Studio BBB’s MONOWAVE launches on Steam and Switch

MONOWAVE, the debut puzzle-platformer from Seoul-based Studio BBB, is out now on PC via Steam and on Nintendo Switch. It costs £7.39, $9.99 or €8.99, carries a 10% launch discount for a limited time, and the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S versions are promised before the end of 2026.

You play as Mono, a newborn Guardian tasked with putting a broken world back together by rounding up four missing Emotions: Anxiety, Anger, Sorrow and Happiness. Each one collected changes how Mono moves — Anxiety senses hidden traps, Anger enables wall-jumps, Sorrow lets them seep through narrow gaps and Happiness boosts their jump height — and every ability evolves again once its ruling Emotion has been beaten in a boss fight.

Eighteen spirits, 72 reactions

The hook is how the world answers back. Eighteen spirits are scattered through the game, and each reacts differently depending on which Emotion Mono is carrying, which the studio counts as 72 possible interactions. Sing at a spirit while wearing Sorrow and it may open a route that stays sealed if you turn up wearing Anger. The four major bosses work the same way, built around whichever Emotion rules them, and eight hidden stages sit two at a time inside the game’s four regions alongside Codices covering spirits, environments and worlds.

Three years, from university to Steam

Studio BBB began work on MONOWAVE while its members were still studying, incorporated as a company only after graduating last year, and is publishing with Phoenixx. The look is scratch-art: bright line-drawn spirits against deep, dark backdrops, with a wordless story and an original score underneath. Local co-op lets a second player join as Prism, Steam players get Remote Play Together, and the later chapters move from the freezing currents of The Somber Trench to light, shadow and gravity trickery across The Blissful Islands.

We wanted players to experience emotions and empathy through play.

— Gwonyeong Lim, CEO of Studio BBB

Our opinion

Turning emotions into movement abilities is either the most honest platformer mechanic in years or an extremely on-the-nose gimmick, and MONOWAVE will live or die on whether switching from Anger to Sorrow feels like a puzzle solution rather than a lecture. The pricing suggests the studio knows exactly what it has: under a tenner for a wordless story, local co-op and 72 spirit interactions is competing with the top of the indie market on charm rather than volume, and that is normally the right bet. What the launch trailer cannot answer is whether a student project that grew into a full commercial release has the substance to hold a player past the second boss. The console ports later this year will be the real verdict.