1666: Amsterdam Early Access Review: A Strong Foundation That Needs More Time

By Justin D Williams

1666: Amsterdam is one of those Early Access games where I can already see the game it wants to become. The atmosphere is strong, the story immediately gives me questions I want answered, and the supernatural systems have enough personality to separate it from other action-adventure games. At the same time, this is absolutely a work in progress. The combat is still too basic, the camera can become frustrating when several enemies are involved, and there are technical rough edges that remind you this is not a finished release. What surprised me is that none of those problems stopped me from wanting to keep playing. There is something genuinely interesting here.

The story is easily the strongest part of my experience so far. 1666: Amsterdam follows Noa through a supernatural mystery involving the Originals, strange powers, different periods in time, and a larger conflict that slowly reveals itself instead of immediately explaining everything. The game does take a little while to get going, but I never felt like it was wasting my time. It gives you just enough information to keep the mystery alive without dumping every answer on you in the opening hours. That slower start actually works because the setting and characters keep you interested while the story establishes itself. Once the supernatural elements begin expanding and the connections between Noa, Aaron, 1666, and 1999 start taking shape, I became much more invested in seeing where everything was heading. The pacing feels deliberate rather than sluggish. It knows when to hold information back, when to introduce something strange, and when to shift perspectives before one part of the experience overstays its welcome. Aaron plays a big role in keeping that story fresh. When the game moves into his perspective as a cat, especially during the 1999 sections, it provides a refreshing change in tone and gameplay. Those moments also help the story feel bigger than a straightforward supernatural adventure set entirely in seventeenth-century Amsterdam. There is a mystery connecting these different pieces, and that was enough to keep me engaged even when the gameplay around it still needed work.

There are several ideas in the gameplay that I genuinely like. Noa can use the NUX system to cast spells, interact with objects, rebuild parts of the environment, and approach situations in ways that go beyond simply attacking enemies. Perfect Spellcasting also adds a little timing to the magic system by rewarding you for releasing a spell at the right moment, allowing you to recover the NUX Shard afterward. It is a smart mechanic because it gives resource management and spellcasting a little more thought than simply pressing a button whenever an ability is available. The environmental uses of Noa's powers are actually more interesting to me than the basic melee combat. Rebuilding destroyed objects and manipulating the environment gives the supernatural abilities a practical purpose outside of fighting. Those moments make me curious about how much further the system could develop as Early Access continues because there is clearly room for more complex puzzles and interactions. Aaron's gameplay is another highlight. Playing as a cat changes how you look at the environment because you are suddenly navigating spaces from a much smaller perspective. I had to open doors, interact with latches, squeeze into places Noa could not reach, and find ways to help progress through areas from Aaron's point of view.

Those sections break up the heavier combat and investigation nicely. They never felt like meaningless side activities to me; they felt like a deliberate change of pace that the game benefits from. Where the gameplay currently struggles is combat. I played using a PS5 DualSense controller with R2 to attack, X to dodge, and R1 to lock onto enemies, and the basic system is easy enough to understand. The problem is that it feels too basic for too long. A lot of encounters eventually come down to attacking, dodging, repositioning, and repeating the process. The witchcraft helps add some variety, but the core defensive options are not deep enough yet to make combat consistently satisfying. Noa desperately needs another way to defend herself besides dodging. A block, parry, magical shield, counter, or defensive NUX ability would immediately make fights feel more strategic. Dodging works fine when there is one enemy directly in front of you, but the weakness of that system becomes much more obvious once several enemies surround Noa. When your primary defense is movement and the camera is not always giving you a clean view of every attacker, the combat can start working against you.

Visually, 1666: Amsterdam is impressive. The historical setting has a grim, dirty, lived-in atmosphere that fits the supernatural story extremely well. The architecture, narrow streets, interiors, lighting, and darker environments give the game a distinct personality. I also like the contrast between the grounded historical surroundings and Noa's supernatural abilities. When the magic starts appearing against that more realistic backdrop, it gives the game a strong visual identity. I played on a Dell G16 7630 with an Intel Core i9-13900HX, an NVIDIA GeForce RTX 4060 Laptop GPU with 8 GB of VRAM, 16 GB of RAM, and an NVMe SSD, and overall performance was solid. I encountered frame-rate drops twice during cutscenes and once when several enemies were on screen at the same time, but nothing I experienced was game-breaking. The majority of my time with the game was stable enough that performance never became the defining issue of the experience. There are still some visual and environmental bugs that need attention. While controlling Aaron, I was able to walk directly through books sitting on a bookshelf. It is a small example, but it shows that collision detection and environmental polish still need another pass. Those are the kinds of issues I expect to see cleaned up as development continues.

I like 1666: Amsterdam. More importantly, I want to keep playing it. The story has me interested, the mystery is engaging, the atmosphere is excellent, Aaron's cat sections are a welcome change of pace, and the NUX mechanics give the game ideas that I want to see expanded. There is a strong foundation here. But I would not tell everyone to jump in right now. Combat is still too basic, Noa relies too much on dodging, the camera can actively work against you when multiple enemies are involved, and the game still has the kind of collision and optimization issues you would expect from an Early Access build. That is why my Early Access Power-Up Bar rating is WAIT FOR UPDATES.