Here lately, I’ve found myself increasingly interested in metroidvanias. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that a good friend of mine is currently obsessed with them, so we’re constantly talking about them. But something else to consider is that there have been quite a few decent ones dominating the conversation lately, like Well Dweller, Silver Pines, and, of course, Castlevania: Belmont’s Curse. The thing is, I generally know what I’m getting into with a metroidvania, particularly when it comes to their mechanics, as the majority of them follow the same traditional ability-gated progression and backtracking loop—and that includes the aforementioned titles. Don’t get me wrong, tradition isn’t a bad thing at all, especially with a metroidvania. But if one does come along daring to approach it differently, as Echo Weaver does, you better believe I’m going to take notice.
I recently spent a little under an hour with Echo Weaver‘s demo on Steam, and I have to say, I haven’t been this excited for an upcoming metroidvania release since Hollow Knight: Silksong. The other metroidvania demos I’ve played on Steam recently—like Well Dweller and Silver Pines—have been excellent. There’s no doubt about that. However, Echo Weaver offers an incredibly unique gameplay loop that actually makes it more akin to something like Outer Wilds than any other metroidvania, specifically. In fact, its developers like to refer to it instead as a “metroidbrania,” because rather than gating its progression with abilities, it actually gates it with knowledge, much like Outer Wilds gates its own way forward. It’s an interesting concept, for sure, but the more interesting thing is perhaps that I walked away from Echo Weaver‘s demo with a huge smile on my face and overwhelmed with joy that it’s launching on October 8, 2026, which is just around the corner.
Echo Weaver Is an Immersive ‘Metroidbrainia’
Check Out Echo Weaver’s Demo on Steam
I am a massive fan of all things sci-fi. There is just something about the worlds and atmosphere the genre creates that makes me want to hang out there forever. RPG franchises like Mass Effect and immersive space exploration games like Starfield or No Man’s Sky are all among my favorites, and I am immensely looking forward to the release of Exodus and The Expanse: Osiris Reborn next year. So, when I came across Echo Weaver, which is also sci-fi, I was immediately sold on at least giving it a try. And boy, am I glad I did.
For starters, Echo Weaver is one of those games that absolutely must be played with headphones. The music, the sound effects, the atmosphere—it’s all best experienced with headphones, especially if you have access to a great gaming headset. This is largely because of how immersive Echo Weaver is, which, in my opinion, is the hallmark quality of a good sci-fi game. But atmosphere is also what I would consider a fundamental element of a side-scrolling metroidvania as well, and this one certainly nails that much. Even its hand-drawn, painterly art style, which has some of Ori‘s storybook beauty mixed with the heavier comic-book linework of Borderlands, is captivating, and it reinforces the game’s humorous side as well.
As far as what you’re actually doing in Echo Weaver, you play as the last of the Weavers, exploring what remains of a ruined society known as Provenance after an event called the Collapse. There’s obviously quite a bit more going on than the demo reveals outright, especially where the mysterious Congregation is concerned, but figuring all of that out is essentially part of the point. The world is stuck in an endless time loop, and it’s up to Weaver to learn enough about Provenance, its people, and whatever happened there to eventually break the cycle. Of course, your faithful companion, whom the game endearingly refers to as “Pizza Cat,” is along for the ride as well, which makes the whole thing even better.
Even its hand-drawn, painterly art style, which has some of Ori‘s storybook beauty mixed with the heavier comic-book linework of Borderlands, is captivating, and it reinforces the game’s humorous side as well.
However, presentation and premise aside, Echo Weaver‘s gameplay mechanics are, without a doubt, its standout feature. The most important thing to understand is that time itself is quite literally a resource in the game, represented by a clock at the top of the screen that is constantly, albeit slowly, ticking down. Once that time runs out, the current cycle comes to an end, and you’re brought back to the starting area and the beginning of a new cycle.
Thankfully, there are plenty of ways to add more time to the clock as you explore, whether that means finding pickups scattered throughout the world, breaking open boxes, or defeating enemies. But Echo Weaver also lets you spend that time on certain things, including maps, which adds an interesting layer to the whole system. It’s manageable, it makes sense, and its in-game logic is solid, which is a breath of fresh air after The Blood of Dawnwalker‘s time limit let me down severely in that regard.
