A brand-new game, but it is literally an Xbox 360-era shooter, in the best possible sense. The boomer-shooter scene has examined the aesthetics of the ’90s and moved on to the early 2000s, but games like Twisted Tower are still rare even in 2026. So I’d call the developer a visionary, considering he started working on it five years ago.

I wasn’t following this shooter at all; every bit of news about it passed me by. Steam simply threw it at me on release. I launched it with zero expectations and was immediately charmed. It’s a great example of someone not “polishing the game forever,” but still releasing something technically stable and finely tuned in terms of gameplay.

I have to admit, I’ve never liked BioShock’s gameplay. Twisted Tower looks like “BioShock at home,” except this one was actually fun for me to play (I didn’t even feel like increasing the very narrow FOV), and it doesn’t pretend to be an immersive-sim. Run-and-gun, then rummage through trash cans and buy upgrades. That’s it. There are spatial puzzles, but they’re not difficult. The game is pretty easy overall, which I also see as a plus: it thrives on momentum. You keep getting new guns, new abilities, and new enemies throughout the whole game; considering the entire adventure lasts about 5-6 hours, it feels concentrated and varied.

The adventure itself is structured like a very simple metroidvania. There’s a central hub where new passages gradually open up, and you keep running back and forth until you unlock the final area with the boss-helicopter-airship. The game claims a second playthrough will be quite different because new routes open up, but unfortunately I didn’t really notice that. There’s also a little story with three characters, told through photographs, audio diaries, and video recordings from the main villain. All pretty standard, but it never gets tiresome because the developer doesn’t overuse any of it. Nothing overstays its welcome, which I really like. Few things are worse than a game stretching itself just to inflate the runtime, but Twisted Tower isn’t guilty of that.