Steam new free game hailed as 'beautiful, fun experience'

A new free game on Steam is getting a lot of very positive feedback, and it’s managed to garner an extremely impressive review score on the platform as a result.

Ascent DX is a metroidvania adventure game on Steam from developer and publisher Apskeppet, and, even though it's less than two weeks old, it's already managed to earn itself a "Very Positive" review score, with 97% of the reviews being positive.

The developer describes it as a "tiny metroidvania brought to life in glorious 64 x 64 pixel art and soothing chiptune music", and both the art and music are something the reviewers on Steam were extremely complimentary of in their reviews.

“Great experience, easy to recommend. I don't have anything negative to say, it sets out to be a bite-sized metroidvania and nails everything. Beautiful pixel art and music,” states reviewer Jet Black.

Mario Kart World was the week's biggest reveal.

“Nice controls. Fun exploration-focused gameplay. Despite its short length, it manages to pack in a decent amount of variety. I enjoyed the original Pico8 and this is even better. For steam deck owners: Played entirely on steam deck and had no issues at all.”

“Fun and well designed. Generates a lot of atmosphere with just a few pixels. The platforming felt really well tuned to the movement abilities. Great music,” commented user Jeff.

Best part of it is, even though the game is relatively short (roughly an hour, based on what the reviews say), there are multiple endings to find. Not often you get a lot of replayability out of a free game.

I think this is the type of thing the dev could have easily charged a small fee for, but it’s a smart move bringing a game of this quality to people for free instead. Either way, don’t take the reviewers’ word for it and give it a go for yourself– most you’ll lose is time.