A first-look breakdown of Duskfade’s new PS5 gameplay trailer, exploring its throwback platforming, snappy combat, and nostalgic world design in the wider comeback of PS2-style 3D action-platformers.
Sony’s PS5 library has quietly been building a new comfort-food niche: glossy, mid-budget 3D action-platformers that feel like someone cracked open a late PS2 time capsule. Weird Beluga’s Duskfade fits that space almost perfectly. Its new gameplay trailer is a clear pitch to anyone who grew up with Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter, right down to the wide-eyed hero, chunky props, and a world built around collectible treasure and kinetic traversal.
What makes Duskfade interesting is that it is not just leaning on nostalgia. From this latest PS5 footage, it looks like a game that understands what actually made those platformers tick, then layers in modern pacing and control polish that fans have spent two decades imagining.
A PS2-style platformer that actually remembers the “platforming”
The first thing that stands out in the trailer is how much of it is about movement rather than pure spectacle. Zirian, the apprentice hero at the center of Duskfade, spends a lot of time jumping, double-jumping, and chaining traversal gadgets over what look like semi-open, multi-route arenas rather than straight corridors.
In one sequence he sprints across rotating clockwork platforms, pivots into a grapple swing, then lands on a narrow rail that carries him along a curved path through the sky. The camera stays pulled back just enough that you can read each landing spot and judge your jumps, much closer to the measured clarity of Jak II and Ratchet & Clank: Going Commando than to a modern cinematic action game.
The developers have already talked about being obsessed with responsiveness, and that philosophy comes through in the footage. There is almost no visible input lag: Zirian snaps from air-control adjustment into an instant ground roll, then seamlessly back into a jump. Ledges have generous lip detection that should cut down on the “clipped it by a pixel” frustration older platformers were famous for. It looks tuned for that satisfying loop of enter an area, immediately clock where the tricky path is, and start chaining moves until you get into a flow.
Duskfade also leans into height and depth in a way that should feel familiar to PS2 veterans. Several shots show vertical stacks of platforms that encourage you to look up, with optional pickups floating off main routes, tempting you to figure out how to reach them. It is the kind of layered layout Ratchet and Jak used to hide bolts and Precursor orbs, only here it is time crystals and gear-like artifacts tied to the story’s broken-clock theming.
Clock-hand swordplay: snappy, readable combat for short attention spans
Combat in the new trailer sits right at that halfway point between breezy mascot brawling and something a little more technical. Zirian fights with a blade shaped like a massive clock hand, and it behaves the way you would want it to: light attacks are quick slashes with short recovery, while heavier swings have a dramatic arc that can hit multiple enemies but leaves you open.
The footage suggests a light combo system where you can mix ground strings with launcher-style finishers. At one point, Zirian pops an armored foe into the air, hops up after it, and finishes with a spinning slash before air-dodging onto a nearby platform. It is not Devil May Cry, but it is far more expressive than the old “square, square, triangle” patterns that dominated PS2 mascot games.
Crucially, enemies telegraph their moves clearly. Cartoonish outlines flash before area-of-effect stomps, projectile trails are brightly colored and slow enough to read, and shield-bearing enemies have obvious weak points. It looks tuned for the same quick legibility that made Ratchet & Clank’s arenas so easy to parse even when bolts, explosions, and gadgets filled the screen.
There are clear signs of crowd-control tools and mobility-focused abilities as well. Short-range dashes let you cancel recovery from attacks and reposition, and there are glimpses of a time-themed special that briefly freezes nearby enemies in a shimmering bubble. Used well, it should let you treat crowds like extensions of the environment, bouncing between frozen targets to keep your combo going while staying off the ground.
A world built out of gears, twilight, and PS2-era color theory
If you paused the trailer at random, you could almost convince yourself you were looking at an ultra-clean HD remaster of a 2004 platformer. Duskfade is drenched in saturated color and chunky shapes: oversized gears jutting from tower walls, bridges twisting into spiral stairways, and skyboxes painted in deep purples and oranges that sell the idea of a world locked in eternal dusk.
