An atmospheric new entry in the indie scene, Particle Hearts is now offering players a first taste of its particle-crafted world via a playable Steam demo. The adventure blends immersive exploration, clever puzzles, and a striking visual style—all built entirely from shimmering particles.
Developed by Underwater Fire and published by First Break Labs, Particle Hearts transforms its surreal, pointillist aesthetic into more than just eye candy—it's central to gameplay. Players manipulate particles to solve challenges, sneak past foes, and uncover narrative breadcrumbs. The title has drawn attention during Steam Next Fest and a GDC showcase, with early impressions pointing to strong visuals, solid technical feel (especially on Steam Deck), and occasional pacing quirks that look set to be refined before launch later this year.
"Particle Hearts is a Single Player adventure game inspired by games like Zelda and Journey," wrote the developer on Reddit. "There are open levels to explore, characters to meet, platforms to platform, puzzles to solve, abilities to learn, and enemies to combat, all set against a unique pointillist art style."
Impressions and Demo Highlights
The demo, featured in Steam's indie festival and available now, drew positive attention from publishers like Shacknews, who called it "a third-person adventure game in a beautiful and unique world made entirely out of particles." in its roundup of Steam Next Fest titles.
"Everything you see is crafted of countless miniscule bits," said TJ Denzer in the piece, "including the hero, and by exploring and discovering the mysteries of the world, you can unlock the means to manipulate those particles in a variety of ways. During the presentation, we saw an ability gifted to the player by some of the living denizens of the world: a deer and its young that were beautifully crafted from particles."
The game made some waves at GDC 2025, as well, with a hand-on preivew available to attendees. Over at Operation Rainfall, author Quentin H said:
The graphics are quite lovely, and my mind constantly went "how can all this be rendered at once?!" Everything, from the plants to the animals to the world around you and even yourself is comprised of particles that ebb and flow as you go around. It's something I've never quite seen before, and I found myself just standing around after the opening cutscene ended and I was given control of Particle Hearts because the cinematics and the gameplay fit that seamlessly together. I will also say that even though this was a demo, I was impressed at how absolutely SMOOTHLY Particle Hearts ran on Steam Deck, and it felt like a natural home for this indie title.
Particle Hearts will arrive on Steam, Steam Deck, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch later this year. You can download the demo for Mac or PC on Steam right now.
