For the longest time, I was convinced that Geometry Wars: Retro Evolved 2 was the peak of the twin-stick arcade genre. It took what the original XBLA game did so well and perfected the formula, delivering an experience that was easy to grasp yet difficult to master.
Imagine my surprise, then, to discover that not only does Sektori effortlessly emulate the feel of GW2, but it also manages to surpass it in pretty much every way. Having launched on other platforms at the tail end of 2025, this, my friends, is the new benchmark for twin-stick arcade games, and my favourite Switch 2 release of 2026 so far.
Developed by Kimmo Lahtinen, who previously spent 13 years at the Sony-owned studio Housemarque (Resogun, Dead Nation), Sektori wears its inspiration on its sleeve. At its core, it’s quite literally Geometry Wars: you navigate a top-down arena, shoot a bunch of coloured shapes, and try to stay alive long enough to climb the online leaderboards. However, several unique mechanics help set it apart, making it one of the most relentlessly addictive games I’ve ever played.
First up is the ‘strike’ move. In addition to moving with the left stick and shooting with the right, tapping ‘LB’ dashes your ship forward, creating a large explosion that decimates nearby enemies. Normally, executing this will require a cooldown of about 10 seconds before you can use it again, but timing and accuracy will allow you to chain together multiple strikes in one go.
The key is to aim at the upgrade pick-ups that appear periodically in the arena. Hit one of these with your strike and it will completely bypass the cooldown period, letting you use it again and again until you run out of pick-ups. Chaining your strikes together is a great way to boost your score, but the multiplier will quickly reset if you fail to maintain the chain.
Then we have the pick-ups themselves. You have a total of six attributes that you can improve during your runs: speed, score, strike, shield, missile, and blaster – specifically in that order. If you pick up one upgrade, you can immediately activate it and improve your speed. However, if you grab two, then you can upgrade your score – and so on. So essentially, if you want to improve your blaster, you’ll need to keep playing until you pick up six upgrades before activating it.
Each attribute can be improved multiple times, lending the game a huge element of strategy as you figure out which ones you want to focus on. Building up your shields is a great way to stay alive against boss encounters, but leaving your blaster at its lowest level can make later stages more difficult.
Another pick-up you’ll need to keep an eye on will cycle through letters to form specific words. Depending on the difficulty setting, these words are ‘Mirage’, ‘Sektori’, and ‘Revolution’. Pick up all the letters and you’ll enter a temporary ‘rainbow’ state, powering up your abilities to the max while boosting your score exponentially. It’s well worth spending the time to complete each word, but you’ll want to time your pick-ups well, as it’s possible to snap up a letter you’ve already collected.
And finally, you have upgrade cards. Before each run, you’ll need to choose a total of eight decks from which to pull cards, and you can customise these as you gain more through unlocks. When you grab a rare, yellow pick-up during gameplay, you’re presented with three randomised decks to open. Some cards do very little, but rare ones can grant you decent upgrades like defensive drones or the ability to shoot backwards.
There’s quite a lot to juggle, then, but when you’re in the heat of battle, it all comes together really well. All those extra bits and bobs are vital to achieving high scores, but fundamentally, they don’t get in the way of the core gameplay: shooting enemies, surviving, and having a damn good time doing it.
Oh, and did I mention that the arena actually morphs as you play? Yes, in addition to the hordes of enemies, the stage will completely change shape every 15 seconds or so, so make sure you don’t get caught in the red areas as it’s about to shift.
If there’s one drawback to all of this, however, it’s that the game doesn’t do the best job at explaining it all. There’s a brief tutorial at the start and some instruction pages on the main menu, but it took me a little while to realise that grabbing multiple pick-ups would cycle through your upgrades. Similarly, when the first selection of cards popped up on-screen, I didn’t have a clue what was going on. It doesn’t take long to figure it all out, but a bit more guidance from the game itself would be good.
The main campaign mode has you work through individual stages, each of which ends with a formidable boss encounter. When you first start out, you’re forced into ‘Experience’ difficulty mode until you beat the first level, but make no mistake, this isn’t exactly easy.
The latter difficulty levels, ‘Challenge’ and ‘Revolution’, increase the number of enemies on screen and the rate at which they appear. To balance things out, however, your own rate of fire is also increased.
In another nod to Geometry Wars, there are six other modes to unlock as you play. These include ‘Gates’, which disables your weapons and has you fly through barriers to defeat enemies, and ‘Crash’, which only allows you to use the strike ability. Each mode has its own global leaderboard, so there’s plenty here to sink your teeth into.
All of this is propped up by Sektori’s stellar presentation. Visually, it’s a bit darker and edgier than what you might see in a Geometry Wars game, but it’s still a trippy experience. Psychedelic patterns constantly swirl in the background, and the plethora of different coloured enemies all floating around the screen is a delight to behold. It all runs at a rock-solid 60fps with not a single noticeable dropped frame in both docked and handheld modes.
Similarly, music plays a huge role, with Tommi Lahtinen’s techno-based soundtrack bringing the action to life beautifully. In fact, the sound design as a whole is excellent, with punchy weapon sound effects, crunchy explosions when you execute a strike, and an anxiety-inducing alarm that blares out whenever the stages change shape.
Conclusion
Sektori is a triumph. Blending the core gameplay of Geometry Wars with several engaging new mechanics makes this one of the most satisfying and addictive games I’ve ever played. It boasts immaculate presentation with gorgeous visuals, a thumping soundtrack, and rock-solid 60fps gameplay.
Some of the new mechanics may take some getting used to, and Sektori could do a better job at explaining them. Once you’ve got your head around all of it, though, it’s impossible to put down. As far as twin-stick shooters go, Geometry Wars has been dethroned – there’s a new king in town.