The central hook is time frozen in a single moment. Cities and villages sit half-swallowed by time anomalies, with buildings tilted at impossible angles and trains suspended in mid-derailment in the air. These frozen vignettes do more than look pretty. Platforms are often bits of everyday life ripped into midair: a floating market stall becomes a stepping stone to a rooftop, or a stopped clockwork train turns its cars into a makeshift rail-grind sequence.
It is a direct echo of how Ratchet & Clank used its weapon factories and space stations as both visual showpieces and climbable playgrounds. Similarly, Jak & Daxter’s best areas could double as postcard backdrops and tight obstacle courses. Duskfade seems determined to keep both functions in play. Every level shot in the trailer has enough visual identity that you can imagine remembering it years later as “the frozen fairground” or “the shattered clock tower district” rather than just “Level 3.”
The PS5 hardware gives this throwback aesthetic extra punch. Particle effects shower the screen when time fractures, and the lighting bounces off metallic surfaces in a soft, almost toy-like way that makes gears and pipes pop without veering into hyper-realism. It is stylized and clean, but effects like volumetric fog and subtle depth of field contribute to that modern sense of atmosphere that older hardware could only hint at.
Jak’s mood, Ratchet’s pacing, and a hint of Kingdom Hearts
Duskfade is often name-dropped alongside Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter, but there is another clear touchstone in the tone of its story and cutscenes: Kingdom Hearts. Zirian’s journey is framed as a quest to rescue his sister from a towering clock structure that has plunged the world into a permanent, haunted twilight. It is a classic “save someone you love to fix the world” setup, tinged with melodrama and earnestness.
The PS5 trailer lingers on quiet, character-focused beats between the jumping and slashing. Zirian’s mechanical companion, Cuckoo, flutters around him like a steampunk Navi, projecting holographic markers and chiming with little personality-laden animations. Short scenes of Zirian pausing before a colossal frozen wave or a village encased in crystalized time hint at a story that wants to explore regret, memory, and the cost of moving on, without losing that Saturday-morning-cartoon energy.
In tone, it looks like a midpoint between the goofball weapon commercials of Ratchet & Clank and the increasingly brooding later Jak games. There is levity in the character animations and enemy designs, but also just enough shadow in the art direction to sell the idea that this world is coming apart if you do not set it right.
Positioning Duskfade in the new wave of PS2-style revivals
Duskfade is not arriving in a vacuum. The past few years have quietly brought a wave of 3D action-platformers trying to recapture that PS2 sweet spot: tightly paced, level-based adventures with combat, collectibles, and just enough story to keep you invested. From indie mascot throwbacks to mid-budget platformers, there is clearly a hunger for this flavor of game on modern hardware.
What seems to separate Duskfade, at least from this first-look trailer, is how unapologetically it commits to the full package of that era. It is not just “has a double jump” or “bright colors.” It has hub-like areas feeding into bespoke stages, traversal sequences that could stand on their own even if you stripped the combat out, and a tone that treats heartfelt melodrama and cartoon spectacle as equally valid.
At the same time, it is taking the lessons of two decades of iteration to heart. Camera framing remains readable even in the busiest fights, and the move set is expressive enough that veteran players can treat encounters like small sandboxes rather than rote arenas. Movement looks tuned for consistency instead of nostalgia for old frustrations, which is crucial if the game wants to appeal to younger players used to modern precision platformers.
For PlayStation fans still trading stories about their favorite Precursor orbs or Platinum bolts, Duskfade’s new gameplay footage looks like a promise: those kinds of games can still exist on cutting-edge hardware without feeling like relics. If Weird Beluga can maintain this balance of throwback structure and modern feel across a full campaign, Duskfade could end up as one of PS5’s most welcome surprises for anyone who grew up in the PS2 era.
With a launch window set for 2026 and more footage likely on the way, Duskfade is one to keep on your wishlist if you have ever wished Ratchet and Jak would share the stage again in something new.