I grew up on 16-bit games – Awaysis feels like the evolution I

The name of 17-Bit’s studio comes from founder and creative director Jake Kazdal wanting to make “16-bit games with modern flair”. You can see this with its new game Awaysis, which resembles a classic top-down action-adventure from the SNES era like Secret of Mana, except its cute (and weird) anthropomorphic weapon-wielding critters aren’t presented in pixel art but in 3D.

The titular ancient floating relic you adventure on has a kind of plasticky diorama feel to it, while characters knocking each other about have the anarchic energy of getting out your toy figurines to scrap with one another. “This is very dirty, physical, gross, street fighting combat,” he says.

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Ian Dean is Editor, Digital Arts & 3D at Creative Bloq, and the former editor of many leading magazines. These titles included ImagineFX, 3D World and video game titles Play and Official PlayStation Magazine. Ian launched Xbox magazine X360 and edited PlayStation World. For Creative Bloq, Ian combines his experiences to bring the latest news on digital art, VFX and video games and tech, and in his spare time he doodles in Procreate, ArtRage, and Rebelle while finding time to play Xbox and PS5.