Bad Magpie Gives Off Untitled Goose Game Vibes With A Heartfelt Story - Summer Game Fest 2026

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This year was the first year that we were invited to the Xbox showcase, and it was incredible. The atmosphere felt way more personal and electric than I expected, and it was amazing seeing so many people so excited about the games coming from Xbox. While I was there, I was able to check out some games from the showcase, but one of them felt unlike the others. That one was Bad Magpie, and if you’re a fan of games like Untitled Goose Game, this should be on your radar.

The team is trying to tell an emotional story, while also creating some interesting sandbox experiences. We play as a Magpie that has injured their wings and has been left behind by their flock. As they are exploring, they come across a fallen star, and for whatever reason, we decide to help it by getting it certain items.

In the demo, we go through one of these sandbox levels to get an item for the star. As we progress through, the item gets swallowed up by this weird, giant snake from the ground, who will give us the item back if we get them 20 star shards. From there, we will go through the level to find these shards. Some of them are lying around on the ground, while others will require us to complete a puzzle to find them. They aren’t difficult to find, but it does feel satisfying to figure it out.

A lot of it will require using some sort of tool or our abilities to find them. Whether it be finding a megaphone to destroy the glass of a car to get the shard inside, or picking up a piece of wood, striking it against the rock to light it on fire, and using that fire to burn down wooden blockades in our way, we will have to resort to some destructive behaviors to find them. We will even have to destroy sand castles that rats are building, and they will be devastated.

All of it is packaged in a beautiful aesthetic with a good chunk of humor thrown in. The reactions of the mice and the nonchalant actions of our magpie just made me keep thinking back to games like Untitled Goose Game, which I found ridiculous with all the havoc we were causing and how everyone reacted. Bad Magpie gives a similar feeling, and I love it.

The small demo showed the out-of-the-box thinking and how destructive we will have to be to reach our goal, and it’s a lot of fun. I always enjoy these kinds of games, where we have to figure out how to complete puzzles around the level to get what we need. Bad Magpie is shaping up to be a fun, hilarious experience that will be worthwhile to play.

I also had a chance to get to try out the game on the ROG Xbox Ally X, and it runs like a charm there. I had no worries that it would be playable on the Xbox Ally X, but it does make me feel confident that it should be good to play on the Steam Deck when it releases.

Bad Magpie can be wishlisted on Steam right now ahead of its release.

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