Samsara is a gorgeous portal-hopping puzzle game, due next year
With 77 levels across six hand-drawn realms.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Every Friday
GamesRadar+
Your weekly update on everything you could ever want to know about the games you already love, games we know you're going to love in the near future, and tales from the communities that surround them.
Every Thursday
GTA 6 O'clock
Our special GTA 6 newsletter, with breaking news, insider info, and rumor analysis from the award-winning GTA 6 O'clock experts.
Every Friday
Knowledge
From the creators of Edge: A weekly videogame industry newsletter with analysis from expert writers, guidance from professionals, and insight into what's on the horizon.
Every Thursday
The Setup
Hardware nerds unite, sign up to our free tech newsletter for a weekly digest of the hottest new tech, the latest gadgets on the test bench, and much more.
Every Wednesday
Switch 2 Spotlight
Sign up to our new Switch 2 newsletter, where we bring you the latest talking points on Nintendo's new console each week, bring you up to date on the news, and recommend what games to play.
Every Saturday
The Watchlist
Subscribe for a weekly digest of the movie and TV news that matters, direct to your inbox. From first-look trailers, interviews, reviews and explainers, we've got you covered.
Once a month
SFX
Get sneak previews, exclusive competitions and details of special events each month!
Samsara is a lovely-looking puzzle game whose world is comprised of two Stranger Things-like mirrored dimensions—with portals, echoes, and block placement. Having sunk countless hours into Divinity: Original Sin 2 and Football Manager 2018 of late, this one looks right up my street.
Due at some stage in "early 2018", Samsara sees players guiding protagonist Zee around 77 realms spanning six different realms.
"Deceptively simple mechanics conceal rich and complex interactions that involve positioning, pathfinding, gravity, balance, timing, redirection and teleportation," says New Zealand developer Marker in a statement, "with Samsara’s significant twist: everything added in the upside down world of Zee’s mysterious shadow below reflects in the world above."
All of that, looks like this:
With that, your goal is to steer Zee, and their shadowed echo, to safety in each of the game's beautifully hand-crafted levels—avoiding the "pool" that acts as a buffer between its upper and lower dimensions.
"What makes Samsara so compelling is that the player uses very simple mechanics to solve increasingly intricate problems that involve all kinds of interactions between Zee, Zee’s echo and the detailed, interactive environments," says the game's senior producer Alex Humphries. "Progression has been carefully tuned to ensure players experience the same awakening as Zee and the shadow as they escape from Samsara."
Samsara is without a hard release date as yet, however is expected in early 2018 for PC on Windows 10 and Steam.
Keep up to date with the most important stories and the best deals, as picked by the PC Gamer team.

