When I first saw MIO: Memories in Orbit at Summer Game Fest 2025, I thought I knew what I was getting: another Metroidvania in an already crowded genre, probably robots, and platforming that would scratch the Hollow Knight itch while we wait for Silksong. Maybe it would capture some of the existential weight of Nine Sols, with its questions about consciousness and artificial beings. I was wrong—beautifully, wonderfully wrong.
What I discovered in the demo transcended its familiar framework. MIO: Memories in Orbit isn’t just another entry in the Metroidvania catalog; it’s a meditation on consciousness, identity, and what it means to exist in a world where the line between organic and artificial has blurred beyond recognition. If Hollow Knight explores the weight of duty and sacrifice, and Nine Sols grapples with the price of immortality and transcendence, then MIO asks perhaps the most fundamental question of all: what makes a soul?
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The Soul in MIO‘s Machine
MIO: Memories in Orbit opens with one of the most intriguing sequences I’ve experienced, bringing to mind Nine Sols’ bold narrative choices. You start as something—maybe a soul, maybe pure consciousness—floating in an ethereal space surrounded by cryptic symbols and ominous phrases. It’s deliberately unclear what you are, and that ambiguity immediately sets the tone for everything that follows. Then, in a moment that feels both violent and necessary, this entity is injected into MIO, a small robot awakening aboard The Vessel.
While Nine Sols explores the horror of artificial immortality through its Taoist-cyberpunk lens, MIO: Memories in Orbit approaches similar themes differently. Both games ask whether consciousness can truly exist in artificial forms, but while Nine Sols paints that existence as a curse to be broken, MIO seems more interested in exploring what it means to be born into such a state. There’s something almost hopeful in MIO‘s awakening compared to the existential dread that permeates RedCandleGames’ new game.
The Vessel isn’t just a spaceship; it’s a character unto itself. This massive technological ark houses diverse biomes that feel alive: lush forests that pulse with otherworldly energy, icy ruins that whisper of forgotten civilizations, and watery caverns that seem to breathe. What struck me wasn’t just the environmental variety but how each area told a story of The Vessel’s mysterious breakdown and the AI caretakers who vanished without explanation.
The Meaningful Death of Your Avatar
What sets MIO: Memories in Orbit apart from its contemporaries isn’t just its gorgeous presentation; it’s how the game makes every decision matter. The nacre system exemplifies this perfectly. This crystalline currency serves multiple purposes: healing, upgrades, and progression, but here’s the kicker: die, and you lose it all. Unless you’ve taken the time to crystallize your nacre at specific machines, making it permanent in your inventory.
This creates a risk-reward tension that had me sweating during my first boss encounter, a feeling that Nine Sols players will recognize. Both games understand that death in video games should have weight and that progression should feel earned rather than inevitable. However, where Nine Sols uses its punishing difficulty to reinforce themes about the cyclical nature of suffering, MIO‘s consequences are about learning and growth.
This distinction is a subtly different approach that makes each game’s difficulty serve its narrative in unique ways. Do I push forward with my current stash of nacre, hoping to find the next checkpoint? Or do I backtrack to safety, crystallizing what I have but potentially missing out on greater rewards ahead? It’s the kind of meaningful decision-making that’s become rare in modern game design, where the death of one’s avatar is little more than a minor inconvenience.
The modifier system amplifies this sense of consequence. These passive upgrades require slots in MIO: Memories in Orbit‘s “Allocation Matrix”; you don’t have many early on. I deliberated whether to equip a simple health bar display (because you don’t get enemy health bars by default) or save that slot for something more substantial later. Each upgrade is earned, and each decision carries weight.
The Message in the MIO Machine
Beyond its mechanical innovations, MIO: Memories in Orbit tackles increasingly relevant themes, and the comparison to Nine Sols becomes even more fascinating. What does it mean to have consciousness? How do we define identity when organic and artificial lines become blurred? While Nine Sols approaches these questions through the lens of Taoist philosophy and the horror of forced transcendence, MIO is more interested in the wonder and possibility of artificial consciousness.
