Get your grappling hooks ready! ChainStaff, the high-octane action platformer from Mommy’s Best Games, has officially locked in its release date.
Inspired by 80s sci-fi and classic heavy metal album covers, this “brutal” side-scroller puts you in the shoes of a mutant with an alien parasite literally fused to your head. Your primary tool is the titular ChainStaff—a versatile weapon that shifts between a spear, shield, and grappling hook at the touch of a button.
Quick Intel:
Release Date: April 8, 2026
Developer: Mommy’s Best Games (led by Nathan Fouts, veteran of Insomniac and Serious Sam)
Platforms: PC (Steam), PS5, PS4, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, and Nintendo Switch
Soundtrack: A blistering metal score by Deon van Heerden (Broforce)
Key Features
One-Button Versatility: Master the shifting mechanics to slice through alien “Star Spores,” block incoming fire, or swing across 10 hand-drawn levels.
Grotesque Decisions: Encounter fallen comrades and make a choice—rescue them for human tech or harvest their organs to fuel your alien mutation.
Classic Challenge: Think Mega Man X meets Bionic Commando with a modern, fluid feel.
Endless Replayability: Featuring multiple endings, branching tech trees, and a New Game+ mode.
“The grappling hook mechanics are smooth as silk… the ability to change the ChainStaff into a spear, shield, or bridge with a single button should give players a new type of challenge!” — Nathan Fouts, Director
Pre-orders are live now on most console storefronts. If you’re a fan of high-speed retro action and grotesque sci-fi aesthetics, this is one to keep on your radar for April!
When you hear the name “Symbiosis” in the gaming world, you might assume you’re talking about a single, unified title. However, a quick look reveals that this evocative name is the chosen label for several intriguing and wildly different projects. It’s a name that clearly speaks to deep-seated human curiosity—about life, partnership, and strange, new worlds.
Let’s dive into the fascinating, if fragmented, landscape of games bearing the title Symbiosis.
1. The Co-op Survival Action RPG: SYMBIOSIS (Aberratic)
The most prominent title making waves in the “Coming Soon” category is the co-op survival action RPG simply titled Symbiosis (or sometimes Land of Symbiosis) from Aberratic. This is one for the players who love high-stakes crafting, exploration, and base defence.
The Core Loop: You or your squad are stranded on the procedurally generated alien world of Sigma Century. Your mission? Survival. You’ll explore, scavenge for resources, craft better gear, and, most crucially, build and defend your base.
The Twist: Your high-tech survival gear and power systems attract the local wildlife—mechanical hybrid creatures, the result of a disastrous experiment called ‘Symbiosis.’ This magnetic pull on the enemy makes base defence a critical, continuous challenge, forcing you to constantly balance the benefits of technology with the threat it draws. If you love games that blend the crafting and exploration of survival with the intense waves of base defence, keep this one wishlisted. The developers are planning an Early Access release to gather player feedback, which is always a promising sign for a complex system-driven game.
2. The Microscopic Evolution Sim: SYMBIOSIS (Evolution Sim)
Stepping away from the rugged alien planet, another game has taken the name to explore life at its smallest, most fundamental level. This Symbiosis is a microscopic evolution simulator that will strongly appeal to fans of the ‘cell stage’ from games like Spore.
The Core Loop: Start as a single cell and navigate the primordial soup of prehistoric Earth. You eat, breed, and evolve, choosing traits to help your organism survive in a challenging, resource-scarce environment.
The Twist: The game focuses on the science of cellular life, including the process of Endosymbiosis, where one organism begins to live inside another. It’s a game about strategic, biological choices, offering a unique blend of scientific accuracy and engaging, growth-focused gameplay. If you enjoy deep progression systems and the wonder of biological evolution, this is a title to keep an eye on, especially as the developers continue to refine the experience based on their recent demo.
3. The Short-Form Horror Visual Novel: SYMBIOSIS (Spicaze)
And for something completely different, there’s the much-loved, short-form horror game by Spicaze. This title uses the concept of ‘symbiosis’ in a far darker, more personal way—exploring the twisted, yet genuine, relationship between a reclusive witch, Magnolia, and her adorable, slightly unsettling homunculus ‘son,’ Mint.
The Core Loop: Playing as the witch Magnolia, you are trying to clean up a recent, messy break-in by disposing of a corpse, all while protecting Mint from the three remaining intruders in your house.
The Twist: The gameplay is a narrative-driven visual novel/RPG Maker horror experience. The “symbiosis” is less about biology and more about the psychological bond between a genuinely terrible person and the life she created. It’s short, impactful, and memorable, with multiple endings that explore the nuances of their complicated, co-dependent relationship. If you enjoy character-driven horror and dark, pixel-art narratives, seek this one out—it’s a critical darling in the indie horror scene.
