Devolver Digital and Doinksoft are releasing Volvy's Adventure Reslimed on Steam the same day as GTA 6, making a long-running mascot parody into a real action platformer.
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Store links: Volvy’s Adventure: Reslimed on Steam
Devolver's fake mascot now has a real release date
Devolver Digital and developer Doinksoft have announced Volvy's Adventure Reslimed, a new PC action platformer launching on Steam on November 19, 2026. That is the same date currently occupied by Grand Theft Auto 6, a collision Devolver has been openly treating as part dare, part joke, and part practical counterprogramming.
The joke lands because Volvy was built for this kind of nonsense. As GameSpot notes, Devolver is billing the game as a “remaster of the second remake of the original monochrome action-platformer starring the most famous video game mascot of all time,” despite the fact that the supposed original Volvy's Adventure does not exist. Gematsu cites the same absurd official framing from Devolver and Doinksoft. The confirmed product underneath that fake history is much simpler and more useful to players: Volvy's Adventure Reslimed is a Game Boy Color-style 2D platformer from the studio behind Gato Roboto and Gunbrella, coming first to PC via Steam.
Siliconera reports that the Steam release will be priced at $4.99, with a pre-order discount bringing it to $3.74 until launch. Kotaku, which checked with Doinksoft designer Britt Brady and Devolver co-founder and marketing head Nigel Lowrie, reports that modern console versions are planned later, while the currently announced launch is PC.
Volvy began as a parody, then Devolver kept committing
Volvy's strange credibility comes from Devolver's long-running bit about inventing a corporate mascot with a suspiciously overinflated legacy. Siliconera traces the character's public introduction to the 2023 Devolver Digital Direct showcase, where Volvy was presented as a big-handed mascot figure. Since then, Siliconera notes, Volvy has appeared in some form in Devolver-published games including Cult of the Lamb and Devolver Tumble Time.
That history gives Volvy's Adventure Reslimed a different texture than a one-off gag trailer. Devolver has spent years parodying the way publishers mythologize mascot characters, legacy brands, revivals, remasters, and carefully managed nostalgia. Now the parody has crossed into the release calendar as an actual new indie platformer. The fake lore is still fake, but the Steam page, release date, price, trailer, and developer are real.
That tension is the hook. Volvy is a send-up of mascot worship, but Devolver has also done enough legwork to make him recognizable as Devolver Digital Volvy, the company's own joke with a mascot suit stitched around it. Reslimed turns that accumulated bit into a playable product, which is exactly the kind of line Devolver likes to blur.
The GTA 6 date is a gag with a business argument behind it
The most visible part of the announcement is the November 19 date. Kotaku reports that Devolver had separately been joking internally about releasing a game, any game, on the same day as GTA 6. According to the joint response Kotaku received from Brady and Lowrie, once Volvy was becoming a proper release, “it felt inevitable that the world’s greatest gaming mascot should be the chosen one to face off with GTA 6.”
Rock Paper Shotgun quotes the same Devolver and Doinksoft explanation and frames the date as the publisher making good on its promise to launch something “come hell or highwater” opposite Rockstar's behemoth. The bit works because it is wildly lopsided. One side is one of the biggest games in the medium. The other is a $5 retro platformer about a fake mascot collecting onions and punching through dirt.
There is also a clear strategic wrinkle. Kotaku quotes Brady and Lowrie saying GTA 6 will have the spotlight before, during, and after November 19, but that it is “not for everyone, or releasing on Steam the same day,” which gives Volvy a possible counterprogramming lane. GameSpot makes the same practical comparison, noting that GTA 6 is not launching on PC at release, while Volvy's Adventure Reslimed is a Steam release. Devolver is chasing comedy points, but the joke is attached to a real gap in the day’s platform availability.
A Game Boy Color pitch became a wider PC release
Kotaku's reporting adds the most important production detail: Volvy's Adventure Reslimed did not begin as a GTA 6 release-date stunt. Brady and Lowrie told Kotaku that Brady pitched the game to Devolver well before GTA 6 became part of the conversation by sending Devolver headquarters an Analogue Pocket and a custom Game Boy Color cartridge containing a fully playable level of Volvy's Adventure.
