Dlala Studios knows how to bring hand-drawn art to life in video games. In their hit platformer Disney Illusion Island, that was on full display, and in the studio’s latest title, Murals picks up on that tactile art style, only this time, it’s via an isometric action-adventure game with no shortage of comedy in its design and narrative.
While the studio’s last outing with Disney may have tied them to the Mouse, Murals is a wholly unique and self-published title that looks to Grimm’s Fairytales and other folktales and stories within the public domain, putting humor first and picking up the baton in retelling iconic tales for new audiences and in different ways.
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During Gamescom 2026 in Cologne, Germany, we got the chance to see a live demo of the game and speak with CEO & Game Director Aj Grand-Scrutton, while Design Director Grant Allen handled the demo playthrough. Inspired by fables, fairytales, and other fictional worlds, Murals puts players into a fast-paced action-adventure game with customizable combat that offers all of the exciting combat and creative loadouts of a roguelike without losing progress.
Dlala Studios’ upcoming game is a look into twisted fairytales that put humor and art first.
Built to be frenetic in pace, the game’s narrative revolves around the player entering a warped world of twisted tales that are all familiar, but well, slightly off. Created on a solid foundation of storytelling, Murals’ artistry isn’t just on display in the world, but core to the game’s story.
Led through different murals by a 2D character, players solve fairytales that pop them into Grimm-inspired humor from Little Briar Rose, Repunzal, Through the Looking Glass, and Little Red Red Cap, to Hansel and Gretel and The Little Mermaid.
In our hands-off demo, we got to watch as the Allen moved the character through a take on The Little Mermaid where we tried to get the mermaid, who is stuck in a bathtub and with an entirely wrong voice, her voice back. The combat’s quickness and variety of melee and ranged attacks highlight a focus on kinetic combos and player agency in creating combat that feels good for them.
With augmentations called “eeries” that change combat nearly completely from item to item, Murals is reminiscent of a roguelike or metroidvania without the worry of losing progress. Instead, the focus of the combat is about constantly finding creative ways to move forward through the stories in the murals to complete your goals.
The deeper that players get into Murals, the more Eeries they will have at their disposal, with new and different synergies to unlock as they experiment with modifiers. With humorous names and funnier designs, the Eeries are the key piece of a Hero’s loadout that, when combined with gear, makes every combat experience entirely unique to one player.
In their previous title, Dlala Studios showcased a thoughtful approach to accessibility that appealed to all ages. While Murals may skew toward an older audience, the studio’s approach to accessibility hasn’t changed. With a full focus on making sure that the game isn’t just approachable or capable of being finished by any player, Murals offers depth through its simplicity that challenged players to discover new weapon and augmentation combinations, without ever making the player feel like they’re hitting a wall.
Inspired by fables, Murals offers a different take on the familiar.
Now, that doesn’t mean that the game doesn’t offer challenge or depth for those looking to see it. The approach to customization rewards players for finding their own path forward, and the narrative focus on twisting well-known stories makes sure that it’s always engaging.
All of that said, it was Murals’ handcrafted world that made it something to fall in love with. With many games all chasing the same hyperrealistic goal or using generative-AI tech in their assets, Dlala Studios offers a breath of fresh air. While every combat character (including the main character) is a hyperstylized 3D model, they each live in a 2D world.
The stark contrast between the two, the combat and the rest of the world, creates a tactile feeling, as if you can reach into the painted world and grasp it. In our demo and conversation with Aj Grand-Scrutton, he shared that the art direction was to make the background look like it had fingerprints in it. While this wasn’t a direct description of the 2D world that we find ourselves in, it came through in spades.
Murals is simply the most beautiful game we got to see at Gamescom. The painterly aesthetic makes every screenshot a piece of art and highlights the growing importance of seeing a world made by hand. The environments, animation, and effects work come together to create a world that gives players something that we are craving more and more: character.
The messiness in some elements in the artwork speaks to the murals you see on the streets of any city. The colors are vibrant depictions of worlds we are all familiar with, and the character designs offer unique visions of classic characters in ways we haven’t seen them before. With a dark touch in places and a light-hearted approach in others, Dlala Studios looks at the players whose love of fairytales was formed in a Hot Topic and delivers exactly what you need. Yeah, that’s me.
Going even further, Murals’ worlds aren’t just visually interesting, but the sound that accompanies them captures the robust, deep nature of 90s Disney orchestral scores. While the developers noted that the music was not in its final state, they could have fooled me.
Murals is never in Disney’s fairytale shadow, and that’s why it’s beautiful.
The depth of the score hits on the epic nature of the tales they have recreated and twisted by calling back to the feature films that a certain Mouse may have popularized with generations. Still, the score never feels iterative on a Disney score; instead, it always feels like something unique standing next to the fairytale maker of our childhood, never in its shadow and never swallowed by it.
Murals went from a game that was just announced, to one of my most anticipated titles of the coming year. Gamescom was a coming-out party for the latest in Dlala Studios’ list of titles, and it also solidified the importance the developer is playing in highlighting handcrafted worlds in a medium being plagued by inhuman creation. Dark, funny, and always creative, Murals is one to wishlist immediately.