Both games feature protagonists awakening into artificial bodies with fragmented memories, but their journeys are fundamentally different. Nine Sols‘ Yi is burdened by the weight of his past and the horror of what he’s become. By contrast, MIO: Memories in Orbit represents potential: a fresh consciousness exploring what it means to exist. As architect and philosopher Buckminster Fuller wrote, “I am not a thing-a noun. I seem to be a verb, an evolutionary process – an integral function of the universe.” That perfectly captures what makes MIO‘s journey so compelling. There’s an optimism buried in MIO’s narrative DNA that makes it a fascinating companion piece to Nine Sols’ darker exploration of similar themes.
The few snippets of dialogue and environmental storytelling suggest a narrative depth that goes well beyond “robot saves spaceship”. It’s haunting, exploring The Vessel’s abandoned corridors, seeing evidence of civilizations that once thrived. It’s like the best science fiction, using fantastical settings to explore fundamentally human questions. Who were these beings? What happened to them? Most unsettling of all: could the same fate await us?
MIO: Memories in Orbit doesn’t provide easy answers, and I suspect the full game won’t either. That’s what I want from science fiction video games: stories that make me think while they entertain.
MIO’s Visual Beauty
Screenshots don’t do the visuals in this game justice. Every frame of MIO: Memories in Orbit looks hand-crafted, like watching a moving painting unfold. Shadows dance across surfaces, and environmental details breathe with their inner life. This visual artistry had me stopping the game mid-jump to admire a particular lighting effect or texture.
MIO is not just pretty to look at. The visual design serves the gameplay in subtle, intelligent ways. Environmental storytelling happens through visual cues rather than exposition dumps. A tilted doorframe here, scattered debris there—each tells part of The Vessel’s story without dialogue.
MIO‘s audio design deserves equal praise. The soundtrack carefully distinguishes between melancholy and hope, creating a cozy yet alien atmosphere. During boss fights, the music swells with dramatic vocal tracks that transform the encounters from mere mechanical challenges into emotional crescendos. The result is the difference between fighting a boss and experiencing a boss.
MIO‘s Glitch: The Hairpin Problem
Nothing’s perfect, and MIO: Memories in Orbit has one glaring, frustrating glitch: the Hairpin ability. This grappling hook mechanic should be the ticket to reaching new areas and executing stylish aerial maneuvers. Instead, it’s inconsistent and often unfair.
Sometimes the hook grabs crystals from impossible angles. Other times, it refuses to connect despite perfect positioning. Since your avatar can’t use Hairpin twice while airborne—you need to touch ground and wait for recharge—failed connections often mean plummeting to your death or missing crucial platforming sequences.
This might seem like a minor complaint, but it highlights something important about game design. When a core mechanic isn’t reliable, it breaks the trust between player and game. I found myself second-guessing every grapple attempt, which transformed what should have been moments of flow and mastery into exercises in frustration.
The developers need to fix this before the full release. This flaw consistently pulled me out of an otherwise sublime experience.
Thoughtful Science Fiction
MIO: Memories in Orbit isn’t just another Metroidvania—it’s proof that familiar formulas can still surprise us when handled with genuine artistry and care. While comparisons to Hollow Knight are inevitable (and apt—both games share that sense of melancholic beauty), I found myself thinking more about Nine Sols. Both games explore what it means to exist in artificial forms, both grapple with questions of consciousness and identity, and both refuse to provide easy answers to complex philosophical questions.
However, where Nine Sols is about breaking free from cycles of suffering and artificial existence, MIO is a story about embracing what you are and finding meaning in that existence. It’s the difference between asking “How do I escape this artificial form?” and “What can I become within it?” Both are valid questions, but they lead to fundamentally different narratives.
The demo left me hungry for more. I want to explore every corner of The Vessel, uncover its mysteries, and see how MIO’s journey unfolds. More importantly, I want to see whether the developers can maintain this artistic vision and mechanical innovation level throughout a full-length experience.
If you have any interest in Metroidvanias, beautiful games, or thoughtful science fiction, download the demo. It’s free on Steam, and it might just restore your faith in what this genre can accomplish when developers aim for something more than “Hollow Knight, but with robots”.