Following its reveal at Summer Game Fest earlier this year, 1666: Amsterdam quickly became my most anticipated game of 2026. While the entire world seems to be pining for Rockstar’s next big adventure in Vice City, after that showcase I found myself ensnared by Panache’s promise of a dark tale full of witchcraft and stunningly rendered cobblestone streets. Its initial reveal–coupled with the knowledge that one of the key members behind the first few Assassin’s Creed titles was attached to the game–left me extremely eager to go hands-on with 1666: Amsterdam. Fortunately, it didn’t take long for the studio to extend the offer, and off to Amsterdam I went.
Less fortunate, however, was my experience playing 1666: Amsterdam. Though it’s important to note that Panache intends to release the game in early access, which certainly justifies its overall lack of polish, what I’m more concerned about are its glaring structural issues–issues that I hope can be addressed but seem so embedded in the overall experience that I am admittedly a bit nervous. I see the vision, I think, and am hopeful that Panache’s commitment to player feedback might fix some of the game’s shortcomings. But as of right now, 1666: Amsterdam needs quite a bit of work before I can muster up the excitement I once had.
A tale of two (or three) timelines
During my preview, I played about an hour and 20 minutes of 1666: Amsterdam, starting shortly after the events of the prologue that is currently available to play on Steam. Throughout that time, I played as both the game’s main characters, Noa and Aaron, across two of its three timelines, 1999 and 1666, and in both human and Union-Cat forms. I also played, quite briefly, as Aaron’s daughter Clio, who resides in that aforementioned third timeline and essentially acts as the narrator of the story as she translates and reads from a tome, referred to as the Noxifer, that details Aaron and Noa’s adventure. If that sounds like a lot, it’s because it is. And that’s just the beginning.
Despite featuring dual protagonists, my time spent playing 1666: Amsterdam leads me to believe that it largely centers around Noa, a Zaindaris witch who has been chosen as The Collector. As for what being The Collector entails, we learn that Noa has been tasked with eliminating a cadre of power-hungry figures with extraordinarily long lifespans and the ability to use Nox, a sort of dark magic, in order to restore world order. Paradoxically, Noa relies on Nox as well. Nox and Lux serve as her primary magic sources, each represented by a meter at the bottom of the screen to fuel her various spells. Both energy types manifest as glowing orbs throughout the environment, and her Union-Cat–who is actually her partner Aaron trapped in feline form–can convert Lux into Nox and vice versa, allowing you to manipulate resources on the fly.
To take down these corrupted souls, Noa must first collect their seal and discover their real name, the latter of which can prove difficult as most of these individuals have led extraordinarily long lives and assumed various identities throughout them. After gathering these, Noa must cast the Nominem spell on the night of the full moon, as that’s when her power is at its strongest. As a matter of fact, as soon as the full moon passes, Noa is rendered completely powerless, and must wait until the next full moon before she can attempt to take down a new target.
After casting Nominem, Aaron–still in his cat body–must scratch the enemy to unleash their demonic Amalgam form. Defeating an Amalgam unlocks a coffer containing a Nox bracelet (often randomized), which upgrades the Heeparan–a strange gauntlet on Noa’s left arm–with new abilities. After taking down my first Amalgam, I received Erbuilden, an ability that allowed me to reconstruct destroyed objects. But while this specific power felt scripted for progression, Panache founder Patrice Désilets told me that the game’s coffers are largely used as a means to incorporate roguelite elements into the game.
The wrong kind of puzzling
Each moon cycle–or Esbat, as the game calls them–Noa is tasked with taking down one of these demons. Typically, each Esbat begins at Noa’s home, where a coffer and a contract are waiting for her. The coffer, placed there by her fellow witches, is filled with an assortment of Nox Bracelets and other boons, altering the abilities you can use. Shortly after my preview, Désilets showcased a later portion of the game, in which I saw him use an ability that gave Noa the ability to create portals for easy traversal, and another that gave her the ability to levitate enemies. According to Désilets, the game will feature several different abilities, though with it being in early access, they didn’t want to share an exact number just yet. Regardless, these variations have the potential to inject some variety into the gameplay, which is crucial considering it suffers from some fairly significant issues–particularly when it comes to combat.
In 1666: Amsterdam, encounters open with a bizarre Persona 5-like presentation: enemies shake their fists and spout soundbites, while stylized text reading things like “knave,” “justice,” and “you will fall” pop up around them. All of this feels completely out of place, given the game’s darker tone.
You’re then notified of the encounter’s threat level, though every level I encountered felt similar in difficulty due to the game’s rudimentary combat. Without any active Nox bracelets, combat devolves into a combination of dodging and mindlessly swinging a broomstick, making these encounters incredibly dull. Oftentimes, my enemies would get stuck in hit-stun loops, but this felt more tedious than empowering. Amalgam boss fights offered slightly more variety, requiring well-timed dodges and a bit more patience, but all in all, 1666: Amsterdam’s combat largely lacks flow and sophistication.
The asymmetrical puzzle-solving challenges are similarly underwhelming, with most of them relying on whoever is in cat form unlocking a door so the human character can keep walking. Later in the preview, I unlocked the ability to hiss at and possess NPCs who are afraid of cats, allowing me to assume control of key-weidling janitors or lockpicking thieves. This feature seems like it could be a lot of fun, and when paired with the abilities of your Nox bracelets, I imagine it shakes up combat, exploration, and puzzle solving significantly. I can imagine a world in which these foster Dishonored-style freedom in how you approach objectives, though it feels very far off.
