Mewgenics

Gameplay primarily takes place during combat on a grid (top) and in the house hub where cats live and breed (bottom).

Mewgenics is a tactical role-playing game divided into two stages: combat and cat breeding. At the beginning of the game, the player is assigned a team of four cats, which feature character classes, such as hunter, mage, tank, and fighter. The cats have varying statistics, as well as access to mana reserves, which influence their roles and performance. The cats may be additionally enhanced by equipping clothing and other paraphernalia. The combat portion of the game takes place, principally, on a procedurally-generated grid with a two-dimensional isometric perspective, where the team must eliminate all the enemies before advancing.^[2] The combatants may take a move action, use an active ability, and get benefit from passive abilities.^{[3][better source needed]} The combat is heavily influenced by the environment, including weather and foliage, the latter of which can work for and against the cats. If a cat loses all its hit points, it will be incapacitated yet remain in the battle, though it will suffer long-term consequences in the form of injuries, such as a broken paw, which applies negative stat penalties. An incapacitated cat can still be killed if it takes three additional hits. Should a cat die, its items will be lost, including any exclusive rarities that may only drop once. After a successful battle, a random cat levels up, thereby enhancing its abilities.^[2]

Breeding, one of the game's essential mechanics, comes into play once the player has completed their initial run.^{[clarification needed]} Surviving cats return to the house hub, inheriting their statistics as well as equipment that may be used by other cats. While cats who finish a run are retired and no longer selectable for further runs, two cats in the same room may mate, resulting in the breeding of a new cat that inherits their parents' traits. Inherited traits may produce cats that are ideal for further runs. Inbreeding, the act of breeding cats with closely related parents, can results in offspring with birth defects tied to inbreeding, which have negative effects tied to them.^[4] Cats also have a daily chance to develop mutations. Mutations are not inherently harmful; they typically modify a cat’s stats through trade-offs, such as increasing one stat while reducing another. Some mutations can also grant unique gameplay effects, such as additional turns or level-up rerolls. As simulated in-game time passes, cats die from old age.^[2] The player's neighbors will also accept certain cats as gifts and will give the player items or enhancements in return.^{[citation needed]}

Mewgenics is set in Boon County, a mostly-dilapidated area in the United States. The game's story is "pretty light", having the player "do the bidding of an incompetent scientist".^[5]

The player character is a cat lady who is defibrillated at the start of the game, by a cat-obsessed scientist named Dr. Thomas A. Beanies. Beanies gives the player two cats before sending them off to their house, with no instructions beyond acquiring as many cats as possible and performing eugenics on them to make them stronger. As the player advances by exploring and battling further away from their house, various threats emerge to attack their house. Eventually, an earthquake shakes Beanies' lab, causing the animals he was experimenting on to drive him out of it. Beanies blames the player for this, and banishes them. However, he promptly recalls them and has them use a time machine in the lab in an attempt to reverse his misfortune. After travels to the far past and far future fail to produce any change in Beanies' position, he has the player place antennas in the past and future to open a gateway to "the Infinite" to find and kill God.

When God immediately starts regenerating after being defeated by the player, Beanies concludes that the only way to kill God is to "nuke the fetal Christ child". After completing several quests to assemble a nuclear bomb, the player returns to the Infinite to re-confront God and use the bomb to destroy God's "Child", which takes the form of a cat fetus.

Before the bomb is activated, Dr. Beanies appears via hologram to give a speech about his motives to God; 35 years in the past, his pet cat Stacy died, and despite countless attempts to clone her Beanies was unable to truly recreate her. He believes that this is because God took her soul, and now wants to take revenge on God by taking away his child. If the player refuses to activate the bomb, Beanies attempts to convince them to do so by reminding them of the fate of their son, in the process revealing that the player is Magdalene O. Moriah, the mother of Isaac, the protagonist of McMillen's game The Binding of Isaac; if the player continues to refuse, Beanies activates the bomb himself.

As the bomb's timer reaches zero, Beanies appears in the time machine and rescues the player and their cats. However, while returning home, Steven, the protagonist of McMillen's 2009 game Time Fcuk^[c], appears and attacks and kills Beanies, before returning the player and their cats to a point in time before Beanies started the creation of the nuke.

Mewgenics was first previewed by journalist Russ Frushtick of Polygon on Halloween 2022, detailing his playthrough, as well as McMillen and Glaiel's account of the game's development history. He complimented it for being "one of the most ambitious and bizarre strategy games [he had] ever played."^[2] IGN journalist Tom Marks was given an extended preview of Mewgenics in May 2025 and praised the game for being one of the most exciting and nuanced roguelikes he had played in years.^[37] Tyler Wilde of PC Gamer, attending the early preview in July 2025, agreed with McMillen's assessment of Mewgenics as the best title of his career.^[38] Jean-Luc Seipke from GameSpot praised the video preview of Mewgenics posted in December 2025, describing it as "[his] next obsession".^[39]

The game received highly positive reviews from critics.^[29][30] After reaching a Top Critic Average of 89 with 94% of critics recommending the title on OpenCritic, Mewgenics became the first game of 2026 to secure "Must-Play" status.^[40] In response to the critical reception, Polygon's Giovanni Colantonio declared that Mewgenics was the first legitimate Game of the Year contender for 2026.^[41] Ali Jones' review for GamesRadar+ felt that the game's randomness was sometimes unfair, although this increased the satisfaction of finding ways to tip the odds in the player's favor and overall considered it "an excellent addition to its creator's already enviable canon".^[32] Jason Rodriguez from GameSpot praised the game's "limitless variety" and "ridiculous humor".^[31] Dan Stapleton of IGN praised the game's soundtrack, length, and humor.^[5] In The Guardian, Alex Spencer praised the game's amount of content, saying he had only seen less than a third of it after playing the game for 60 hours.^[36] PC Gamer's Robin Valentine said that he was still discovering new content after 100 hours of play.^[33] Jerry Williams of RPGFan felt that while the game sometimes felt repetitive, the sheer amount of content meant they would keep coming back to it.^[35] Writing for PCGamesN, Paul Kelly criticised the humor but praised the gameplay, calling Mewgenics "a good, maybe even great, strategy game that is also criminally unfunny".^[34]

Soon after the game's release, McMillen received minor backlash in response to some voice cameos which some players considered controversial, including Ethan Klein and Hila Klein.^[42][43] McMillen responded to the controversy in an interview with Rock Paper Shotgun, explaining that he wished to "include and keep [cameos] that clashed or kinda counterbalanced each other", and that he wanted to include people with "different beliefs", pointing to his inclusion of iDubbbz and Anisa as an example; and, responding to the overall controversy, "I understand we live in a time where a meow from someone who has different beliefs as you is scary and frustrating, confusing and controversial."^[44]