007 First Light and Mewgenics are the perfect trailer double feature
Two of next year's most exciting games could not look more different from one another
It's been a pretty busy week in video games. We launched (which is sick, obviously), more layoffs hit the industry with Firaxis, and we got two new gameplay showcases focused on some big games coming next year. One was for the massive, fancy James Bond game from the folks that made Hitman, and the other showcased the upcoming turn-based strategy game from the creator of The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, in which you breed and command crusty cats in a shed. Two great tastes that taste great together!
Goofs aside, I watched the gameplay reveals for Mewgenics and 007 First Light back to back, and it proved to be one of the weirder and more fun shot/chasers I've experienced in a while. I recommend you do the same.
I started with Mewgenics, the new game from Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel. McMillen — responsible for a ton of games over the last several decades, but best known from The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy — hosted the gameplay video on his own YouTube channel, taking about 50 minutes to explain the game and showcase an early adventure. His co-developer, Tyler Glaiel (who's been working with McMillen off and on since 2008, back in their Flash games days), will host his own Mewgenics stream later this month.
As you'll see in the video, the game really adheres to McMillen's traditional ... hmm ... "gross, but in a fun and silly way" visual style, which you'll find in all of his games. But Mewgenics is more Into the Breach with really fucked up, inbred cats than twitch platformer or top-down roguelike. Rest assured that even with the game's focus on tactics, it's still filled with abilities that make cats fart and enemy maggots that float around poop (which you can poke with a stick for loot).
I'd recommend you start with Mewgenics on this double feature journey because it makes the jump to sexy, swanky, British bad-boy (is it legal to refer to a British person as a "bad-boy?") James Bond delightfully jarring.
This very official State of Play from Sony takes you through 007 First Light in a few different ways. There's a completely commentary-free run through, starting with an early mission (complete with pulling up to a party in a sleek Jaguar before jumping into a Hitman-esque stealth section), before the developers from IO deliver some gameplay with commentary explaining how the game works.
To editorialize a little bit here, 007 First Light looks very promising as someone who enjoys Hitman, but whose OCD gives them a bit of analysis paralysis. Not that there aren't decisions to be made in 007 by the looks of this showcase, but as someone who mostly just does the "main" assassination storylines in Hitman before calling it a day, First Light seems more story-based and linear.
Both games are slated to launch in the first quarter of 2026, with Mewgenics launching on Feb. 10 and 007 First Light arriving on March 27.
