Game: Lou’s Lagoon
Genre: Adventure, Simulation
System: Nintendo Switch 2 (Also on Nintendo Switch, Steam (Windows), Xbox X/S and PS5)
Developer | Publisher: Tiny Roar | Megabit Publishing
Age Rating: US Everyone | EU 3
Price: US $24.99 | UK £19.99 | EU € 24,99
Release Date: August 27th, 2026
Review code used, with many thanks to Dead Good Media.
SooziQ shared her thoughts about the Lou’s Lagoon Steam demo, concluding:
I encourage you to try it, there’s so much to it. It’s a sweet game with lots of adventures to be had and lots of quests to complete.
Adventuring and questing… perfect! Sounds like I’ll be on cloud nine for this aerial adventure; let’s find out more about the full game.
Arriving at Lou’s Lagoon
Lou’s Lagoon starts with a voiced cutscene depicting a young child being read their favourite bedtime story. It’s a creation tale about Light and Dark, and their offspring, Wave and Wind. The two children would play together, but it often ended in a disagreement and caused various weather phenomena. One day, they argued so much that Wind left, leaving Wave alone, angry, and causing a mighty storm.
The voice acting ends as the cutscene moves to the present. A small trading boat is battling through high waves and lightning to respond to a Mayday call. The storm clears as the vessel approaches its destination, and your character is called to deck. At this point, you customise your character.
There is a wide selection of face shapes and other facial features, as well as hairstyles and colours. If you can’t decide on your appearance, there is a randomise option, but you pay to alter yourself later in Lou’s Lagoon. Clothes and accessories are available from the Button Bliss shop, once rebuilt, and in the mean time, you might find some attire in one of the many chests hidden across the archipelago.
As the boat pulls in along the dock, you are greeted by Hefti, your uncle’s friend and business partner. He explains that Lou headed off into the storm to try to find the cause, as it didn’t seem natural. However, Lou’s Delivery Service (at Lou’s Lagoon, on Lou’s Island) has been wrecked by the violent winds and waves and is currently out of action. Hefti thinks the other islands in the Limbo Archipelago might also be damaged. So it’s up to you to clean up, rebuild, and solve the mystery of Lou’s disappearance.
Taking Flight
Lou’s Lagoon has a play-and-learn style tutorial, with pop-up explanations for the controls that clear once completed. The tasks are detailed like a diary entry, written in the first person with a personal take on the activity. A single task can be pinned, so the details of the required items are displayed on the screen. Pinning a task also gives a guidance pin so you know where to head.
After you cross the island to the landing pier, learning how to jump en route, Hefti gives you a gadget called a Swirler. The Swirler collects resources using suction, depositing them in your Zipper (inventory). The animation for gathering can be a little jolty to demonstrate the force being used, but at times, the camera shake was too jarring. However, it’s a clever alternative to picking up an item. You also use the Swirler to transfer items from your Zipper to the building spot, and you place all or part of the resources needed.
You don’t have very large pockets in Lou’s Lagoon, and I was constantly battling with my desire to collect everything versus the space in my Zipper. It is possible to be gifted or find extra slots, and there is some storage in the plane, but it never felt like enough for the many different types of resources and crafted items you have. Quite often I would craft items and leave them on the ground until required, or, if desperate, sell items that I could buy back later, albeit at a slightly higher price.
Once the pier is restored and you’ve fixed the plane, Hefti asks you to fetch Fidge from one of the other islands. Fidge is the gadget inventor, and, once back at Lou’s Lagoon, she will sell and upgrade various tools.
Flying the plane is the highlight of Lou’s Lagoon. The controls are straightforward, with the option to invert the y-axis if required. There is a definite freedom when taking to the air, and it’s a joy to experience. There’s the added bonus of being able to collect resources and shellings (money) dangling in crates below the balloons scattered throughout the sky, or driftwood from the surface of the sea. If you are brave enough to fly close to the tornado that is still twisting around the archipelago, you might be able to grab a bounty of shellings.
After a while, Benoit de Bon Air will land at Lou’s Lagoon and challenge you to complete aerial ring courses. The first two are relatively straightforward, but the next ones require boosting to meet the time target, and as they are still deemed easy, I don’t think I have much hope of getting further!
Progression in Lou’s Lagoon
There is no denying that the scenery is stunning. There is a different vibe on each of the islands and each one feels active and vibrant. The first few real-world hours of playing Lou’s Lagoon are well-balanced. The quests expand your knowledge of the game mechanics, help you explore new islands and unlock fast travel. You need to balance completing side quests with following the main quest, as you need spark cores (a side quest reward) to unlock the numerous crafting recipes.
