Hands-on with Replaced, the cinematic cyber noir platformer [Preview]

The cyber punk future is here, and it’s pretty incredible

Tucked away at Atari’s booth at PAX East was a monitor with a title card for the upcoming REPLACED above it, a controller, and that’s basiclaly it. As unassuming as it was in physical presentation, Replaced more than makes up for it in actual gameplay. The cinematic platformer is eye catching, ear catching, and finger twitch catching(?) as it sucks us in from the onset to the finish. Of the demo, at least.

Replaced takes place in the near future. There are cyber punk enemies, cyber punk robots, cyber punk trench coats and cyber punk themes. There’s no shortage of Blade Runner in the game, but that’s the intent; it’s an homage, and it does it extremely well. In fact this is what I envision when I think cyber punk, right down to the bloom lighting. It’s a visually strinking game, with fantastic animation and plenty of heart pounding “moments” built into it.

The game revels in its cinematic backbone. As we go from one end of a stage to the other we have to climb, shoot, parry, hide, crawl, swing and do it again and again, but doing so is almost, ALMOST, like performing miniature quick time events. To shoot at an enemy we have to take into account our position and theirs, to time our gun, our parries if they’re close enough, and even when to use a sort of finishing move that causes the screen to go into close ups and camera shifts. We don’t just run and gun, each fight is a sort of event that we look forward to.

No sooner do we survive then we have to escape, sometimes by avoiding the lights from a gunship that’s trying to find us. We can stealth across the field, hiding behind crates as the light searches, or take our chances and run as fast as possible (hint: we won’t make it). Then there are the sections where we’re climbing up scaffolds and leaping across girders, grabbing edges just perfectly when we land. It all feels so good.

It’s a lot like watching a high action portion of a John Wick film, and yet this is only one level in the demo. There are many, many more in the actual game, and I really can’t wait to dive in at full speed.

Replaced is scheduled to arrive April 14, 2026 on Xbox and PC.

This preview is based on a hands-on session at PAX East 2026. Images and video courtesy developer/publisher.