PAX West 2025: Fallen Tear's metroidvania-meets-JRPG has the promise to be the Phillipines' next breakout indie

After 2024's VGG GOTY nominee Until Then, it feels like the Filipino game dev scene is surging. And this half-Filipino Editor-in-Chief couldn't be happier.

More and more, we're hearing about some exciting projects coming out of the country, like the upcoming donut shop visual novel High Times that we covered during Summer Game Fest, and the game we finally got hands-on with at PAX this year — Fallen Tear: The Ascension.

With its stunning animations and Hollow Knight-like metroidvania action, Fallen Tear has all the elements to be the next big game to emerge from the Filipino game dev scene — where, the developer told us, original homegrown projects like this remain rare, but are all the more exciting because of it.

​Just the Facts

Developer: Winter Crew Studios

Genre: Side-scrolling metroidvania with JRPG storytelling

Release Date: Q1 2026

It was fun to hop into Fallen Tear during PAX in the wake of Silksong's sudden re-emergence and imminent release, as it was certainly occupying a similar gameplay space — thankfully, still quite a ways out from their own release date, the team at Winter Crew Studios may have been one of the only teams at the show not feeling the tidal wave of Team Cherry's looming launch.

Hollow Knight was and is a major inspiration for the studio and their new metroidvania; that much was clear from the time we spent with their boss rush-focused demo. It gave a unique perspective on the vision Winter Crew is bringing to the genre. While Fallen Tear is said to pull not only from metroidvania classics like Hollow Knight but also from classic JRPGs in storytelling, the demo stripped away that narrative focus, instead shining the spotlight on the game's combat system.

Fallen Tear is being developed as an expansive RPG-like adventure where its protagonist, Hira, bonds with a series of powerful allies to conquer the staggeringly large world of over 24 unique biomes, a number that Founder and Creative Director Stephen Manalastas was sure to let us know about when we start chatting about the experience.

"We wanted to have a big world," he said. "But we didn't want it to feel very empty. Since we have so many characters, we wanted to make sure we built out the world in a way that's connected to not just the main character, but all that live within it. Everything has lore attached to it."

In my hands-on time with the demo, I go from room to room, clearing waves of enemies before being treated to one of the demo's bosses. There's a mushroom, and an armadillo-like beast. And whenever I beat one of them, I'm given access to one of Hira's allies and the powers they carry. One seems to be a chef who tosses a burning pan or wheel that crashes down on enemies for big damage. There's also a cartographer of sorts, who locks all on-screen enemies into place, making them easier targets for combos and big moves. The combat is quick and punchy, and dodging and parrying are necessary to your success.

As I push through each boss — in fairly impressive time, if Manalastas' jokes about tuning up the difficulty are any sign — the feeling of layering each new ability on top of my move set is exciting. It's a compressed rendition of what I imagine the full game would be like as you meet and bond with these characters in the greater world. These relationships, which the game calls Fated Bonds, are key to the experience of Fallen Tear. Through the alliances you choose and the decisions you make along the way, you gain new powers and strength — and the world shifts around you in response, too.

When I ask how the world might change and react to your choices, Manalastas answers through comparison. "Let me put it this way... I love Game of Thrones. So, I think you have an idea from that." A franchise well-known for its backstabbing, dramatic murder scenarios, and complex character relationships that could change the scope of the world in a moment's notice? If Fallen Tear's narrative choices are packing stakes of that level, it's going to be one to watch.

"Every Fated Bond has their own story," he continues. "You have the choice to recruit them or not — but each of those choices have an effect on the world, good and bad."

What's intriguing, though, is that you technically don't need any of them to beat the game. Manalastas confirmed that you can get to the end without recruiting any support... it'll just be really hard.

All of that in mind, Manalastas tells us about his favorite: Annie, a puppet master who chooses to speak through her puppets, using special voices for each one and building out her own little world in the process. Fallen Tear has a full voice cast, anchored by Story Lead and Voice Director Brandon Hunt, to bring all of its characters to life and I'm excited to meet them all.

Before leaving, we of course had to talk about the Filipino influences that go into a project like this. The growth of the Filipino game dev scene is exciting, not only in uplifting the region's talent but in spreading Filipino culture to the wider world. With Fallen Tear, Winter Crew chose to be a little more reserved with its implementation, keeping the overall narrative accessible for a wider audience, but has found clever ways to seed it in for those who are paying attention.

For example, there's the makahiya plant — known as the "shy plant" for how it recoils from touch — used as a platforming tool, the kind that disappears underfoot. It's so natural and game-y that it just makes sense. One of the story's most important places, the temple hub world that you'll return to throughout your journey, is known as the Temple of Oras (oras meaning "time" in Tagalog).

It's in these details that Filipino gamers will find a deeper connection with Winter Crew's biggest project to date. The studio had previously worked as a support studio, like many others in the Philippines, focused on art and animation before choosing to embark on this project with their own IP for a change. (The animation background was very apparent in the demo, by the way, as each attack from enemy and player alike crackles to life with smooth kinetic energy. They're incredible artists, to be sure.) And through the success and prominence of projects like Until Then, developed by Phillipines-based Polychroma Games, they were given the confidence they needed to go out and try something risky.

"I'm so thankful to my team for believing in my vision and creating this game," Manalastas said as we talked about the state of the Filipino game dev scene. "We had a lot of challenges in making this game. I want [game devs], especially in the Philippines, to know that we have a chance to get out there, to make our own IP, not just lending out our services. Now we can share what we have to give with the gaming industry.

I am really happy that Filipinos out there are starting to find our game. I hope they'll be proud."

Fallen Tear: The Ascension is set to release in Q1 2026 on PC and is planned for consoles, and you can wishlist the game today to show your support for the project. You know I'll be there on Day 1 to show some love for a Filipino studio hoping to pave the way for a scene that's begun to show up in a big way.

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Thanks for reading our coverage direct from the PAX West show floor. If you found it interesting and want to read more hands-on game previews and interviews with developers, visit our PAX West articles. Or check out our recap stream for a behind-the-scenes on what we did, played, and saw during all four days of PAX.