Well Dweller Review: The Best Thing You Missed in a Crowded September

September 2026 buried a lot of games under Wolverine, Silent Hill and Control. Well Dweller is the one I'd dig back out first. It's the new metroidvania from solo developer Kyle Thompson - the man behind *Crypt Custodian* and *Islets* - published by Top Hat Studios, and it landed on 22 September 2026 on PC (Steam, GOG), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch and Switch 2, plus Game Pass on day one. It's a budget-priced indie: Steam launched it with a 15% discount and a bundle with Crypt Custodian.

What it is

You play Glimmer, a very small bird living at the bottom of a well, armed with exactly one thing: a matchstick. Up top, a wicked queen plans to turn Glimmer's family into pieces for her wardrobe, so the plan is simple - climb out and burn her. It's a grim premise delivered with a straight face and a lot of jokes, and the strange residents of this miserable queendom are half the reason to keep going.

How it plays

The match is the clever bit. It's your weapon and your light source at once, so the same tool that pokes enemies is the one that reveals ledges, secrets and the occasional thing you'd rather not have seen. Combat is snappy, movement is tight, and new abilities arrive at a steady clip, each one reframing rooms you've already walked through. That's the core loop of the genre, and Thompson knows exactly how to pace it: I kept saying "one more room" long past midnight.

The hand-drawn art and animation do a lot of heavy lifting. Everything looks like a slightly sinister storybook, and the music fits that mood perfectly. Bosses are the highlight - inventive, readable and fair, mostly. Adjustable difficulty and solid accessibility options mean you can tune the challenge instead of bouncing off it.

Where it hurts

Let's be honest: Well Dweller doesn't invent anything. If you've played Hollow Knight, Crypt Custodian or any decent metroidvania of the last decade, you'll recognise every system. There are a few nasty difficulty spikes where the combat feels more frustrating than tense, and the late game asks for a fair bit of backtracking through areas you've already cleared.

Who it's for

Anyone who likes the genre, full stop. Game Pass subscribers have zero excuse not to try it, and on Steam it costs less than a night out. If you've never touched a metroidvania, this is a friendlier starting point than most.

Verdict

Not the most original game of the year, but one of the most charming and best put together. Big studios spent hundreds of millions this month; one developer with a matchstick held his own.

Score: 8/10

Image: Maja Dumat from Deutschland (Germany) / CC BY 2.0, source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Burning_matchstick_2010.jpg