There seems to be a resurgence of couch co-op party style platformers, and Awaysis looks to enter the fray by allowing you to play with up to four players at once both locally or online. Team Niche Gamer just so happened to have four players readily available at PAX East 2026, so naturally we decided to step up and give it a run.

Awaysis is a physics based dungeon action game where you battle from room to room, not only facing off against enemies but also your allies, as friendly fire will allow you to both punish or steal things from your teammates as the stages progress.

You can be a team player and toss a consumable item to a low health ally, but you can also opt to pocket it in your bag and then smack them off the side of a cliff which will put them in a downed state.

This actually wound up being the preferential way to regain healing as you would often revive with more health than you would if you were to eat lesser food items like apples.

Playing with four players is a hectic affair, as we were just beating the crap out of each other while the devs from 17-BIT tried to explain the rules of the game. Triggers allow you to swing your sword from left to right, right bumper lets you do a straight thrust, while pressing both triggers does an uppercut.

Pressing X will allow you to utilize a slide feature that allows you to not only move quickly but also kick enemies into stage obstacles or outright off the side of the stage. It’s pretty cool in theory, but it’s a little too floaty in application.

It’s way too easy to go flying off the side of a cliff and lose a fat chunk of health. In co-op mode, this isn’t so bad since an ally can revive you, but in single player this ramps the difficulty up to almost unfun levels.

The dash mechanic can feel erratic, as you can jump up and spin the analog stick 360 degrees and then slide to get a speed burst, but the slide picks up speed so fast that you often can’t control where you go, so you’re often praying you can aim at a wall to stop you so you don’t take damage from the eventually fall.

Playing solo and on the hardest difficulty, I was able to successfully dodge spike traps, falling off the sides of the stage, and mistimed jumps across water spouts, only to make it to a boss that’s a bit overtuned.

On the higher difficulties the boss can two shot you and there’s zero chance of counterplay. If you die, the level restarts when playing solo, so it’s clear Awaysis is tuned to be played with friends. 

With multiple players, it’s often hectic to tell who’s who, though thankfully there are accessibility options that make player characters more visible. Perhaps a colored outline or something more obvious would make it easier to keep track of your player.

The world in Awaysis is lush and vibrant, though the characters sometimes get lost with all the flash. There’s also a storyline to follow that gives you a reason to be invested in what you’re actually doing, and music done by legendary composer Hip Tanaka, but it’s mostly drowned out by the sound effects in its current state.

Awaysis is one part Mario Party mixed with one part Gauntlet and a dash of Super Smash Brothers. Its current iteration isn’t very single player friendly, and I’m hoping to see the gameplay as a whole tightened up by the time it hits early access later this year.

We had a really good time playing Awaysis. The game is definitely going to appeal for gamers with a few kiddos or people who have a fairly large base of friends who are down to derp around in a party game. Our early impressions are strong – Awaysis is shaping up to be a chaotic but fun party dungeon brawler for all ages.

Awaysis is set to launch across Windows PC (via Steam and the Microsoft Store), Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 sometime later in 2026.