[STEAM] 1666 Amsterdam feels like the Assassin's Creed game that never was, and fighting witch hunters with my time-traveling familiar left me hungry for more

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(Image credit: Panache Digital Games) There's something otherworldly about 1666 Amsterdam that strikes me as both familiar and unique. Perhaps it's the text boxes that pop up as I enter dialogue, reminding me of the storybook quality of

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. It could also be the twice-framed narrative reminding me of Désilets' early Assassin's Creed games, as a modern day protagonist named Clio reads through her late father's writings to learn about the strange connection between the night of her conception in 1999 and 15th century Dutch Witch Trials.

But 1666 Amsterdam's lusciously dark tone stands all on its own. If the brooding, medieval-gothic drama saturating each pixel didn't have me fully invested in Panache Digital's fantasy already, its novel level design, impressively executed facial animations, and cleverly themed mechanics would have had me selling my own soul to play it in Early Access on August 25.

When in Amsterdam

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(Image credit: Panache Digital Games) My hands-on picks up right where the

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leaves off: Noa has just chosen her Bateratze – a feline familiar – and this one happens to be possessed by the disembodied spirit of a man called Aaron from 300 years in the future, whose last memory is of sleeping with his new wife in a swanky Amsterdam hotel despite said wife having

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.

Noa barely has time to introduce herself, let alone explain the coven to Aaron, before witch hunters attack. After the quick scuffle, which feels lithe and acrobatic even in this fairly recent work-in-progress build, I enchant one of the glittering canals dead ahead and glide over its surface into the night. Emerging at a low-slung pier beneath a bridge, I spot a lively tavern up ahead and climb a ladder up to it.

Flowing red robes give way to humble peasant garb as Noa, now appearing a respectable bonnet-clad village maiden (with a ****** cat on her shoulder), swaps to her "hidden" form to scan the area for clues.

With witch trials sweeping the Netherlands in 1666, Noa needs to stay smart. Changing strategically between revealed and hidden forms is vital for passing through Amsterdam undetected. It serves a more obvious yet functionally similar purpose to donning or removing your hood in Assassin's Creed. Stay hidden to learn more from your surroundings and pass as one of the everyman. Let Noa's suspicion meter fill completely after being revealed in public, and you'll have witch hunters to fight off.

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(Image credit: Panache Digital Games) Life and death are intertwined in the world of 1666 Amsterdam

Hunting down an Original for myself, asking tavernkeepers and loose-lipped patrons is an easy way to get hints as to their location. Luckily, Noa seems to have already identified roughly where this first Original is hiding. He's been shut up in his house somewhere on this canal front, and tips from the locals suggest the adjacent house might be the spot.

Tapping LB on my Xbox controller, I send Aaron the cat into the house to investigate through a cracked window. Just like finding points of interest with Noa, controlling Aaron requires me to hold down LT to look for white dots signaling an interactable item – or, in Aaron's case, a surface he can leap to – as he finds doors to unlatch and let Noa inside.

Aaron's feline agility means that 1666 Amsterdam does have a touch of Assassin's Creed's rooftop-hopping verticality, something Patrice was inspired by when he first visited the city after leaving Ubisoft in 2013. "She's city witch because I'm personally a city-dweller. That's it, I like cities," he chuckled during a post-preview masterclass session (same here – the

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was my favorite thing about pre-RPG Creeds), and that affinity shows in every inch of 1666 Amsterdam.

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(Image credit: Panache Digital Games) There's another attack pattern to learn: Noa dodges three-strike combos and ranged projectiles, swooping in to deliver a few strong hits before pirouetting to safety. Target lock on is incredibly effective here, and after a couple of false starts (I accidentally kept going into debug mode, whoops), I've finally downed my first Original. I only wish I'd focused in on the breakable crates dotted throughout the battleground and experimented with shattering them near the ****** to see if it did any damage (I managed to kill four Knaves with this barrelmancy half an hour earlier), but holding LT to cast spells can be confusing in the heat of battle without anything to slow my prey down while I focus.

I'd only just reached a point where Aaron travels back to 1999 to find his unconscious wife levitating in a gore-spattered bedroom, Noa appearing on his shoulder as his very own Bateratze, before the preview session came to a close. My hour-and-a-bit with 1666 Amsterdam didn't feel long enough at all, but even this brief taste has me desperate to return to Panache's mysterious world in all its gritty glory.

Every rough edge feels like a battle scar, much like Noa's own, proof of the incredibly long road the game has taken to get to this point. I actually hope that the developer doesn’t smooth it out too much for that very reason; what's a warrior without a few good nicks?

There's more going on in the gaming world than

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this year. Check out all the

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still to come in 2026 while you wait for 1666 Amsterdam!

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