Co-op Platforming Adventure Hela is at Gamescom, and It's One to Watch

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Hela has been on our radar for a while now, ever since Noah played it at GDC 2025 back in April. We were fortunate enough to be invited to a pre-Gamescom event for Hela so we could take a look at what the developers have been working on, what their focus for the game is, and a few extra details they shared.

The game at its heart is a co-op open-world adventure, with an emphasis on exploration, platforming, and a fair amount of physics-based puzzling. The developers stressed that they want Hela to be a relaxing time; there is a main storyline for you to progress, namely healing your kindly Witch owner, but it's as and when you want to; otherwise, you're free to explore the world, finding secrets, new puzzles to solve, and new animals to befriend. There are no time limits here.

While the game's puzzles are based around the concept of co-operation, don't worry, solo players can still have a good time by using the "shade" feature, allowing you to clone yourself to complete those tricky co-op puzzles. You can play as 2 players locally in split-screen, or 4 players online. Plus, you can also play with a mixture of local and online players, so with 2 devices, 2 players can play on each for a 4-player experience.

The team also looks to have gone all-out with the movement and platforming elements of the game, too. We saw tight rope walking, grappling, wall climbing, gliding, sliding, pretty much any movement style you can think of is in Hela. Curiously, the developers stated they were inspired by the movement style of "skate." and have opted not to have any fast travel in the game, but instead make the traversal mechanics fun.

Another neat little feature that was shown is the ability to befriend and, in some cases, ride animals. The example we were shown was a rabbit (or is it a hare?), allowing you to get some serious speed and participate in a race event.

We weren't able to get any confirmation on whether the game will run on the Steam Deck from the dev team. The game was just announced for Nintendo Switch 2, so hopefully, with the devices not being too far apart in processing power, we could see the game being playable on the Steam Deck.

Finally, the developers did state that they are hoping to support cross-play for multiplayer between consoles and PC, but they can't confirm anything about that yet.

We here at SteamDeckHQ aren't the only ones excited about Hela, the game has been nominated for 3 awards at the Gamescom awards, Best Gameplay, Most Entertaining, and Most Wholesome. You can head over to the voting page to vote for your favorite games.

If you're at Gamescom in person, you can head to the Indie Arena Booth in Hall 10-2 to check Hela out for yourself.

Hela is due to launch in 2026 on Steam and Nintendo Switch 2.

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