Tombwater

I've enjoyed Tombwater a lot. It's got the best level design I've seen in quite a while. The world is believable and very fun to explore.

Metroidvania with great combat, a wide variety of items for builds and a good story. Beware there is no hand holding in this game and the map is very vague relying on the player to mark everything especially areas that can't currently be traversed and it doesn't display paths showing how to traverse areas which can be confusing in a lot of areas.

I'm stunning that a metroidvania of such depth and scope is flying under the radar. This is one of 2026's best games and deserves more attention.

A solid 9/10 game. One of the best combinations of genres I've played in a long, long time. Anyone who is a souls fan, a metroidvania fan, a zelda fan, a fan of challenging games, a fan of exploration and discovery... you get the drift, it's a wonderful game that can really apply to just about everyone.

Tombwater is a fantastic indie take on the soulslike genre that can essentially be summed up as “Bloodborne as a top-down Zelda game in a weird west setting”. It has the usual hallmarks of a soulslike - bonfires, unlockable shortcuts, corpse runs, doomed NPC quest lines, and obscure lore bits in item descriptions and the like. It has what you’d expect from a top-down Zelda game - progression based on the acquisition of tools that let you bypass obstacles that were previously impassable, as well as a handful of tools that can aid you in combat. And the weird west stuff…well. As the Bloodborne influence might imply, this is more weird west by way of Lovecraft etc than what you might see in something like Deadlands, and it works extremely well. There are plenty of worldbuilding hints that nod towards larger ideas without explicitly explaining everything. Anyway, highly recommend if this style of game is even remotely up your alley.

just a complete gem start to finish that reminds me why I love video games. I rarely leave reviews but have to signal blast this one to everyone: must play!