The Magnanimous and Beneficent Dr. Warthan hereby raises a brass monocle to Level-5, because Professor Layton and the New World of Steam is still happening, and it is still set in a steampunk town called Steam Bison. They named the town Steam Bison. That is either the best or the most gloriously unhinged thing in game development this year, and frankly the Doctor does not care which. It’s canon. It counts.

Level-5 nailed the timing down at their VISION 2026 showcase: end of 2026, simultaneous worldwide release, on Switch 2, Switch, PS5, and PC. That last pair is a first for the series, and a worldwide simultaneous release means there are no region-locked excuses this time. The good Professor has been stuck in development purgatory since 2023 (delayed from 2024, then 2025, now finally actually 2026), so forgive the Doctor for not booking the champagne until the cartridge is physically in his hand. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal.

The steampunk hook here isn’t just window dressing: Steam Bison is a full-on Victorian-industrial American boomtown where steam engine technology has surpassed even London’s finest clockwork. The villain is apparently a ghostly gunslinger (a SteamPunk Western, basically), the theme song is being composed by Joe Hisaishi (yes, that Joe Hisaishi, the man responsible for every Ghibli film that ever made you cry), and puzzle design duties passed to quiz collective QuizKnock after the original puzzle master Akira Tago passed in 2016. That’s a legacy worth inheriting carefully. Level-5 says development is progressing smoothly, and given how many times they’ve said that, the Doctor rates it at “optimistically skeptical.”

The Omega7Red Formulae did not need to touch this one. Level-5 handled it themselves. So put on your best waistcoat and go wishlist it, because a clockwork mystery in a town named after the most diesel animal on the plains goes straight to the top of the holiday SteamPunk gaming pile. High-5, Level-5. Don’t blow it.

Via: Nintendo Everything and Level-5

A giant Clock Tower plunges the world of Tearfeld into eternal night. A kid with a clock-hand sword and a mechanical cuckoo bird has to fix it. Yes, this is a ClockPunk video game, and yes, The Doctor approves of its entire premise. Duskfade, from Spanish indie studio Weird Beluga and published by Fireshine Games, hit PC, PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2 on August 13th at $29.99. The aesthetic is the real payload here: rusted machinery, ticking motifs, grandfather-clock grappling hooks, and surreal architecture that feels like a fever dream someone had inside a pocketwatch. It already swept three awards at BCN Game Fest (including Best Game and Best Sound), so the bones are undeniably there.

Now, the honest part: the pro reviews are… more complicated. Steam players are sitting at 89% Very Positive, which is respectable. The critics, on the other hand, keep landing on the same note: gorgeous world, competent-to-repetitive combat, levels that don’t fully live up to the art. That tracks. Sometimes a team nails the vibe and the mechanics are just a vehicle to get you through more of it. For ClockPunk fans, Duskfade is essentially a guided tour of a world you want to live in, even if the tour guide occasionally runs you in circles. I’m giving it ΩΩΩ: the aesthetic earns its keep, the execution needs another pass, and I’d still rather be here than in a hundred brown-corridor shooters. Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a clockwork cuckoo bird companion comes close.

The Clockpunk genre has a problem, and that problem is that most Clockpunk games look like someone put a gear decal on a generic fantasy RPG and called it a day. Duskfade, however, is not that. Indie studio Weird Beluga (yes, that is their actual name, and the Doctor approves) has built a full clockpunk world out of suspended architecture, intricate mechanisms, and painterly landscapes that shift from ethereal forests to underwater ruins to cloud-piercing heights. The whole land has been plunged into eternal night by a mysterious Clock Tower and its enigmatic Master Clockmakers, which is exactly the kind of villain backstory that makes sense when you think about it for two seconds and then makes you furious that you didn’t invent it first.

You play Zirian, a workshop apprentice accompanied by his mechanical bird sidekick Cuckoo, who must shatter the shackles of time (their words, and they earned them) to rescue his sister and restore the world. The traversal looks genuinely fluid: jumps, dashes, grapples, glides, swinging from floating chains, running suspended rails. GameSpot called it “the spiritual successor to Jak and Daxter that we’ve been waiting years for,” which is either massive hype or the truest thing anyone has said about a game in a decade. The demo is live right now on Steam and PS5, so you have zero excuse not to find out which one it is. Launches August 13 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.

Nothing can beat old age and betrayal, but a clockpunk kid with a mechanical bird and a vendetta against the concept of time might come close. High-5, Weird Beluga. Wishlist it. Play the demo. You’re welcome.

Via: Chalgyr’s Game Room