Gamescom 2026 Hands-On: Bad Magpie Impressions!

Gamescom has only just begun, but Bad Magpie will remain the show's biggest surprise

The Bad Magpie demo taught me two things: that Magpie in Hebrew is a crow, and that if you love cute, light-hearted games with creative puzzles, excellent humor, and tons of corners to explore, this is going to be one of your games of 2027. No less.

I discovered the game's demo completely by accident. I went to the Xbox indie games booth intending to play completely different games—and then I turned around and saw this little magpie looking at me, and I found myself falling in love. The game has a genuinely special charm, even compared to games with similar special charm. On paper, the game looks similar to Little Kitty, Big City: a little magpie with an injured wing falls into a neighborhood and has to deal with all the strange things she encounters using the bird brain we have—that is, she has.

But here's where the story changes. The world we're playing in seems far from normal, with strange characters I'd call monsters if they weren't so darn cute. Additionally, everything appears abandoned, and I can't learn more about the world through its environment because the game is silent—but with some of the best sound design I've experienced. The bird's walking is so satisfying, and all the sounds you can make with her and the things she can put in her mouth sent me soaring even though her wing is broken. I found maracas and rattled them like crazy. I found a stick, and by tapping it on stone with your beak you can light fire all around the environment—and then ignite a firework that also sounds amazing.

But the satisfaction doesn't end there. The game is built as an open area where each time you need to collect X diamonds to progress, earn something shiny from the area, and bring it back to a fallen star you found. The area is full of puzzles, far more than you'll need to move on to the next thing, and some are really clever and not obvious at all. One puzzle took place on a soccer field with mice. After you blow up their ball and score a goal, you get cheese that you use to lead the mice to another spot on the map where five mice are drawn on the floor. Most games would stop here and pat you on the back for connecting the dots—but not Bad Magpie. If you return to the soccer field, you'll see the mice worshipping a monument to the ball, a visual gag that had me cracking up.

This is where the game truly sets itself apart from all other "feel-good" games. It's hilarious, really. I laughed out loud about ten times during the demo, whether from interactions with weird mice in the neighborhood or from the way the game reinvents its gameplay in very creative ways (like entering a computer game and doing silly things with the bird).

Bad Magpie is expected to release next year, and I'm already telling you, declaring to you—put it on your radar. We've already put it on ours, and we'll continue updating about it until the full review.