1666: Amsterdam hands-on preview – Assassin’s Creed creator casts a spell

GameCentral goes hands-on with the next historical fantasy from the creator of Assassin’s Creed, where you play as both a witch and a cat. 

While many games end up stuck in development hell, and still manage to get released afterwards, few have survived extensive legal battles and multiple transitions between studios. 1666: Amsterdam, led by Assassin’s Creed creator Patrice Désilets, started life at THQ Montreal in 2010. When Ubisoft, Désilets’s former employer, bought the studio three years later, the company suspended development on the project and fired him – leading to a lawsuit battle over the rights to 1666: Amsterdam. 

The matter was settled in 2016, with Désilets withdrawing his complaint after attaining the full rights. However, it’s taken another 10 years for the project to come to fruition at his own studio, Panache Digital Games, with the title re-revealed at this year’s Summer Game Fest. As he told us though, there isn’t much shared DNA between the original vision and what 1666: Amsterdam is today, apart from its dual timeline setup and the setting. 

The key new component, added when development restarted in 2020, is witchcraft. In the game, you play as Noa Brooklyn, a witch who has been born and raised to steal power back from demonic entities known as ‘the originals’, who have lived for centuries and abused their unchecked supernatural abilities, while disguised in the streets of Amsterdam. Along for the ride is Aaron, who has been (stay with us) summoned from the year 1999 and transformed into a cat. 

To better understand the setup, you can play the game’s prologue now on Steam – but even with this context, the premise is still a bewildering mish-mash not too far removed from Assassin’s Creed sci-fi dabblings with the Animus. Beyond the narrative, the prologue (which drew complaints over now-removed AI assets) doesn’t give you a good idea of what the game is either, with only minor interactions where you cast spells to ignite flames, so it’s not the best representation of what to expect. 

Thankfully, we got to go hands-on with the subsequent hour – and see some later gameplay in a guided presentation – to get a better handle on 1666: Amsterdam. While we have a better idea of the actual game, it’s still a perplexing curio within the action-adventure mould and one we can’t help be fascinated by at this stage, despite its rough shape. 

We’ve made several comparisons to Assassin’s Creed already, and from the moment you’re given control of Noa, you can feel it’s been built with similar design sensibilities. In our demo, we’re thrown into combat straight away, as waves of soldiers surround you. Noa can perform basic attacks with her staff, with quick dodges to avoid sword swipes. You’re soon given the ability to use spells in the fray, with the first allowing you to explode barrels from afar. 

The combat feels rudimentary in these early fights – compounded by the fact enemies will continue to spawn in the area until a fear gauge fills, which we’re told fills quicker if you pull off stylish attacks and spells. We were shown in a separate hands-off presentation some of the spells Noa can unlock later, including levitational magic, which seemed more dynamic and fun to use – so it might be a case of things improving once you’re beyond the tutorial introductions. 

After gaining the ability to fly over water, we found ourselves on a canal bridge surrounded by bustling locals. During these moments, Noa is encouraged to switch from her red witch attire into a low-key citizen disguise (you can swap freely between them at any time), allowing you to wander and interact with people without raising suspicion. Our mission is to track down the whereabouts of a devilish entity, and after speaking with revellers near a brewery, we’re advised to investigate a home down the street. 

This section introduces the core loop of hunting entities, along with the character-hopping puzzle solving. At any point, you can jump between controlling Noa and Aaron. Noa is useful for combat and speaking with citizens to gain intel, but she can also open windows to allow Aaron (remember, as a cat) to jump through and unlock doors from the other side. This comes up at several points in this session, where we unlocked hatches and scuttled across window ledges, so Noa can advance upwards through a narrow canal house. 

There is another use for the cat: possession. In a later section, where the story jumps to Aaron’s original time period of 1999, you can approach people who are visibly scared of cats, swipe their face, and hop aboard their shoulder like a parrot. For some reason, this allows you to take direct control of the civilian to unlock doors, or gain access to restricted areas more easily. 

Frankly, it’s bonkers – but compellingly so. The portion we played served as an opening sample of the mechanics at play, but it wasn’t until a hands-off presentation where we were shown how the game is structured. While there is an overarching storyline, the loop has roguelike elements to incentivise repeat runs within its sandbox. Each hunt takes place in a modestly-sized open area of Amsterdam, and the developers promise you can explore every building within it. 

The replication of Amsterdam is impressively detailed – with cramped canal houses filled with narrow staircases and claustrophobic loft hatches. The roguelite ‘toy’ element comes into play with the spells you accrue from chests, with the abilities randomised for each hunt. The developers refused to confirm how many abilities there will be, but along with levitate, we were shown spells to rebuild structures, petrify enemies into paralysis, and a zooming teleport to hop across the environment’s rooftops with ease. 

1666: Amsterdam is made by a 60-person team, and it has the energy of a small developer trying to make a more unhinged Assassin’s Creed game. It’s a level of ambition that comes with serious warts. In particular, we found controlling the cat to be sticky and haphazard, to the point where every pounce to another surface never felt precise. Signposting was another issue, where we found ourselves completely lost when trying to solve a hatch puzzle – to a degree which don’t feel was intentional. 

We have other concerns regarding the loop. Each hunt climaxes with a boss fight against a generic-looking demon, reminiscent of the Mind Flayer from Stranger Things. This same fight appears to be a repeat occurrence, and while it’s unclear if there’ll be other encounters further in, the idea of going through the same fight, even with Noa’s different abilities, doesn’t feel like an appealing incentive to keep players experimenting within the game’s sandbox. 

There’s an awareness of its rough shape though. Unlike most single-player games, 1666: Amsterdam is launching in an incomplete state in early access on August 25, 2026 – with the expectation that it’ll get to a version 1.9 sometime in 2027. Other single-player games have started this way, like Hades 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3, but it’s not common. As an experiment for a small team, we’re curious to how it’ll be shaped by feedback over the next year, and crucially, if players will keep coming back.

After our preview, 1666: Amsterdam feels like a witches brew of ideas which haven’t quite boiled together yet. An off-the-rails Assassin’s Creed is an enticing pitch, at a time when the series has started to remake its past glories, but we’ll have to see if Panache – with help from early adopters – can find the magic in this mechanical melting pot.

Formats: PC (early access)
Price: $29.99 (UK price yet to be announced)
Publisher: Gambit Digital
Developer: Panache Digital Games
Release Date: 25th August 2026 (early access)
Age Rating: 17+

Email gamecentral@metro.co.uk, leave a comment below, follow us on Twitter.

To submit Inbox letters and Reader’s Features more easily, without the need to send an email, just use our Submit Stuff page here.

For more stories like this, check our Gaming page.