Echo Weaver Makes Knowledge Its Most Important Upgrade
What really separates Echo Weaver from the metroidvanias I’ve been playing lately, though, is how it handles progression. Normally, I would expect to explore until I eventually unlocked some new ability that let me reach somewhere I couldn’t before, only to then backtrack and see what that ability opened up elsewhere. Echo Weaver doesn’t really work that way. Instead, much of its progression comes from learning something new about the world. Yes, there are abilities you can unlock—like the Glaive, Weaver’s primary weapon, or the ability to teleport to the Glaive wherever you’ve thrown it—but because Echo Weaver is always on the clock, the loop really comes down to acquiring new information, restarting the cycle, and then using the information you’ve gathered to get to a certain point even quicker during the next cycle.
For example, during one cycle, I came across an NPC named Tetsa who had died after being crushed beneath a giant tank. Pizza Cat then mentioned that, perhaps if I had arrived sooner, the woman wouldn’t have died before I had the chance to speak with her. So, I manually restarted the cycle, and because I knew she would die within a certain amount of time, I rushed over to where she was at and managed to speak with her before she passed. From there, I acquired even more information about what I would need to do next, and so on.
Echo Weaver allows you to manually restart the cycle by holding down the left and right triggers at the same time (if you’re playing on controller), and while that might sound counterproductive, there are indeed moments where restarting the cycle can actually benefit you.
As someone who enjoys roguelike games, I’m certainly no stranger to repeating the same general loop over and over again. But what I particularly like about the way Echo Weaver handles it is that I rarely felt like I was actually doing the same thing twice. Sure, I might be running through the same areas again, but now I know where certain enemies are going to be, where I can grab some extra time along the way, and which paths are actually worth taking. In the case of Tetsa, I also knew exactly where I needed to go and why I needed to get there as quickly as possible. So, with every new cycle, I found myself becoming more efficient simply because I knew more than I did the last time. And for a game where every second literally matters, there’s something immensely satisfying about watching what was once a fairly clumsy trip through an area gradually turn into what feels like a masterful, rhythmic, almost hypnotic flow.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Guess the games from the emojis.
Easy (120s)Medium (90s)Hard (60s)
It helps that simply getting around in Echo Weaver is a lot of fun as well. Weaver can double jump, wall jump, slide, and, as I mentioned, eventually teleport directly to the Glaive after throwing it—with that last ability being one I found myself using constantly once I unlocked it. Throwing the Glaive somewhere above me or across a gap and then teleporting straight to it never really gets old, and it opens up quite a few possibilities for getting around the world more efficiently. So, while Echo Weaver does still have some of the ability-based progression I would expect from a metroidvania, those abilities aren’t always the answer to whatever is standing in my way. Sometimes, I already have what I need. I just don’t know what to do with it yet, and that is precisely what makes Echo Weaver‘s approach to the genre so interesting to me.
And honestly, I think that’s the biggest compliment I can give Echo Weaver right now. I have played plenty of metroidvanias that I have enjoyed, and I have played plenty of roguelikes that have kept me coming back for another run. But I can’t immediately think of another game that has put those two ideas together quite as masterfully as this, especially with knowledge being such an important part of how you move forward. There were several moments during the demo where I caught myself thinking about what I could do differently on the next cycle before the current one had even ended, and that’s usually a pretty good sign that a game’s loop has its hooks in me.
Of course, a demo can only show so much, and I have no idea yet whether Echo Weaver can keep introducing enough new ideas to make that loop stay interesting for an entire game. But after spending a little under an hour with it, I definitely want to find out. I already liked the look of it before I started playing, and the sci-fi setting was enough to get me through the door, but the whole “metroidbrainia” thing is what sold me on the rest. October 8 was already close, but after playing the demo, it suddenly feels a little farther away than I would like.
Echo Weaver launches on Steam on October 8, 2026.