However, if 1666: Amsterdam is aiming to be a more stealth-driven game–like Dishonored or perhaps more aptly, Assassin’s Creed–NPCs need significant improvements. As it stands, NPCs feel heinously unintelligent, making stealth and concealment lack the needed danger to be compelling. They are also extremely dated in their writing and animations–many of them feel as if they have come straight from a AA action game published in 2007.
Strange writing, stranger scenarios
These flaws were highlighted during an utterly perplexing 10-minute sequence that took place during one of Aaron’s portions of the game. After traveling forward to 1999, Aaron is tasked with going to his hotel’s courtyard to retrieve an ancient tome so he can figure out a way to cure his possessed, secret-witch girlfriend. The moment Aaron opens his hotel room door to embark on this quest, “Free Bird”–yes, Lynyrd Skynyrd’s “Free Bird”–begins playing.
Now, you would think if a game is going to invoke “Free Bird,” it would be during some absurd, over-the-top, hyperviolent spectacle, such as how it’s used in Kingsman: The Secret Service. But no, in this case, the nearly 10-minute-long song plays at full blast while Aaron, donning only boxers, strolls through the hotel, and Noa, now a cat, unlocks doors for him. Absurd as that is, what makes things even stranger is that the hotel path is lined with completely static NPCs blocking off rooms. It’s clear they’re meant to prevent you from taking detours and highlight which doors you need to unlock, but the sheer vacancy on display is both laughable and unnerving. And though the game does delve a bit into horror, offering a few flashing screens and jump scares, this particular situation does not feel at all intentional.
About six minutes into this ordeal, Aaron remarks that he just realized he was walking around the hotel half-naked–that’s the kind of state he was in, he jokes. He then tells Noa that people are beginning to freak out about his state–but it’s hard to believe that’s true when the masses of NPCs remain utterly still and silent.
In general, 1666: Amsterdam’s writing needs work. Noa’s dialogue was fine and her arc compelling, but Aaron’s constant tone of utter bewilderment and use of expletives long after it seemed as though he’d embraced the strangeness of his situation were grating. It doesn’t help that some portions of Aaron’s dialogue were delivered via text-to-speech, replacing his voice actor with a fast-taking robot that took me out of the moment. Hopefully this will be fixed prior to the game entering early access.
Not-so-catlike reflexes
I also hope that the game will feature far better tutorials and onboarding. I am all for quiet games that emphasize unguided exploration–I am a Soulsborne sicko, after all. But Amsterdam just felt convoluted. At the very start of my preview, I was told to use my Lux to power up a body of water so I could float across it. Great, sounds fun. The game prompted me to go to its settings menu and view the corresponding tutorial, yet that tutorial omitted the actual button inputs. Confused, I went back to the game where I was just prompted to simply press “A,” yet as I did, nothing happened. Fortunately, one of the developers saw me sitting in front of my PC, trying my hardest to angle Noa every possible way and visibly confused, and told me how to do it. Shortly after, I was stuck again, as the game also doesn’t tell you how to jump over obstacles in the water; the developer had to inform me that navigating obstacles required pulling back on the analog stick, which felt awkward and resulted in terrible camera angles.
Movement controls–particularly while in cat-form–are a frequent source of frustration. Instead of free jumping and fluid traversal, feline movement relies on a target indicator: You must position the cat until an “X” prompt appears, then press a button to execute the jump. While intended to prevent missed leaps and tumbles, the system feels clunky and restrictive, turning simple traversal into a tedious chore. Though playing as a sleuthy little black cat was one of the many things that made 1666: Amsterdam so appealing to me, it quickly became my least favorite part of the game.
A sight for sore players
However, I’d be remiss not to mention my favorite part of 1666: Amsterdam, which is its sheer artistry. A large part of the reason Panache flew various members of the press out to Amsterdam for this preview, I suspect, was so that we could see firsthand how meticulously the studio had managed to recreate the canal-lined city. The first day of the trip, Panache took us on a tour through the district 1666: Amsterdam is set in, and it was both beautiful and fascinating. Seeing Désilets gesture to these buildings he’d grown familiar with over the past few decades–to hear him explain how the game’s concept was developed–was a treat. But what blew me away was the next day, when I played the game and realized how stunningly Panache was able to recreate this city.
Several specific locations are depicted in the game and in startling detail, and the soundtrack, the atmosphere, the scale–everything seemed to ring true. Sure, the Amsterdam I saw was a good 360 years later than the Amsterdam Noa inhabited and I’m certainly not a local, so take this all with a grain of salt, but I was impressed, nevertheless. It’s also worth mentioning that the team seemed to do a great job accounting for the fact that the game is set in the past, recreating only the buildings that would have actually been standing back then while using extensive research to fill in the rest. Though its gameplay and writing might need a fair bit of work, 1666: Amsterdam shines in its visuals and commitment to history and storytelling via architecture. It was in this quality that I saw the throughline between Désilets’ work on Assassin’s Creed and his newest title, and it is the part that stands out as the most promising.
But while I was struck by 1666: Amsterdam’s artistry, I remain concerned about its execution. The team at Panache has clearly poured a lot of passion into recreating Amsterdam and building a dark, historical sandbox, but behind the cobblestone streets, narrow houses, and lush courtyards lies an experience burdened by clunky traversal, jarring tone shifts, baffling writing, and unrefined combat. In short, an early-access period is absolutely vital for 1666: Amsterdam, as I feel it’s going to take a lot of feedback and fine-tuning to turn it into a game that’s as fun to play as it is to look at.