A Name That Speaks Volumes
It’s rare for one name to cover such a spectrum of genres—from a co-op shooter to an evolution sim to a narrative horror game. Yet, the word “Symbiosis” is a perfect fit for all of them. It speaks to the fundamental concept of two disparate elements coming together to form a whole, for better or worse.
Whether you’re looking to form a strategic partnership to survive a mechanical onslaught on a distant planet, guide the cellular evolution of a new life form, or navigate the deeply unsettling relationship between a witch and her creation, the world of games named Symbiosis has something compelling waiting for you.
Which Symbiosis are you most excited to explore? Let us know in the comments!
At first sight, Mars appears to be a dry and almost dead planet, but miles below the surface, there is a strange and wonderful ecosystem just waiting to be explored. This is Blind Descent, a game of survival and discovery in a world that has remained untouched for a long time, until a failed mission to the planet leaves a single survivor in this vast underground world.
To find out more about Blind Descent, go to the official website here https://blinddescent.net/ or go to the games page on Steam here https://shorturl.at/YgV72
Just imagine what it would be like getting up close and personal with the dreaded Xenomorph well in the Alien Rogue Incursion you can as it is available for Meta Quest VR players this is where you can actually get a feel for what it would like to be right in there when the action begins. The Alien Rogue Incursion VR game has been available before today but now it is available for the Meta Quest.
To find out more about the Alien Rogue Incursion game go to the official game website here https://bit.ly/AlienRI_Meta
The UFO Man is coming soon, but don’t worry this is not an invasion this is just a guy in a flying saucer moving square blocks around completing tasks and then moving on to the next one. However the controls and the blocks are delicate, one mistake and you are back to the starting all over again. This might have the appearance of an easy game, but for the players, this is a challenge and it is really going to be addictive, are you ready for this? UFO Man will be available from the 25th October on Steam and for iOS.
To find out more about the UFO Man game visit the games page on Steam here https://store.steampowered.com/app/3091230/UFOMan/ or visit the official game website here https://dyglone.sakura.ne.jp/software_ufoman.html
This is something that has been in the works for almost five years, but now the work is paying off with the Alien role-playing game coming to Kickstarter very soon. This game is going to be based on the well-known movie franchise, where we come to know that “In space, nobody can hear you scream!” let us hope that this game is going to live up to what we have come to expect. The Alien RPG will be launching on Kickstarter this Autumn, are you ready?
Find out more on how you can get involved with the Alien RPG on Kickstarter here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1192053011/alien-rpg-second-edition-and-rapture-protocol
When it comes to aliens there is only one that is scary enough to make you want to run and hide and that is the Xenomorph, this creature is so deadly, intelligent and ruthless that it’s no wonder they are hunted down.
However, things are about to get even more frightening with the launch of the Alien Rogue Incursion game. This is no ordinary game this is a VR game and that means getting up close and personal with the deadly Xenomorph, so close in fact that you can sense the creature all around, until that point when it jumps out in front of you, then what are you going to do?
Find out more about the Alien Rogue Incursion VR Game here; https://alienrogueincursion.com/
It could be said that the Alien movie franchise had lost its way, but with Alien Romulus the nightmare has come back. The story follows a group of colonisers who have found an abandoned space station that looks like just the place to use as a staging area for their bigger plans of colonisation. While everything looks fine to start with it turns out that the most feared creature in the universe the Xenomorph has got there first and it is only a matter of time before they encounter it.
Find out more about the Alien Romulus movie here; https://www.20thcenturystudios.com/movies/alien-romulus
They say that the truth is out there when it comes to UFO’s and Alien visitors, yet it seems the harder we look for the truth the further away it is and despite interviews and other evidence that seem to back the possibility of alien encounters taking place, we are still further away from the truth.
Encounters is a new four-part documentary on Netflix that gathers information from around the world in an attempt to get to the truth by interviewing witnesses and looking into documents held by government departments. Of course, the truth about alien encounters will only ever be known when we can all see with our own eyes a spacecraft in orbit around the planet.
Find out more about Encounters on Netflix here; https://media.netflix.com/en/only-on-netflix/81489034
Another season and another monster to take on, this time it is the formidable flying howler monster that lands on the hostile planet known as Fortuna III. The base is always in need of fresh resources and it is your job to get out and about on this dangerous planet to source these much-needed resources, good luck with that! Find out more on The Cycle: Frontier here; https://gsght.com/c/niqnid #FlyingHowlerMonster #TheCycleFrontier #SciFi #Alien #Planet #TheCycleFrontierBreakthrough
