The Ballad of Bellum (Demo): A Gorgeous, Zelda-like 2DHD Charmer With Tons of Promise

I’ve been following BokehDev on Instagram for a long while, way back when their Instagram was just little clips and experiments and it’s been a blast watching those snippets grow into a real game.

When they posted about giving away early demo keys I instantly reached out, grabbed one, and played the whole thing in a single sitting.

Short version: this demo rocks. It’s a love letter to classic Zelda with a modern, 2DHD twist, and it already feels like something special.

A beautiful first impression (and then it keeps getting prettier)

The first moments are a vibe: night, rain, wind tugging at the trees, and that moody “adventure’s about to begin” hush.

The lighting is chef’s kiss, rain glistens, puddles bloom, and shadows sell the depth without turning the screen into mud.

After I cleared the demo’s mini-dungeon, the world switched to daytime and the whole palette shifted into a warm, sunny glow.

Same spaces, totally different mood.

The lantern is a standout item; light pools around you in dark interiors and caves in a way that feels both dramatic and readable.

The environments are dense in the best way: tiny 2D plants everywhere, chunky trees, and little detail props that make it feel like you’re really pushing through a forest. And yes, you can cut the grass. All of it.

It’s silly how satisfying that is, and I can only imagine how much effort went into making it look and feel right.

The full game leans into this atmosphere-forward style (think tilt-shifted vistas, dynamic weather, and a full day/night cycle) and what’s here in the demo matches that description beat for beat. If you love cozy dioramas with real mood swings as time and weather change, you’re going to be happy.

A Zelda-like with its own cadence

This is unmistakably a Zelda-inspired adventure, overworld wandering, a dungeon, smart item gating, and that satisfying loop of “find new tool → unlock new routes.”

You start with a sword and shield, eventually pick up a boomerang, and quickly learn this isn’t a mash-to-win combat model.

There’s a slight delay after each sword swing, and the game expects you to be deliberate: step in, strike, reposition, raise shield, repeat.

Once that rhythm clicked, fights went from “huh?” to “ohhh, nice.”

The boomerang also behaves exactly how you want it to including cutting grass on the way out and back. There’s also a free aim mode for that coming but it’s not available yet in this demo.

Lots of indie action-adventures skew hyper-snappy; Bellum keeps the pace thoughtful and intentional.

It also makes your tools feel distinct: the lantern matters in darkness, the boomerang matters in wide spaces and puzzles, the shield matters when enemies commit to big tells.

I like that it’s encouraging me to read the room rather than spam.

Audio that fits like a glove

The music lands exactly where a Zelda-like needs to land: adventurous melodies with a gentle, wistful edge, then perkier beats in combat and dungeons.

Nothing jars, nothing overwhelms the ambience.

Sound effects are clean and supportive (swishes, thunks, rain taps) so the world feels cohesive rather than noisy.

Two small control gripes (that feel fixable)

This is an early demo, so take these as “polish notes,” not dealbreakers:

• Button mapping. Right now you can only map items to LT/RT, and that includes your sword, so you effectively get just two actives at a time. I’d love to see the sword always mapped to X (Xbox/PC controller layout), with items like the boomerang or lantern on LT/RT. It’s a common muscle memory for this genre, and it would make swapping between core combat and utility items much smoother.
• Menu closing. Opening the equipment menu with X and then needing X again to close feels odd; I instinctively reach for B to cancel, and here it doesn’t work. Adding B as a universal “back/close” would make the UI snap into place for controller users.

Movement is on the slower side, but I can tell it’s deliberate (the spaces are dense with granular geometry) and frankly I didn’t mind. (But yes, I also hopped everywhere because it felt a hair faster. Classic.)

Font & readability

The one purely aesthetic nit for me is the font. It gets the job done, but a more retro pixel-style typeface (or a clean pixel-adjacent modern) would probably fit the art direction better and make dialogue boxes feel more “handcrafted.”

It’s a small swap with a huge perceived-quality payoff.

Following the dev has been half the fun

Part of why this demo hits is the journey getting here.

I found BokehDev on Instagram ages ago (just little images and clips) then watched as they stacked features: new areas, items, VFX passes, and polish.

Seeing those bits coalesce into a cohesive demo has been really satisfying.

And yes, having that early access demo key in hand after following along for so long made booting it up feel like a tiny event.

If you’re curious about the bigger vision, the Steam page spells out a world with multiple biomes, temples, dungeons, and boss fights, all from the same solo developer banner. BokehDev is listed as both developer and publisher, with release TBA. Wishlist-worthy, for sure.

Verdict: Wishlist it now, and bring on the full release

The Ballad of Bellum’s demo nails the important stuff.

The 2DHD presentation is gorgeous; lighting and weather are top-shelf; the lantern and boomerang feel great; the forest density sells the world; and the combat cadence rewards patience instead of spam.

Toss in a couple quality-of-life tweaks (map the sword permanently to X, give B a universal “back” role, and revisit the font) and you’ve got a rock-solid foundation for a full release.

It’s always exciting when a project you’ve quietly rooted for starts to blossom.

This one doesn’t just look the part, it plays the part.

If you like Zelda-likes, charming art, and carefully crafted worlds you can get lost in, put The Ballad of Bellum on your radar (and your wishlist).

I can’t wait to see where BokehDev takes it next.

View our full playthrough of the demo in the video below:

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Images are from the Ballad of Bellum Press Kit and used under Fair Use and with permission from the developer.