Faeland is a handcrafted 2D action-adventure RPG that wears its 8-bit and 16-bit inspirations on its sleeve. Stepping into the boots of Sam, a skilled hunter, you are thrust into a sprawling, vibrant world that emphasizes freedom and discovery. Unlike linear platformers, Faeland focuses on a non-linear journey where exploration is key—you’ll scour hidden areas for gear, acquire “Skill Scrolls” to expand your repertoire, and carefully manage your equipment. From your choice of tunic to the specific weapon in your hand, every piece of gear impacts your combat speed, attack animations, and defensive capabilities. The game aims to capture the “magic” of weekend-long gaming sessions from the past, wrapped in a modern, fluid pixel-art style.
GAME FACTS
GAME: Faeland
RELEASES: TBD
MSRP: TBD
DEVELOPER: Talegames LLC
PUBLISHER: Talegames LLC
PLATFORMS: Xbox and PC
DEMO PLAYED ON: Series S
CLASSIC CONNECTIONS
Faeland is inspired by the great action adventure side scrollers of the 16-bit era. On Steam the developers describe the game’s aesthetic as “enhanced 16-bit” taking cues from the pixel art of the Super Nintendo-era games and using the power of modern consoles to further enhance it. Elements of the gameplay seem inspired by Zelda II: The Adventure of Link, and the town exploration and interaction seems to come from games like Wonder Boy and Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest. Visually I think it looks inspired by classic Super Nintendo games like Super Castlevania IV and Super Ghouls ‘n Ghosts, but the pixel art and animation seem even more refined.
GAMEPLAY IMPRESSIONS
Even though Faeland has been available on Steam Early Access for a few years, the demo only recently came to Xbox. Once you start and select your save slot the game presents a character creator. Given the screenshots I saw showed a blonde female warrior that’s what I ended up creating (and because my brain wasn’t ready for this I just named her “Faye”; so creative, right?). You can choose from either a male or female form, five different skin tones, twelve different hairstyles (roughly six traditionally male and six traditionally female - but there’s no gender restriction), and thirteen different hair colors. I ended up choosing blonde, but that’s just because my expectation was already set to play as a blonde female, so that’s what I chose. I’ll probably go back and pick a purple haired male next time, just for fun.
Then the game begins with a series of cinema scenes (using well-crated pixel art) telling the story of how the land was created by the Fae and they also created humans but of course it all goes wrong at some point. Humans who dabbled in dark magic were twisted into monsters and drama ensued. The narrative seems well thought out and written. I didn’t even skip any of it. LOL.
After the story scenes end you are shown the interior of a temple, crated in really great-looking pixel art. Seriously this game is beautiful in a similar level to a game like Blasphemous, but with more of a Legend of Zelda-vibe than Bloodborne. There are some scary monsters walking through it, all very well drawn, and then you wake up in your house.
The animation showing your character getting out of bed and stretching is very impressive. You can tell the devs spent a lot of time on it. You collect your clothes, knife and bow, then find out you’re out of food and need to go hunting.
I ended up going to the left (I always like to see how developers design a game by trying to immediately go to the left) and entered a great looking forest. You are presented with some mushroom monsters to use your knife on, plus a crow to teach you how you can attack upwards. It’s all really good.
After you run through the forest and find a deer to kill for food, you go back to your house, cook it and eat it. Then you go to sleep. During the night your house is invaded by monsters and you barely escape with your life. You jump through the window and run into the night, with the monsters giving chase.
Upon trying to cross a log spanning a deep pit, the monsters destroy the log and you fall. Luckily you are not killed though and you wake up the next morning, without any clothes (except your default underwear) or weapons. This begins the second half of the demo.
You then do some typical cave exploration, item finding and monster killing, but it’s all very well done.
There is a boss for you to defeat, and shortly after that the demo ends, but it’s a really good time overall.
OVERALL IMPRESSION
The developers at Talegames seem to really be cooking up something special with Faeland. Despite some challenges during its early access launch on Steam, Faeland appears to be a very polished 2D action platformer with a TON of attention to detail baked into it. The pixel art is beautiful and well detailed, the ability to customize your hero is crazy for a 2D pixel art game, and all the animations I saw in the demo were very well crafted. The controls are tight, gameplay is fun, the story is interesting (your standard fantasy-ish narrative, but really good nonetheless), and the music is beautiful. Hopefully the full release will continue the high standards set by the demo.
Really excited for this one’s full release.
GAMEPLAY FOOTAGE
You can watch my gameplay from the Faeland demo on Xbox Series S in the video below: