Hela Is All About Physics, And I Love It - GDC 2025

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While I was roaming around the Xbox event, there were a couple of games that initially caught my eye. Hela was not one of them. I had actually walked over to the Hela booth to talk to another writer and catch up, but after he told me a little about the game and that we could swing around like Spider-Man, I had to try it for myself. I am so glad he convinced me to try the game out, because now it is one of the games I am most looking forward to releasing.

For anyone who doesn't know me, I am a sucker for physics in video games. I love being able to interact realistically with the world, watching objects fly around, and reacting accordingly when hitting other objects. Hela is based around physics, and I fell in love playing it. You play as a little mouse, roaming around a giant map and completing objectives and physics-based puzzles. And yes, that includes swinging around the trees like Spider-Man, thanks to your frog backpack.

I enjoyed swinging around the trees, and I can say it was quite entertaining, even though there were some minor issues with momentum. Still, I can see this being incredible, and with the gliding feature, I can easily see roaming quickly through the forests, which is possible and way too much fun. The version of the game I played, which is in pre-alpha, didn't allow me to keep my momentum when swinging, but the developer reassured me that this is something they are looking into to make it as fun to swing around as possible.

I also like how intuitive the puzzles are and how they rely on your abilities to complete them, and of course, I love how much they rely on physics. One of your key abilities will be creating duplicates or "shades" of yourself. These can be used as checkpoints that you can teleport back to, but they can also be used as fully interactable objects. If you create a shade while holding an object, it will continue to hold onto it, and you can latch onto your shade and pull it around. I used this as a way to pull an object I needed up to the table I was at, but I just pulled my shade up while it was holding the object instead, since I can't latch onto the object directly.

You can even attach a string to your shade and then create a second one, which allows the string to be used as a bungee cord to bounce higher. There are all sorts of ways to use your shades and the physics of the world to your benefit, and with the animals you can find around the world that you can call and give you more abilities, I can only see it getting more and more enjoyable to play. I can tell this would be an awesome game to play on the Steam Deck, and I hope Windup is able to optimize it enough for us to play on the go.

I also want to point out that the world looks incredible. The environments look so detailed and beautiful, and it handles the perspective that comes from being a small mouse really well. I can't wait to explore the forest and see all the sights for myself!

Hela can be wishlisted right now on Steam, and if you are a fan of physics-driven games and want to swing around like Spider-Man, you will want to keep an eye on this game.

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