Echo Weaver: the upgrades were in your head all along

Echo Weaver is a time-loop metroidvania with a twist on the usual formula: you start with every power you'll ever have, and you just don't know how to use them yet. Each loop teaches you a little more about your alien glaive, a new shortcut or a smarter route, until you can string together one perfect run. There's barely any combat and no bosses. It's all movement, platforming and that lovely moment when something finally makes sense.

It belongs on the same shelf as Outer Wilds, Tunic and Animal Well. The world is beautiful, the level design keeps tempting you to poke around, and sequence-breaking is wide open if you're the type to try. It comes from Moonlight Kids (The Wild at Heart), and the team has been patching fast since launch, smoothing out hard sections and adding a high-contrast mode.

It's not flawless. The early dialogue can be a bit cringe, and there were launch bugs like getting stuck in terrain or falling out of bounds. Forced resets and time consumables can feel stressful, it's more guided than Outer Wilds, and you can't skip cutscenes you've already watched. Even so, the core idea is strong enough to carry all of that.