There’s a whole world of games out there for people who hate themselves, and very few of them have ever appealed to me. And yet, since the olden days of Xbox Live Arcade, I’ve had a soft spot for Super Meat Boy. It’s hard to rage quit a game when it immediately chucks you back into the fray after death. But most importantly, you feel in control, so you know it’s your fault.

Super Meat Boy 3D understands this and holds onto that philosophy as it enters the third dimension. It would be so easy to muck up the transition to 3D, but based on the gameplay demo at Gamescom this year, we’re in very good hands.

Super Meat Boy 3D Opens Up More Possibilities - And More Ways To Die

Right off the bat, the switch to 3D means there’s a lot for the experience to account for. We can move in more directions now, so there are more ways we could potentially cheese our way through stages. But, at least in my experience, that was not the case. While Super Meat Boy 3D has more ways to play, it also means the level designers have more ways to kill you. And believe me, they make the most of it.

Just like the original game, a mistimed jump, a missed input, or just not knowing how the game wants you to approach a hurdle means that you’re falling to your death. Or into a saw - things are just as brutal as ever.

Super Meat Boy 3D has a fixed camera. I was told that the team played around with a movable camera, but decided this was best.

For the most part, all of the gameplay mechanics are satisfying. Moving in three dimensions suits Meat Boy well, and I never had an issue with what direction I was going in. The only sticking point was the wall jumping, and I definitely did not find it as intuitive as I would expect from a mechanic that’s been in countless platformers before this one, not to mention how well it works in its older 2D sibling. Even after a lot of trial and error, I was struggling to get a handle on it.

The Stages Are Like A Puzzle, And Hard To Ragequit

One thing that struck me after roughly two dozen deaths on the same stage is that all of them are puzzles unto themselves. Maybe this thought was just my way of coping with the fact that I was sucking at the game with a developer watching, but even with post-Gamescom clarity, I do think there is something to this distinct sense of challenge.

Super Meat Boy 3D gives you a lot of ways to move around, so you have to figure out what every jump or obstacle course is asking of you. This suits the style of the series nicely, where loading times between deaths are super short, so you jump straight back in and immediately improve upon your last run. You’ve also got the blood trail showing you what paths you’ve tried before, making it clear that this is a game about learning from your mistakes, rather than stewing in failure.

Even on that level that took me embarrassingly long to crack, it was so satisfying. I would send Meat Boy crashing into the same obstacle again and again until I figured out how to get past it, and then, suddenly, my runs are lasting a whole lot longer. The part of the level that tripped me up for minutes is then a breeze. Every win feels earned.

This is all to say that this is a Super Meat Boy game. There was no trace of randomly generated levels or auto-run mechanics as we saw with Super Meat Boy Forever, just the essence of Super Meat Boy, translated faithfully into 3D. There’s still a whole lot I haven’t seen (due in no small part to how much time I spent dying), but based on the levels I tried out, I believe that Super Meat Boy 3D will stick the landing when it launches next spring.

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Super Meat Boy 3D

Action Platformer Systems Released 2026 Developer(s) Team Meat Publisher(s) Headup Games Prequel(s) Super Meat Boy Forever, Super Meat Boy Franchise Meat Boy Number of Players Single-player Steam Deck Compatibility Unknown
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WHERE TO PLAY

DIGITAL
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