Replaced is a triumphant take on cinematic action storytelling that’s perfectly not perfect
I’ve been completely sucked into the world of Replaced from the moment I first laid eyes on it. It visually grabs us with its style, then physically does with its very specific brand of substance. It’s been hard to look away. Impossible, probably.
The game, a sidescrolling cinematic action platformer, lives in cyberpunk noir. Think Bladerunner, Hollywood scifi, the Eighties. The premise is that a sort of rogue AI named Reach has been jammed into the head of a scientist named Warren; the cool twist being that we actually control the AI controlling the scientist’s body. Because of this we’re awkwardly doing things, awkwardly interacting with other characters and even Warren himself, always apologizing to him for having his physical body do something that he isn’t ready for. It’s kind of funny and weirdly endearing, even though IT’S A ROGUE AI IN HIS HEAD.
The game is aesthetically stunning. That’s the first thing anyone will notice about it, and it’s on purpose. Developers Sad Cat Studios have taken what we all loved about the recent trend of “HD2D” styles and said “we can top this, in every way.” It’s so much so that it feels like every level that we play somehow artistically bests the previous one. I’d come across a scene say WOW, take a snapshot on the Steamdeck, and then like 5 minutes later I’m taking another snapshot and saying the same thing. I proclaim “I have no idea how they did this” and then they do it again. Smooth animation, wonderful landscapes with depth, and lighting that feels surreal encapsulates everything about the experience. This even translates to the cool menu system, which is named the Wingman and is designed like an old portable radio with a screen, showing our hand and fingers turning a dial up and down and clicking buttons. It feels perfect in its thematic intention.
The stages are huge, and there is a lot to do in them, especially once we open up the hub area and start accepting side quests. One of my favorites is based on arcade cabinets and, while I won’t spoil it, I will say that the in-game arcade games that can be played are so excruciatingly accurate that it feels like the developers used a multiversal time machine to pull a cabinet from an alternate dimension.
But the game is a bit shallow, and a bit of a slog at times, especially in the opening section. It’s a really, really long tutorial where we’re just running to the right, then running and jumping, then running, jumping and climbing, then learning how to parry while running, jumping, climbing, then learning how to dodge while running… you get the picture. It’s a very long process that feels like it’s designed to add a new mechanic after practicing it for a long time, which wears very thin very quickly.
The actual gameplay revolves around cinematic action, so we’re parrying and dodging and meleeing and shooting, but it’s all based on timing. We need to pay attention to color indicators on the enemies to know if we need to dodge or parry, but the indicators are all in the same location and rely on a color change to inform us, making it a bit confusing to remember if it’s Y or A or X that we have to press at the right time. I wish that the indicators were actually on different parts of the enemies instead, maybe positioned to match the buttons we need to press instead, but it’s ultimately a minor issue that we can get past if we just match the beats of the event. It becomes more chaotic too, because most of the time we’re stuck in battles with groups of enemies that are all requiring us to act as if it’s a shifting series of one-on-ones. These fights are usually not skippable, meaning that we’re in the proverbial moster closet where we have to take them all out to progess.
That being said, and even with those issues, I loved this game so fucking much. It hit all of my personal buttons, and is everything I could have wanted from a game like this with not a single pixel more. A wild cyber noir story with great characters, phenomenal visuals, cutscene inspired gameplay and a lot of ideas? Yeah. Yes. YES.
It’s so fucking cool.
This review is based on a PC code sent to SideQuesting by the publisher. This video first appeared on The SideQuest Live for April 23, 2026.
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