Memoria Wake Preview: Beautiful, But Rough Around the Edges | PAX East 2026

One of the most beautiful games I played at PAX East was Memoria Wake. It’s an isometric action game where you control a cat-like creature exploring a world that feels inspired by games like Tunic and more recent Zelda titles. While the art is stunning, the mechanics still felt a bit rough, leaving me with some apprehension.

The art is one of the standout features of the game. I loved exploring what I was able to experience in the demo. There are plenty of moments where the environment feels alive, with grass moving in the breeze and the swoosh of my umbrella, which doubles as my weapon, as I swing at enemies. It all comes together really well.

But the art can only carry so much.

In the demo, I had the option to jump ahead to a different scene. Looking back, that may not have been the best choice, as it left me without a clear sense of the story. I don’t hold that against the game, though, since I chose to skip ahead to a later section.

I suspect this feature exists because the game has been shown at previous PAX events, but most demos are designed to highlight the best core experience. The team is still in college, so this may come down to inexperience with demo design. Either way, I took the opportunity, and the result left me wanting more from the experience.

I was taken to a library of sorts and asked by a snake-like creature to retrieve a book. Narratively, this might have made more sense if I had played through the game up to this point, but in the moment it felt like a generic fetch quest. Still, it gave me a reason to explore the space.

That’s where I ran into my first issue. The library is large, with multiple levels, and I could walk under platforms above me. For example, going down a set of stairs would move me to a lower level, but I often struggled to understand where my character was in relation to the environment.

There were a few puzzles to solve, like using a wrench to turn gears and raise pillars. I wasn’t entirely sure what some of the visual cues meant, like the arrows on certain pillars, but I managed to complete the objective and retrieve the book, mostly by luck.

From there, things started to break down. I couldn’t figure out how to get back to the snake creature, and the level design made it difficult to understand where to go. When I finally found the right area, a barrier blocked my path, and I had no clear direction of how to lower it.

Eventually, I ended up near a set of pillars where I must have triggered something incorrectly. My character fell into a pit, and I got stuck in a loop, respawning only to fall again.

I don’t expect perfection from a PAX demo, but this felt like a situation where a more polished section of the game would have been a better showcase.

I walked away not entirely sure what to think about my experience. Yes, it’s a beautiful game, but the execution still has a long way to go before it’s ready. I wish the demo had focused on a more polished section to better show what the game can do.

It’s an ambitious project, and I’m hopeful the team can bring it all together into a well-crafted final product.