The Knightling Preview: Shield Surfing Into a Nostalgic Adventure
Restart went hands-on with Saber and Twirlbound’s upcoming adventure-platforming game in which the swords don’t make the cut.
Posted 3 months ago
The Knightling feels like a game from an era long past. Fortunately, we mean that in a good way. Planned for release on consoles and PC in 2025, this vibrant action-adventure platformer from Twirlbound and Saber is packed full of bold colors, characterful animations, and an unmistakably cartoonish charm. But while the theming and tone might feel a kinship with the time of Banjo-Kazooie and Donkey Kong 64, our recent hand-on preview with The Knightling demonstrated a distinctly modern sense of ambition to the scale of its world and mechanics.
Everything springs from the shield – literally, in the case of the game’s protagonist. As the squire to a great knight of a fantasy realm, they’re left in charge of his famous aegis when he heads off on adventure. Only this time, he doesn’t return. That leaves the aide, a scrawny knight-in-progress without even a sword to their name, alone in the role of helping the people of the realm and fending off wayward monsters. Even if said denizens don’t believe they’re up to the task.
©Twirlbound
Fortunately, the shield they’ve been saddled with is good for far more than just blocking. Being much smaller than the mighty knight who normally wields it, our unlikely hero can leap on top from a run, shifting into a slide that’ll carry them swiftly down slopes. And The Knightling’s semi-open world does its best to aid that concept. Rolling hills and pathways are sprinkled with shield-speeding moss growths, while prolific bouncepad mushrooms offer boosts to carry upward or onward.
The architecture, too, is rife with curves and arches. Inspired by designs seen in the Efteling theme park in the Netherlands, rooftops often smoothly link down to the ground, creating ideal ramps from which to launch skyward. Aqueducts proud and simple are present too, offering pathways on which to speedily skim, shield-borne, from one region to the next. It’s as if the gods of the realm had just finished a documentary on skateparks before they started crafting.
In our preview session, we discovered an old-school charm to the early quests. We helped herders convince their fluff-coated beast back into its pen, and ran afoul of bandits while helping a worker fix broken gears on an aqueduct path. There was even a small bout of Witcher-style investigation which led to setting a paint-based trap for a monster.
Beyond these smaller missions, our brief chunk of the journey took us into a dungeon which delved into not just the earth, but the game’s wider story. Our shield, it turns out, can talk. Dry-toned, the living disc had kept quiet until now simply because it didn’t feel there was anything that needed saying. Which is about the level of insight we really should have expected from a hunk of metal. The dungeon, filled with grand stone rooms built by a lost former race, introduced puzzles with switches, shifting platforms, and the occasional clash with evil beasts. Despite the scale, it felt surprisingly homely – Zelda fans predating Breath of the Wild will be in familiar territory here.
©Twirlbound
Unfortunately, our preview build of the Knightling suffered from significant performance issues, especially in crowded city environments. Slowdown is an irritation in most games, but in one so centered on motion, it proved particularly aggravating. Combat, too, is in need of some fine tuning. Early encounters with bandits consisted of little more than repeated taps of the attack button, waiting for the enemy health bar to drain through repeated shield strikes. Unlocking a new launching attack skill and a magic-imbued special attack teased the potential for fights to liven up a touch. But with such a restricted starting toolset, halting exploration to battle felt like pulling the handbrake in the middle of a rally car race just to twiddle with the dashboard.
The good news is that with a planned 2025 release date, The Knightling has plenty of time for fine tuning. Even with the issues we encountered, it was hard not to crack a grin each time we launched into a downward skid atop our grumpy shield. If The Knightling can capitalize upon the enjoyable motion at its core, and the appealing aesthetic of its storybook fable-esque world, it could offer a welcome modern take on a nostalgic genre of gaming.
The Knightling
Release Date: Unknown
Digital Only
