Gosh.

2025 has really been the year of surprises for me. The announcement and release of Monster Train 2 was totally unexpected, Silksong & Hades 2 both shadow dropped this month, and Strive received a proper ranked mode 4 years after its initial release. There were also games like Öoo, StarVaders, and The Roottrees are Dead which totally blew me away despite the limited fanfare they received in the lead up to their respective launch dates.

That said, 2025 doesn’t appear to be slowing down with the surprises because a demo for Alabaster Dawn dropped 2 weeks ago.

For those of you who aren’t already aware, this is the next project from Radical Fish Games, the creators of CrossCode. Yes – that CrossCode. The same CrossCode with gorgeous pixel art, fantastic puzzle-filled dungeons, and one of the most heartfelt narratives that I’ve ever experienced in a video game.

To say that I’m a little excited about Radical Fish Games’ next project would be an understatement. Learning about, and subsequently playing the demo for Alabaster Dawn was akin to my experience with Monster Train 2 earlier this year.

Better yet, said demo has fanned the flames of my excitement, and now I’m very much looking forward to the Early Access release of Alabaster Dawn, which is (currently) slated for the first half of 2026. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself (again).

Welcome back to another Demo Dive where today we’ll be taking a look at Alabaster Dawn, Radical Fish Games’ follow-up to CrossCode.

As always, let’s start by answering the question: what is Alabaster Dawn?

Similar to CrossCode, Alabaster Dawn is an Action RPG with many of the trappings of RPGs from the 16-bit era. That is to say it has the simple, but satisfying combat of something like Diablo, but the narrative structure and cadence of something like Chrono Trigger, or Earthbound. It’s a blending that works quite well for someone like myself who has little patience for simple turn-based combat, but otherwise doesn’t mind the winding narrative structure typical in this sort of RPG.

That said, I appreciated some of the changes that Radical Fish has made when compared to their previous work namely as it relates to combat. If memory serves, CrossCode was very button mashy in the combat department with a simple 3 hit combo, alongside a handful of special moves. By comparison, Alabaster Dawn features a few more combo types, which players can access by inputting their attacks with a slightly different rhythm. It’s akin to how many other 2D action games have implemented their combo systems, and it makes a welcome appearance here.

In addition, Alabaster Dawn features several weapon types which each have different strengths and weaknesses. For example, the sword is fast, but deals less damage than the bulky hammer making it ideal for players who want to attack more aggressively. However, the sword only deals slicing damage, which makes it totally ineffective against enemies with tough shells. That’s where the hammer will come in handy. As such, players need to adjust their approach in combat to account for the different weaknesses of what they’re fighting.

I’m a really big fan of this addition as it makes combat just that little bit more involved. It’s not so overbearing as to become the focus of the game, but it does lend itself to making fights feel like an active component of Alabaster Dawn instead of the thing you do to fill time in between everything else.

Aside from combat, the other aspects that Alabaster Dawn’s demo was keen to showcase are the return of Zelda-esque dungeons, and the narrative hook for the story. Unfortunately, you’re only allowed to explore the first dungeon up to the point where you unlock the dungeon’s key item, meaning that the majority of the interesting puzzles, and combat encounters are locked beyond the confines of the demo.

That said, I wouldn’t be upset about being cut off were I not having fun. What’s on offer was really enjoyable even if it was limited in scope. Besides, CrossCode has some of the best constructed puzzle dungeons that I’ve ever played through, so I have every confidence that Radical Fish will deliver in full force with this area of the game.

The final bit that I wanted to touch on with regard to Alabaster Dawn’s demo is the story. I won’t be speaking about the specifics – the demo is around 2 hours long, so you can play it yourself if you’re curious. Instead, I wanted to focus on how Radical Fish smartly uses hooks.

The demo begins with a brief introduction that speaks of a world ending apocalypse (named Nyx), which is swiftly followed by a tutorial section wherein you play as some of the chosen heroes meant to repel said apocalypse.

Things don’t quite work out though, so everything is a little out of sorts once players take control of Alabaster Dawn’s protagonist Juno.

We then learn that Juno was meant to be travelling with the group of heroes we saw during the tutorial.

For my money, this setup was perfect. It immediately introduced the game world, set up 2 different sources of conflict, and left me with questions that I’m interested in pursuing the answers to. For example, why wasn’t Juno with the party of chosen heroes? That immediately introduces some intrigue, while also setting up a source of conflict to build the story around.

It might sound like I’m praising Radical Fish for doing the bare minimum, but you’d be surprised just how many games get this wrong. Basically any author worth their salt knows this sort of introduction is an easy way to draw the reader into your story. It gives them something to latch onto so they can cruise through the remaining character introductions throughout the opening act.

However, writing is rarely the focal point for many games. As such, games are usually a lot more reliant on visual set pieces, or mechanical complexity for drawing players in. It’s for this reason that I found Radical Fish’s use of narrative hooks so refreshing. Doubly so since it communicated to me that they’re looking to make the story of Alabaster Dawn as much of a focal point as it was in CrossCode.

Besides, I’m typically a much more mechanically minded player – I think even a cursory glance at my other written work will reveal as much – so Alabaster Dawn getting its narrative hooks into me has gotta count for something, right?

Before I close out here, there are 2 other things that I wanted to (briefly) mention: the artwork, and music. I already thought Radical Fish’s previous work looked great, but the pixel art, and character animation are even more well done here. It’s almost unbelievable how good the game looks. Kudos to the art team!

Along those same lines, I thought all of the music within Alabaster Dawn’s demo was great. Every track fit the accompanying locale, cutscene, or set piece to a tee which did a lot of heavy lifting for setting the appropriate tone throughout the demo. Again, big kudos to the folks responsible for the music as you absolutely nailed the assignment.

And with that I think I’ve covered everything that I wanted to say about Alabaster Dawn. Obviously, I’m coming at it from the lens of someone who both played, and really enjoyed CrossCode, which might not be true for all of you. I feel like the demo showed that Radical Fish are doubling down on what made CrossCode so great, and I’m very eager to get my hands on the full release whenever they finish cooking it up.

That said, I’ll have to wait a fair bit as Alabaster Dawn is planned for an Early Access launch in the first half of 2026.

Either way, if you’d like to check out the demo for yourself – and I think you should as it’s fantastic – then you can do so here via Steam. Also, don’t forget to wishlist the game if you enjoy the demo.

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