This impossibly colorful Metroidvania is an early frontrunner for best art of the year, and my favorite Steam Next Fest find so far

GamesAdventureUltrosThis impossibly colorful Metroidvania is an early frontrunner for best art of the year, and my favorite Steam Next Fest find so farWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. GamesAdventureUltrosThis impossibly colorful Metroidvania is an early frontrunner for best art of the year, and my favorite Steam Next Fest find so farWhen you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. When you purchase through links on our site, we may earn an affiliate commission.Here’s how it works. (Image credit: Hadoque) It takes a lot for a game’s art to live up to the promise of “a multifaceted realm” anchored in “a cosmic uterus holding an ancient, demonic being,” butUltros pulls it off and then some. It doesn’t quite cover it to call developer Hadoque’s upcoming 2D Metroidvania – coming up fast, with a February 13 release date on PC and PlayStation – psychedelic, though it most certainly is. Ultros is transportive, and handily the coolest game I’vetried this Steam Next Fest, which is saying a lot because there are, as ever, about a billion good games out there. (Image credit: Hadoque) There’s so much life and character to Ultros, from the way our heroine dangles from ledges to the way she cuts into the juice-filled pods that act as save points, down to the almost-legible alien text dotted around the world and UI. Nothing is normal; everything is lavish. It gets top marks for that classic Metroidvania flow, too. I’ve already pulled off some light sequence breaking in pursuit of plentiful secrets. So far, the narrative appears to be on some next-level cosmic nihilism, and I’m likewise eager to see where it goes – literally, I’d like to see it. I need this game in my eyeballs, stat. February 13 can’t come soon enough. Pocketpair has a new co-op Metroidvania roguelike thatrips off Dead Cells way harder than Palworld ever copied Pokemon, and its Steam Next Fest demo is awesome. 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the show” 2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 2Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 2 Mufasa: The Lion King review – “It’s no Hakuna Matata but this Disney origin story is a class above the 2019 movie” 3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 3Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 3 Kraven the Hunter review: “The insistence on an R-rating helps save this, with a decent helping of bloodthirsty action” 4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 4The Lord of the Rings: The War of the Rohirrim review – “An uninspired expansion of the most iconic screen take on Tolkien” 4 The Lord of the Rings: 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review: “Returns to the sort of hard-hitting form that made it such a fan favorite in the first place”