The race to be crowned the highest-rated game of 2026 was always going to start heating up this month with so many new releases. The thing is, it isn’t the games you were expecting that have joined the top contenders at the front of the pack. Instead, it’s the likes of Trails in the Sky the 2nd Chapter and a brand new indie game that launched this week, Well Dweller.
Okay, after 1st Chapter, maybe the world was very much expecting Trails to swoop in and blow everyone away by racking up the best review scores of the year so far. Well Dweller, however, was not on many people’s radars. Nevertheless, the reviews are in, and it currently has the fourth-highest score of 2026 on OpenCritic.
That score, as it stands, is a 90. The only three games to have scored more than a 90 so far this year are the aforementioned Trails sequel, Mina the Hollower, and Forza Horizon 6. The games that have been pushed down the pecking order by Well Dweller’s impressive scores include Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave, Resident Evil Requiem, and Pokemon Pokopia.
If, like me, you had no idea what Well Dweller was until seeing it score a 90, let me clue you in now that I’m an expert on the matter. Well Dweller is a metroidvania. Those are pretty popular right now. It’s not just any metroidvania, though. It comes a little after the first anniversary of Hollow Knight: Silksong, and the solo-developed game was clearly heavily inspired by Team Cherry’s smash hit.
Well Dweller’s protagonist is Glimmer. Glimmer is a little bird with nothing but a lit matchstick to fend off the enemies that call the well kingdom in which they find themselves home. Glimmer must make their way through the winding path of that kingdom to find and kill the queen, learning new abilities as they go to help them better traverse that path as they evolve.
It’s all very by-the-book metroidvania stuff, combined with a setting, characters, and story that will undoubtedly remind you of Silksong as soon as you see screenshots, let alone play it. It’s far from a Silksong clone, though, as its stellar review scores prove. There’s a difference between copying a hit game and pulling inspiration from it to create your own thing, and Well Dweller is very clearly the latter.
Well Dweller’s players seem to be enjoying its Silksong similarities, as the game’s Steam rating is currently even higher than its aggregate review score. 95% of players have left the new indie a positive review, leaving it with a Very Positive rating. Unless the new players it attracts see something the rest of us don’t, that’s unlikely to drop all that far as new reviews are published.
Well Dweller actually has the same score as Schrodinger’s Call, another surprise indie that accumulated high enough review scores to rank among this year’s Game of the Year heavyweights. Schrodinger’s Call has maintained that score as its popularity has increased and more reviews have been written, which is the next challenge Well Dweller will face as more people learn of its existence thanks to its high scores.
سەرچاوەی فەرمی بە زمانی ئینگلیزی: https://www.thegamer.com/well-dwelller-highest-rated-games-2026-steam-reviews/
