Alabaster Dawn, the follow-up to beloved indie RPG CrossCode, has launched in Steam early access to near universally positive reviews.
As someone who deeply enjoyed the Steam demo for Alabaster Dawn and previously said it "might be even better than CrossCode," this isn't terribly surprising. Radical Fish Games proved itself an incredibly capable pixel art specialist with CrossCode, itself one of the most highly acclaimed indie RPGs in recent memory, and Alabaster Dawn has long positioned itself as more of the same, but better. According to its Steam reviews, 96% of which are positive at the time of writing, that very much seems to be the case.
"Picked it up immediately since I absolutely loved CrossCode. About 4 hours in and I'm having a great time. Some early access bugs are here for sure, but the foundation is so strong," reads one review from Steam user Kepler. "Plays great on Steam Deck, feels like a natural fit.
"Pretty much everything good about CrossCode made the jump, plus better cinematics and less frustrating puzzles."
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"My only complaint is I want more," says Steam user BiscuitPuncher.
"CrossCode is one of my all time favorite games and so far Alabaster Dawn is scratching the same itch but better! Everything feels smoother, the combat is just a little tighter, and just like it's predecessor the characters feel like they have actual depth to them," echoes Dysiode.
It's worth stressing that Alabaster Dawn's launch into early access means there will likely be some significant updates on the road to 1.0. It's not unheard of for single-player RPGs to release in early access, and Baldur's Gate 3 definitely helped to normalize that sort of thing, but it does make it hard to gauge the overall launch reception as it's essentially still in a period of large-scale external testing. Still, there's no denying that 96% positive reviews is encouraging, early access or not.
Looking ahead, here are the best upcoming indie games to keep on your radar in 2026.
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