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There are a lot of reasons a person might bounce off a Metroidvania. The genre tends to reward patience and map memorization, and without careful design, it can leave you spinning in circles, backtracking through environments you’ve already combed through a dozen times. That’s always been the case for me with Metroidvanias, at least… which is why I don’t really gravitate towards the genre.
The developer behind GNAW, the upcoming action-adventure from Redstart Interactive, knows the reputation. “With some other [Metroidvania] games, it’s very easy to get lost,” Jon Lawitts of Redstart Interactive acknowledged at PAX East 2026. He then spent the better part of a hands-on demo showing me exactly why he (and the rest of the Redstart Interactive team) thinks that GNAW is different.
New Dino City Has a Problem
You play as Mack Ripley, a deinonychus living in New Dino City (a bustling saurian metropolis straight out of a retro comic book) who, following a freak scientific accident, gains extraordinary powers. Something has gone wrong in the city. The dinosaurs are turning cannibal, the social order is collapsing, and it falls on Mack to figure out why.
“There’s some various events happening that have turned the dinosaurs into cannibals,” Lawitts explained. “So you gotta kind of figure out what’s going on, survive… there’s lots of combat, exploration.” It’s a premise that mashes genre-movie thriller plotting with the structural bones of a classic Metroidvania, and even as someone who steers clear of the genre, it was surprisingly immediately engaging and accessible.
And that was the point. “We’re trying to create something that’s approachable, but still has some challenge to it,” Lawitts explained as I started platforming my way through the neon green sewer level.
A Comic Book Come to Life
The demo was a meaty standalone build packed with content exclusive to the show floor, and it wasted no time establishing GNAW’s visual identity. The art style leans hard into comic book aesthetics, with thick, scratchy black outlines applied over the entire game world and deliberately grungy textures layered on top of an otherwise colorful palette. It immediately brought me back to 1995’s Comix Zone, which I played into the ground as a kid.
“We did want to have color and clarity in our style,” Lawitts said. The animation is handled in Spine, the industry-standard bone-based rigging tool, but the team has gone to significant lengths to make sure the result doesn’t feel clinical or digitally smooth. In fact, they took a full pass at the whole game specifically to add hand-drawn outlines and scratchy textures throughout. Inspirations range from Hellboy to classic Klasky-Csupo cartoons (what a fantastic deep cut for us 90s kids), an eclectic reference pool that ultimately produces something distinct, but familiar enough to be inviting. It’s colorful without being garish, dark without being dour.
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Mega Man With Teeth (Literally)
Where GNAW distinguishes itself most clearly from its genre peers is in the combat. Metroidvanias have really always prioritized exploration and map traversal, treating combat as a secondary concern and something to tolerate between the interesting parts. GNAW pushes back on that hierarchy.
Some of the gameplay mechanics draw directly from Mega Man, Lawitts noted, and it shows. Encounters feel active and deliberate, not just incidental. More importantly, the game is built around an arsenal of 16 combat and traversal abilities alongside a deep collectible and upgrade system that enables genuine build-crafting. “There’s quite a lot of options,” Lawitts explained, “and you can create builds from the different upgrades and collectibles that you’ll get throughout the game.” Whether you prefer up-close brawling, ranged attacks, or something in between, the systems are designed to let you make Mack your own. Power-ups surfaced organically during my demo session that shifted how combat felt.
Getting Around New Dino City (It’s Not Parkour, It’s ParkSaur)
The world design backs up the combat with smart, layered architecture. One example Lawitts pointed to during the session was entering a building at street level and emerging through a rooftop exit creates two distinct traversable layers, linked by doors that correspond to each other in real space.
“You kind of have two different layers that can travel between, like, these doors, and they actually enact double each other in real space,” he said. It’s the kind of interlocking geography that, at its best, makes a Metroidvania world feel more alive withn a sprawling interconnected network of skyscrapers, dark alleys, and strange locales across dozens of regions that fold back into themselves in ways that reward exploration without punishing the player for it.
“That’s kind of why I always avoid the genre… unless it really kind of speaks to me. And this… yeah. It works,” I told Lawitts as I played.
An Approachable Apocalypse
That reaction from a self-described genre skeptic might be the most telling endorsement I can give GNAW. Lawitts was candid about the challenge. Backtracking is a risk in any Metroidvania, and threading the needle between freedom and orientation is a design problem the team has clearly spent time on. With over 150 enemy types and dozens of regions to navigate, the scope is ambitious, but the pacing across the demo felt intentional rather than accidental, with combat and traversal alternating in a rhythm that never let momentum fully stall. The first boss encounter loomed near the end of the session and arrived at exactly the right moment.
GNAW is slated to launch on PC via Steam, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch. A demo is already available on Steam for those who don’t want to wait. Based on my hands-on time at PAX East, it’s one worth checking you, especially if you’re somelike like me who’s written off the genre and wondered if something might finally stick.
I know my kids are going to love it.
