Being & Becoming looks like a stunning dark fantasy Metroidvania – here’s why

Being & Becoming is one of those indie games that quietly appears on the horizon and immediately makes you stop scrolling. Not because it’s loud or flashy, but because something about it feels unusual—like it has ideas it actually wants to explore instead of simply giving you another checklist of enemies to defeat. Set in a kingdom held together by a mysterious “Collective Dream,” the game casts you as a rare lucid dreamer, someone who can move through this dream world consciously while everyone else drifts through it without understanding what’s happening. It’s a compelling setup, and also slightly unfair—most of us can barely control what happens in our own dreams, let alone save an entire collapsing reality inside one.

The world you enter is shaped by prophecy. A sacred text known as “The Word” claims destiny has already been written, and the people living under its influence believe the future is fixed. Naturally, your presence complicates that assumption. As you explore, you begin to question whether fate really is predetermined or whether it can be bent, rewritten, or perhaps completely ignored. The story leans into themes of identity, transformation, and sacrifice, but instead of delivering these ideas through long lectures, it lets the environments, encounters, and character interactions slowly build the narrative. Many of the figures you meet feel mysterious in the best possible way—people who speak in half-answers, hint at hidden histories, and then vanish before you can ask the obvious follow-up question.

Gameplay follows the classic metroidvania structure: a large interconnected world filled with locked paths, hidden shortcuts, and areas that only become accessible once you acquire new abilities. This design creates the familiar but satisfying rhythm of discovery—seeing something intriguing early on, forgetting about it, and then hours later suddenly realizing you now have the exact power needed to return and uncover its secret. It’s the kind of loop that convinces players they’ll stop “after just one more room,” only to notice that it is somehow much later than expected and snacks have mysteriously disappeared. Combat is built around absorbing the powers of fallen dreamers and corrupted enemies, turning their abilities into weapons, skills, or traversal tools. Mechanically, this encourages experimentation, allowing players to mix and match different combat styles while gradually shaping their own approach to the game. Narratively, it also reinforces the central themes of transformation—every enemy defeated literally changes what you are capable of becoming. Boss encounters appear dramatic and challenging, demanding patience and pattern recognition rather than reckless attacks, which means losing a few times is not failure so much as “extended preparation,” at least that’s what players will probably tell themselves.

One of the game’s strongest features is its visual atmosphere. The hand-crafted pixel art environments are detailed and expressive, combining quiet beauty with unsettling undertones. Softly lit cathedrals, fading forests, and dream-warped landscapes create the sense that the world is fragile, as though it could dissolve at any moment if the dream sustaining it were to end. The soundtrack and voice performances aim to deepen that immersion, supporting a tone that feels contemplative rather than chaotic. Instead of constantly pushing action to the forefront, the game often seems content to let players pause, look around, and absorb the mood before moving forward. In a genre crowded with strong entries, Being & Becoming stands out not because it reinvents the metroidvania formula, but because it ties its mechanics, story, and themes together so tightly. Exploration becomes part of the narrative, progression reflects the idea of transformation, and even combat reinforces the central question of what it means to shape your own destiny. If the final release delivers on this vision, the game could easily become the kind of cult favorite that players enthusiastically recommend with a slightly ominous warning: “It’s beautiful, it’s challenging, and yes—it might stay in your head longer than you expected.”

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