Good things come to those who wait. In a world of instant gratification, Playdate are doing things differently with their ridiculously charismatic handheld. Some of that wait was unintentional, the team initially caught unawares by the popularity of their new handheld, but some of it was by design, with the console’s key games released weekly, as part of an ungoing season of releases. With Playdate now fully available, and the recent launch of its Season 2 games, it feels like the perfect time to review the canary-coloured console, amidst the stacked 2025 roster of handhelds.
Playdate is a handheld that’s built on classic design briefs, while adding in one almighty kick back against the status quo. On first impressions, it looks like a Game Boy Pocket that’s been squashed and stretched back out in a kitchen accident while rolling out pizza bases. That familiarity is enhanced by its simple face controls – a cross shaped D-pad and two input buttons – and its incredible-looking monochrome screen. There’s a joyful sense of nostalgia that’s hard to ignore, but Panic have made sure that there’s plenty to separate the Playdate from its forefathers.
First, primary, and most obviously is the metal crank. This little analogue crank arm with its yellow handle protrudes from the right-hand side of the console, and it’s there to disrupt, differentiate and innovate, which, let’s face it, is not what we’ve come to expect in the video game console market outside of Nintendo.
It’s there to give developers a new way to control their games, adding things like true fishing mechanics to some, and generally letting devs’ imagination run wild. One of my absolute favourite games from Season One, Crankin’s Time Travel Adventures, sees you turning the crank in an effort to get a stick man to his date on time, and it causes far too much hilarity for a console you can take on the bus.
After the crank, you can’t help but be drawn to the impressively sharp screen. Coming in at just 400×240 and launching without a backlight to illuminate it, this is a screen that manages to be thoroughly retro – if the light is being turned off, it’s time to stop playing unless you want to use a torch – while boasting all the clarity and precision you’d expect from a modern screen.
There’s a single front-firing mono speaker, with a cool little metal grill, and besides the wonderful bleeps and bloops that it delivers to your ears, it goes more than loud enough if you need it to. There’s also a 3.5mm jack socket for a wired pair of headphones, and while there is Bluetooth, it’s not currently usable.
While this is a retro-inspired handheld, the UI and the way your interact with it shows plenty of modernity. A silver lock button at the top edge apes modern smartphones, and a cute little home button brings up the central menu, giving you access to settings and other essential features. There’s 4GB of flash memory for storing games, and you can scroll through them in a simple rotary list, even using the crank to do so if you want. While there’s no Bluetooth support, there is Wi-Fi, and you can access the Playdate Catalog, the online store, or receive over-the-air updates with a suitable connection.
This is also how you’re sent the latest games each season, and one of the greatest delights of the Playdate is the flashing notification light that tells you a new game has arrived. Initially, the console launched with Season 1, which brought players 24 games across 24 weeks. It has to be one of the greatest ideas in console launch history, avoiding the highs and lows of game release schedules, and making each one an event.
From Casual Birder, a weird but wonderful little RPG about taking pictures of birds, to Boogie Loops, a fun diversion that lets you create musical loops while pandas and pizzas have a dance, there’s just a heap of creativity to everything that Panic feeds you, and that’s continued through into the brand new Season 2, which has been smaller in scale, with twelve titles rather than twenty-four, but has proven to be no less fun and characterful.
Chief among them, at least personally, has been Dig Dig Dino. Some of that comes from a deep-seated love for dinosaurs that I share with my son, but this manages to make a fun and continually appealing game out of digging. Ostensibly, it’s like a roguelite with a spade, but there’s just something eternally endearing about the visuals, the mechanics, and how you can dip in and out of it.
I’ve also loved Fulcrum Defender. This shooter has a killer soundtrack, and uses the crank to turn your aiming reticule, attempting to pick off the approaching enemies, while levelling up your abilities, expanding your means of fighting them off with new weaponry or increased ammo. As with many Playdate games, it’s a true pick-up-and-play handheld experience, and you can dip in and out of the idiosyncratic lineup as you wish.
If you want a sense of the random, unexpected and darkly humorous thread that runs through Playdate’s output and outlook, then Blippo is the perfect example. This turns your Playdate into a black and white TV, with an 11-week-long showcase of the weirdest TV you’ll have seen since Channel 4 in the 80s.
There’s sci-fi shows, avant-garde dance programming, teletext-like sections, interviews about… well, I’m not entirely sure what they’re about, but you’ll find yourself frozen in front of your Playdate each week as you watch them. The fact that it’s a finite show – new content has been dropping each Thursday – makes it all the more special, but I truly hope that there’s more. The world in general needs more of this.
What makes Playdate even better is that it’s always waiting for you. Unlike most of the handheld devices I’ve owned in the past couple of years, Playdate holds onto power for up to two weeks, so when you pick it up, it’s ready to go. With eight hours of actual use, that’s a lot of rounds of Fulcrum Defender.
It also fits in your pocket. I laughably tried to put my Switch 2 in my pyjama pocket the other day, and while it didn’t fall out, I looked like I was trying to smuggle a chopping board. The Playdate, meanwhile, has a smaller footprint than most mobile phones, and you never feel that it’s a pain to take out with you, or to chuck it in your bag. Admittedly, frantically spinning the crank does get you a few odd looks on the train, but this is 2025 and, let’s face it, we’re all a little odd.
Playdate is an open platform too, and you can sideload games from places like itch.io, as well as design your own via the SDK and a web browser. Playdate is clearly Panic’s passion project, but they want it to be yours too. I’ve rarely been tempted to create my own game, but for the Playdate, I’m planning out artstyles and thinking out how the crank can be used. Thanks to the unique, retro-like framing, it feels genuinely approachable, while tinkering with Unreal Engine 5 is clearly not.
Are there any downsides? My biggest gripe is the lack of a backlit screen, not least because I often play late into the night, and while it’s briefly amusing to huddle up next to a lamp, or seek out direct sunlight, there is a reason we haven’t returned to the dark times before backlights. Heck, even a Kindle is backlit, so yes, if there was one thing I’d change, that would be it.