Eventually, Lou’s Lagoon starts to feel disjointed. To complete the main quest, you don’t need to unlock many of the tool upgrades, and too many of the resources you collect don’t seem to have a purpose (other than taking up space). Some of the early game quests require later game unlocks, and whilst you can build a house, you aren’t encouraged to do so (and the building plot is not very big!).
There’s no energy or health bar to maintain in Lou’s Lagoon, and with no fall damage or plane crash damage to worry about, there’s an openness to explore. Ladders and vines give access to higher ledges, and with hidden chests to find, it’s quite exciting to wander and fly around. However, exploration does come with risks. I was forever getting stuck in the scenery, but luckily there is an “I AM STUCK!” reset option. The ladders and vines are exceptionally difficult to use, requiring a little jump slightly beforehand, else you get stuck in a peculiar pose.
However, Lou’s Lagoon is plagued with bugs. If you want to complete the main quest of finding Uncle Lou, then don’t explore too much! I cleared all the goo from Gleam Reef before following the main quest. When I was then tasked with finding the source of the smoke, the game would not register that I’d found it, so it ended up soft-locking the mission. On my second playthrough, I followed the main quest carefully and managed to complete it, although the story does feel a bit rushed at the end. However, on my return to Lou’s Lagoon, Fidge refused to talk to me, so I couldn’t upgrade the gadgets needed to complete the remaining side missions.
Determined to finish Lou’s Lagoon, I started a third new game. This time I was thwarted at Boulderia, as the chains that needed breaking were invisible. In fact, I tried another three new playthroughs to see if I could get past that bug, but each time I couldn’t. In the final attempt, leaving Boulderia behind, I aimed to complete more of the side tasks. This was somewhat successful, but several of them were completed without actually taking the required resources, and others caused the game to crash. To make matters worse regarding the lack of inventory, I was rewarded with some food, but it was invisible and locked me out of using that inventory slot.
Controls and Options in Lou’s Lagoon
Generally, the controls are well-explained and appear on the screen, except for how to open the glider after double-jumping. I eventually discovered pressing Y while in mid-air allowed my character to glide gracefully. The majority of my gameplay for Lou’s Lagoon: Nintendo Switch 2 Edition was in docked mode, especially as I found the task descriptions too small to comfortably read in handheld mode. There were some frame-rate issues when battling the pirates, especially if you tried to run away, and the loading time between areas was painfully slow, even on the newer hardware.
In addition to the issues already highlighted, there are some unusual design choices. When talking to NPCs, the game can focus on something in the background, making the character blurred, although it generally refreshes as the conversation progresses. When finishing certain conversations or quests, rather than a traditional black screen transition, the screen goes white, which feels very uncomfortable on the eyes (there is an epilepsy warning at the start of the game). Although conversations are progressed with a single click, to accept items sometimes requires a hold. While it stops accidental upgrades, having to hold a button to accept loot from chests or fishing became annoying.
There is a day-and-night cycle, but there is no requirement to sleep and no calendar or timescales to worry about. Lou’s Lagoon features some light combat, where you use the Swirler to remove loot bags from pirates, though most fights can be avoided.
You can manually save to any one of the ten save slots, in addition to an autosave.
Lou’s Lagoon is available for both the Nintendo Switch and Nintendo Switch 2, with a free Switch 2 upgrade pack if you transition to the newer hardware.
The developers are already working on improving the inventory management, with the introduction of a silo to store items, and are looking at changing the crafting function, which currently pauses when you use the inventory or task menus. Whilst they are aware of the issues I’ve discussed, there is currently no release date for a fix.
Conclusion
I’ve had a tough time reviewing Lou’s Lagoon. On the one hand, I absolutely adore the game. The bright colours and varied landscapes of the different islands are a pleasure to explore, flying around the archipelago is great fun, and I like having plenty of quests to keep me busy.
However, would I recommend the game? Well, no, not in its current state. There are too many issues and frustrations to justify a recommendation. While I appreciate that porting to Switch can sometimes reveal issues unseen before, it currently feels more like an early access version.
Hopefully, one day I can return to Lou’s Lagoon and bask in the sunshine, but at the moment, it’s a bitterly disappointing and ultimately very frustrating experience.
Final Verdict: I’m Not Sure 
Do you like our content?
Subscribe to our daily news and never miss a review!