That origin explains why the game looks the way it does. Multiple outlets describe it as Game Boy Color-style or GBC-inspired, while GameSpot points to its vibrant pixel art, popping soundtrack, and kinetic movement in the debut trailer. Rock Paper Shotgun compares the surface feel to a mash-up of 2D Sonic, Wario: Master of Disguise, and Donkey Kong, while still stressing that the game appears to be its own short, small-scale platformer.
According to Kotaku, the project was originally prototyped for Game Boy Color and was planned as a fun, small release for that system before the team agreed it deserved a wider platform and ported it to PC. That detail matters because it separates the game's craft from its marketing costume. The announcement may be built like a prank, but the project began with a working level on period-appropriate handheld-style hardware.
The platforming pitch is big-hand movement, onions, and Swolvy
The Steam-page overview quoted by Gematsu lays out the actual play loop. Volvy adventures across four revamped worlds, fights enemies and bosses, collects onions, and uses his oversized hand to move through levels and find routes. Devolver's own description, via Gematsu, says the hand supports hovering over chasms, grinding rails, dashing through the air, burrowing underground, smashing enemies, and opening secret passages.
GameSpot's trailer read lines up with that. The outlet describes Volvy as dashing and jumping through levels, collecting onions, bouncing on enemy heads, fighting bosses, burrowing underground, hovering with his tail, and using his giant fist for aerial movement. Rock Paper Shotgun similarly notes that Volvy can run, float, stomp, punch, and dig, with those abilities appearing designed for quick traversal through colorful pixel-art spaces.
The onion system also feeds the game's transformation gag. Gematsu and Noisy Pixel both report that collecting enough onions lets Volvy become Swolvy, a muscular version of the mascot who can smash through obstacles and enemies. It is an old-school power-up joke, but it also gives the platforming a readable rhythm: explore, collect, chain movement, then cash in momentum as a temporary wrecking ball when the level demands it.
The fake remaster language is doing real genre work
Devolver's fake-remaster framing is deliberately ridiculous, but it is also speaking the language of a very specific corner of platformer nostalgia. Gematsu's Steam-page excerpt says every pixel from the “original” Volvy's Adventure and its previous rereleases has been redrawn, redesigned, and recolored. Noisy Pixel reports the same premise as part of the game's presentation, while GameSpot clarifies the core contradiction: the original game does not exist, so this is an original release pretending to be a restored classic.
That kind of joke could get thin quickly if the platforming underneath looked slack. The early trailer impressions in the provided source material suggest Devolver and Doinksoft understand that risk. Rock Paper Shotgun calls it “short and sweet” based on the four-world structure and low price. GameSpot says the debut footage looks like a “rollicking good time,” citing the chaining of movement options and the Game Boy Color-era presentation.
For platformer fans, the key question is whether Reslimed uses its compact scope well. Four worlds can be a strength if each one has distinct enemy patterns, secrets, boss fights, and movement tests. Doinksoft has prior experience with 2D action design through Gato Roboto and Gunbrella, as GameSpot and Siliconera note, so Volvy's Adventure Reslimed is not arriving from a studio with no platforming background. Still, none of the sources provided include hands-on impressions, difficulty details, PC requirements, or confirmation of Steam Deck status, so those remain open questions.
Who should wishlist it now, and who should wait
Based on the confirmed details, Volvy's Adventure Reslimed is aimed at players who want a small, inexpensive Doinksoft platformer with a dense movement kit and a knowingly stupid mascot wrapper. The Steam launch is set for November 19, 2026, with Siliconera reporting a $4.99 standard price and a $3.74 pre-order discount until launch. At that price, the practical risk is low, but the unanswered questions are still real: no source material here confirms runtime beyond the four-world structure, performance targets, system requirements, accessibility options, or how much content the later console versions will include.
PC players who enjoy compact retro platformers can safely treat this as a wishlist candidate rather than a punchline to scroll past. The movement verbs Devolver and Doinksoft are advertising, especially hovering, grinding, burrowing, dashing, and Swolvy smashing, are the kind of verbs that can make a small platformer sing if the levels are built tightly around them.
Console players should wait for firmer platform and timing details. Kotaku reports that modern console versions are planned later, but the announced day-one release is Steam. Anyone expecting a real remaster of a lost classic should also adjust expectations. Per GameSpot's clarification, the lost classic is part of the joke. The real game is a new indie platformer using fake history as its packaging, and that is the clever part: Devolver and Doinksoft are selling the bit, but they are also putting a playable, low-cost platformer underneath it.