Steam Next Fest is offering a free taster of Dead Cells' next roguelike, Windblown, before its early access debut at the end of this month.

Motion Twin, the developer behind Dead Cells, gave players an early look at their next Steam Next Fest game, a roguelike called Windblown. You (as one cute animal warrior) are thrust into the storm with up to two friends.

I was a bit worried going in considering the tumultuous relationships between Dead Cells former designer and the studio - even if it does mean that we're getting/are getting three solid Roguelikes from Motion Twin Sebastien Benjamin and Evil Empire - the studio that tinkered Dead Cells DLCs.

Windblown is already polished enough to make it worth playing, even if the demo is short. Justin Wagner, our tester who played the game earlier this month, agreed that it was already very satisfying.

Windblown's meat and potatoes are: you have a dash and two weapons. You can also get reusable trinkets with long cooldowns (such a big bomb or a whirlwind blades), and you can take passive benefits from other adventurers that waded into a tornado.

The "alterattacks", where you can perform a special attack if you switch to your other weapon, after a certain amount of swings, are a little fiddly. It goes against the core ethos of a roguelike, which is to avoid damage at any cost. This is because windows where you can pull off a complete alter combo are few. This friction isn’t bad at all, and it’s actually a great window for mastery. However, I found myself wishing you had a grace window where you could chain a single dodge into an alter attack.

The game controls perfectly. It's smooth, precise, and frictionless. This is exactly what you want from a game of this type. It's also very pretty--the trailers do not do it justice. The stark cel-shaded character models may seem jarring, but they'll help cut through visual noise, which I imagine will be a problem when you have three players onscreen.

Otherwise, there's nothing to write home about. But that's only because the game executes old tricks very well. Windblown is a great game for those who enjoy a good game of Dead Cells, or a round of Hades. The demo is also free and only takes up a few gigabytes. If you miss out, you won't be waiting long. Early access will drop on October 24. You have nothing to lose if you try it now.