MIO: Memories in Orbit opens with haunting music and immediately nails its atmosphere. From the very first moments, the game feels melancholic, mysterious, and just a little unsettling in the best possible way. And that’s exactly what MIO is: a mystery. The story doesn’t reveal too much too quickly, and with a world filled with dark secrets, it takes quite a while before you truly understand what’s going on.
This Metroidvania is the second project from independent French studio Douze Dixièmes, and the first thing that stands out when watching a trailer or starting a new game is just how absolutely gorgeous the game looks. The visuals combine a hand-drawn comic-book aesthetic with watercolor-style shading to create a look that immediately stands out. It actually reminded me a lot of Blue Prince, though MIO leans much harder into melancholy and decay, making great use of color, contrast and tone.
You know how some games include concept art in their Extras menu? MIO feels like that concept art somehow became the final product. And I mean that in the best possible way, it’s simply stunning.
To briefly touch upon the plot, you play as MIO, a small robot awakening aboard a massive drifting ark known as The Vessel. Originally designed to transport humanity to new planets, the ship has long since fallen into ruin. Humanity is gone, the caretakers known as the Voices are slowly failing, and MIO’s journey revolves around restoring them, uncovering what happened to the ship, and ultimately deciding the fate of The Vessel itself.
The game tells most of its story through environmental storytelling, cryptic dialogue, logs, item descriptions, and exploration rather than lengthy cutscenes, which works very well for this type of game. Still, with visuals this beautiful, I couldn’t help but wonder how incredible fully animated cutscenes could have been.
Combat & Exploration
Now, while the visuals may be the first thing that stand out, movement is where MIO truly shines.
At first, traversal can feel a bit slow, especially since there’s no sprint option (and none ever becomes available). Still, movement is at the core of MIO, and nearly every gameplay system is built around traversal abilities. Unlocking new movement abilities opens up new possibilities in more ways than one.
What impressed me most is how creative these abilities are. The very first major movement upgrade, the Hairpin (essentially a grappling hook), already feels far more interesting than the standard double jump or dash that usually appear early in most Metroidvanias. It is entirely momentum-based, adding dynamic to the movement. The first proper area you’ll explore is also covered in ice, and keeping the momentum from sliding on these surfaces affects MIO’s jump strength, too.
That design philosophy is maintained throughout the entire game. Every new ability feels meaningful and transformative; each unlock genuinely changes how you move through the world. Gliding through the air, clinging to walls, chaining multiple Hairpins together thanks to energy-restoring abilities, and combining traversal tools during platforming sections all feels incredibly fluid.
And the game fully commits to this idea. Optional parkour routes begin appearing everywhere once your moveset expands, and some late-game platforming sections become legitimately challenging in the best possible way. Players focused mainly on the critical path should still get through the game comfortably enough, but completionists and trophy hunters are absolutely going to run into some brutal traversal challenges later on.
I couldn’t help but compare MIO to Aeterna Noctis, a Metroidvania famous for its intricate and deep movement mechanics. While MIO doesn’t quite reach that same level of complexity, I’d honestly argue that it feels better to play while still coming surprisingly close to Aeterna Noctis in terms of platforming challenge and depth.
Of course, fantastic movement alone isn’t enough, the world also needs to make you want to explore it. Thankfully, this aspect is also excellent. The world is massive, interconnected, and consistently rewarding curiosity. There’s always some suspicious ledge, hidden pathway, or strange optional room teasing future abilities, along with upgrades and collectibles hidden around nearly every corner.
And if you stumble across a difficult parkour section, you can usually bet there’s something worthwhile waiting at the end.
One of my personal favorite moments in the entire game comes from the world design itself. Early on, it can feel like you’re constantly moving back and forth between the east and west sides of the main hub, wondering where exactly the game wants you to go. Then eventually, the game reveals one of its major secrets (and one I absolutely won’t spoil here). Fittingly, there’s a trophy called “Wait…what?” tied to this specific realization, which sums up my reaction perfectly.
Combat, however, feels noticeably less ambitious.
Your core offensive toolkit mostly boils down to the same basic three-hit combo from beginning to end. I kept waiting for the combat system to evolve in some major way, but it never really does. Boss fights are still very fun, but combat lacks the same creativity and depth that movement and exploration have.
Interestingly, traversal abilities eventually become an important part of combat as well. By equipping specific modifiers tied to movement skills, you can transform traversal tools into offensive options. For example, one modifier lets you slash enemies while using the Hairpin on them, turning it into both a mobility and damage tool during combat. Another allows the Sail (glide) ability to create a damaging field around MIO, while Striders can be modified to increase damage output while clinging to walls.
These systems help later fights feel much more dynamic, and the later bosses are significantly stronger (design-wise) than the early ones partly because the game finally starts expecting you to combine movement and combat instead of treating them as separate systems.
Still, compared to how incredible movement feels, combat never quite reaches the same level.
I also want to briefly touch on the boss fights specifically. Despite the relatively simple combat mechanics, you won’t get very far by button-mashing and hoping for the best. Most bosses are designed around a much more methodical “observe and react” approach. MIO has a very limited health pool and, outside of one cheesy modifier setup, no way to heal mid-fight. Meanwhile, bosses tend to have large health pools and don’t stagger, meaning careless aggression will get MIO killed without the boss even flinching.
This design philosophy makes many of the later bosses genuinely memorable, with attack patterns you need to properly learn and punish. There are a few fights where success can feel slightly luck-dependent (VLAD, the guy inside the “Washing Machine,” definitely comes to mind) but thankfully those moments are rare.
The Platinum Trophy
The Platinum for MIO: Memories in Orbit is very much a “do basically everything” kind of trophy list. And we have a Trophy Guide available on VGL, including a collectibles compendium, to help you earn the Platinum Trophy!
You’ll need to collect nearly everything, defeat almost every boss, uncover hidden secrets, and obtain both the regular and true endings. Thankfully, the game itself is strong enough that this mostly feels rewarding rather than exhausting… at least at first.
The real problem is the map system.
The game barely tracks anything automatically. NPCs, collectibles, upgrades,… almost none of it gets marked for you. You can place your own markers manually, but the game essentially expects you to handle all tracking yourself.
And that becomes a serious issue during cleanup. Some collectibles are manageable because they’re uniquely named. Modifiers, for example, can be cross-referenced against a guide fairly easily. But general collectibles like Coating Components or Old Cores become a nightmare to clean up because the game gives you absolutely no indication of which specific ones you’ve already collected.
With 24 Coating Components and 39 Old Cores scattered throughout this enormous world, the endgame cleanup process can easily devolve into aimless wandering unless you’ve been keeping external notes from the very beginning.
For regular players, this probably won’t matter too much. For completionists, however, it can become frustrating very quickly.
