelance journalist and editor who first wrote for PC Gamer nearly a decade ago. Since then he's had stints as a VR specialist, mouse reviewer, and previewer of promising indie games, and is now regularly writing about Fortnite. What he loves most is longer form, interview-led reporting, whether that's Ken Levine on the one phone call that saved his studio, Tim Schafer on a milkman joke that inspired Psychonauts' best level, or historians on what Anno 1800 gets wrong about colonialism. He's based in London.