Helix: Descent N Ascent (2026)

Helix is an adventure game taking place in a melancholic disembodied world. Combine your powers to solve puzzles and explore further and deeper.

Platform Puzzle Adventure IndiePC (Microsoft Windows), Nintendo Switch

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Character

Grave, contemporary, earnest and raw.

gravecomic
contemporarynostalgic
earnestironic
rawmeticulous
contemplativerelentless

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From the critics

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Digital ChumpsNathaniel StevensAug 20269/10
Helix: Descent N Ascent from developer Badass Mongoose is an addictive, gorgeous puzzle game that features some well-placed Metroidvania elements. It can be confusing and sometimes frustrating, but it’s a hoot to play overall.
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ImpulsegamerNay ClarkJul 20264/5
Helix: Descent N Ascent is a confident and creative puzzle adventure. Its mysterious story, beautiful monochrome presentation, and inventive ability system all work together to create something memorable. The game gives you a strange world, a collection of unique powers, and the freedom to figure things out yourself. The ability combinations are smart, the puzzles are satisfying, and the overall presentation makes every moment feel carefully crafted. Helix: Descent N Ascent is one of the more unique puzzle games of the year and a great example of how strong art direction and creative mechanics can come together to create something special.
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Indie Games DevelChiara RosciniAug 20268.5/10
Helix: Descent N Ascent is Badass Mongoose’s first project, a small Belgian studio founded by Cedric De Muelenaere and Gillian Sampont, and it’s a puzzle-adventure that builds its identity around a black-and-white aesthetic inspired by 1980s indie comics, 1990s manga, and the 1970s Franco-Belgian tradition. The game entrusts its narrative almost entirely to imagery: environments, dialogue-free cutscenes, and carved panels that recount, in fragments, a vanished civilization’s myth. The heart of the experience, though, remains the gameplay: five abilities – Block, Drone, Hook, Cage, and Hourglass – that combine first in pairs and then, in the second half of the game, in triplets, generating a puzzle system that keeps offering new solutions for the entire adventure. A consultable map system guides progression clearly, flagging where to return once you’ve learned new combinations, and some passages open through Donkey Kong-style arcade minigames. Jim Guthrie’s soundtrack accompanies every area with the same power to create a suspended territory already evident in the demo, never slipping into repetition. After seventeen hours of play, the overall experience confirms and deepens everything promised since the 2024 announcement: a quiet adventure, intelligently constructed, able to hold up over the long haul without losing its own voice.
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Pure NintendoKirk HinerAug 20266.5/10
Whether players will enjoy Helix: Descent N Ascent will likely be determined by how far the visuals carry them. The game is striking to look at, but the complexity of the environment and the ambiguity of the puzzles hurt this otherwise unique entry in the puzzle/adventure genre.
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Gaming BoulevardNick de ReigerAug 20267/10
Looking back, Helix: Descent N Ascent worked best when it trusted me to figure things out for myself. The story is told without long explanations, and most puzzles expect you to experiment instead of waiting for a tutorial. For a large part of the game, that approach works really well. There were also moments where Helix became too vague for its own good, though. Instead of asking myself, “How do I solve this?”, I occasionally started wondering, “Am I even supposed to be doing this?” That can be frustrating, especially because the rest of the game proves that the developers know how to build clever puzzles. By the time the credits rolled, however, I was thinking more about the strange landscapes, the quiet story, and the puzzles that made me feel smart once everything finally clicked. Helix doesn’t always explain enough, but I would rather play a puzzle game that occasionally asks too much than one that gives away every answer before I have the chance to find it myself.
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