An upcoming Steam game called Kalit looks a little like Cuphead dropped into a Minecraft-esque survival sandbox. Its hand-drawn 1930s cartoon animation is paired with a 3D open world where players can mine, craft, farm, collect creatures, work on their bases, and partake in other activities typical of survival games on Steam and beyond.
Kalit was originally announced in June 2025 by Travi Team Games, a two-person Italian studio known for 2023 physics-based fighting game Scroter and 2024 found footage horror game Unknown Tapes. The studio’s next title is currently scheduled for launch in 2027 but is still without an exact release date.
Kalit Looks Like Cuphead Meets Minecraft for a Reason
Kalit‘s Cuphead vibes are almost entirely a result of its distinctive presentation. Like Cuphead and its signature old-school cartoon aesthetic, Kalit uses hand-drawn rubber-hose animation inspired by the 1930s, although Travi Team places those 2D animations inside a fully 3D environment. The Minecraft side is more mechanical: players can chop trees, mine ore, gather resources, craft equipment, grow crops, and construct a custom base while managing hunger and temperature. One gameplay difference it introduces compared to Mojang’s sandbox hit is a sanity meter.
Kalit Also Has a Pokemon-Like System
That In Turn Works Kind of Like it Did in Palworld
All those systems put Kalit squarely inside the increasingly crowded open-world crafting genre, but its creature mechanics give the familiar formula another layer. Wildlife can be captured and commanded in combat, used to gather resources, assigned to help defend or automate a base, and eventually evolved into stronger forms. That makes the creatures part of the game’s progression and production automation loops in a way not too dissimilar to Pocketpair’s hit Palworld, which left early access in July 2026 following two and a half years of development.
The exploration side of the experience appears similarly broad. Travi Team says players will be able to climb surfaces, glide across the map, explore mines, and complete quests for animated NPCs while traversing the world. They will also be able to build everything from automated defenses to mechs and flying vehicles. Kalit even promises Minecraft-style underwater exploration, complete with shipwrecks, aquatic creatures, unique resources, oxygen management, and the ability to build elaborate submerged bases. The overall feature list is ambitious for an indie project, especially one being developed by a studio that describes itself as consisting of two video game enthusiasts.
While Steam currently has no shortage of upcoming survival titles, Kalit is one of the few that has a playable demo. Since its March 2026 debut, the preview build has continued to expand with additions including an underwater area, an online creature card battler mini-game, and combat improvements. The updates do not make the demo fully representative of everything promised for the finished game, but they provide a firsthand look at a substantial portion of its planned feature set. Kalit is currently confirmed only for PC, and Travi Team has yet to release a game on another platform. However, the demo’s recent addition of controller support removes one potential obstacle to a console port further down the line.
