If you’re unfamiliar with this one, it’s a 3D take on a platformer that went pretty hard back in the day. It stars Meat Boy, who was (and still is) on a desperate mission to save his beloved from a grisly fate. Unfortunately, the game’s challenging platforming loop will likely have you meeting your demise more often than not, although those who like their games to fight back are certainly going to welcome this one with open arms.

Super Meat Boy 3D appears to retain everything that made the original so endearing many years ago. Of course, there are plenty of touches to ensure it continues to frustrate its players while being very rewarding for those who persevere. The trailer shows off some of that gameplay, and you can see that Meat Boy is clearly in over his head as he navigates some very dangerous levels and takes on imposing bosses.

Super Meat Boy 3D is available for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2.

The gameplay parts of the trailer largely focus on showing off all the different ways that players can die as they explore the 3D levels of the fast-paced platformer. As had been evident from the original announcement trailer, Super Meat Boy 3D has maintained much of the frantic gameplay that made the original 2D side-scroller such a hit when it first came out all the way back in 2010.

The announcement trailer focused quite a bit on the new 3D gameplay, emphasizing just how different it will be, while still maintaining the core identity behind the Super Meat Boy franchise. Among the many aspects of the franchise that we will get to see in the upcoming game include the spectacular post-level screens where we get to observe and appreciate all of our attempts through the levels, including the ones that end in the gruesome death of Meat Boy, before we eventually make it through to the end.

Super Meat Boy 3D is being developed by Sluggerfly collaborating with original developer Team Meat. It’s published by Headup and GCORES Publishing.

Super Meat Boy 3D was announced with a trailer during Xbox Games Showcase 2025. The trailer, which you can check out below, showcases the new 3D gameplay that has seemingly maintained quite a bit of its identity from its original 2D roots. The levels showcased in the trailer also bear quite a bit of resemblance to ones we’ve seen in the original Super Meat Boy.

Much like the original, Super Meat Boy 3D also seemingly has an emphasis of the player constantly dying and retrying the level at the press of a button, allowing the player to get right back into the thick of it as soon as possible.

Super Meat Boy 3D will be coming to PC, Xbox Series X/S, and will also be available to play through cloud streaming on Xbox Cloud when it comes out in early 2026.

"I wanted to see if I could make a Meat Boy game that felt like Meat Boy that only used one button. So, at GDC 2011 in my hotel room, I took my laptop which had the original Super Meat Boy code on it, created a special version of the meat boy character that would always run and could change directions by jumping off walls."

Super Meat Boy Forever went through a long development cycle, starting off as a mobile port of the original and then morphing into something completely different as a full-fledged sequel. Can you talk us through that mid-development change, and what brought it about?

The game started as a challenge to myself in 2011. Around that time the App Store was exploding with really bad ports of classic games. You had stuff like Sonic and Mega Man that weren’t at all designed for the platform being put up there as is, with bad on-screen controls, just because the IP holders wanted to make a buck. At one point I called the App Store the Tiger Handheld of this generation because I felt the experience that companies (mainly larger companies) were putting out were not great representations of the IPs they represented… much like the Tiger Handheld games of the 90s. That was also shortly after Super Meat Boy launched and people really wanted an iOS/Android version, but in its then current state there was no way it would work but I kept thinking about it.

I wanted to see if I could make a Meat Boy game that felt like Meat Boy that only used one button. So, at GDC 2011 in my hotel room, I took my laptop which had the original Super Meat Boy code on it, created a special version of the meat boy character that would always run and could change directions by jumping off walls. I designed a few proof-of-concept levels and quickly realized that there really was some potential if the game was designed for the platform and not in spite of it.

Times have changed a lot since then. There are really great games on the App Store because developers understand how to design for the system and not try to shoehorn a design that works.

We ended up prototyping a version of the game around May 2014 and showing it at PAX West 2014 in September. It was pretty great, definitely different from what people were used to, but the game was fun. Unfortunately, shortly after that public unveiling all work stopped on the project and couldn’t be picked back up until 2017.

When 2017 came around I looked at the prototype again and thought that there was a really great game to be made there.

The original 2014 prototype was only supposed to have maybe 3 levels per chapter / light and dark and I think we were only planning on 3 chapters. It was going to be a really small game put out very quickly. I wanted to go bigger with it so I decided that I was going to make this into a much, much bigger game with tons of levels, cutscenes, the works. We worked for almost 4 years at a really healthy pace, no real crunch, no meltdowns, there were some deadlines, but we kept it pretty chill.

The original Super Meat Boy is widely regarded as one of the best platformers of recent years. Was it a daunting task to develop a sequel to a game with that kind of a legacy, especially with such a long gap between the two games’ releases?

It was daunting and it wasn’t daunting at all. There is a lot of legacy to live up to when it comes to the first one, which means expectations are almost completely unreachable, but at the same time we weren’t trying to outdo the first one. Instead, we were trying to continue the story and do something different with the gameplay. That made it easier to explore every aspect of development further than we would have if we just kept to the same design as the first one. The long gap wasn’t ideal, I would have rather this game come out sooner but there are just some things in life you cannot control.

Talk us through the process of crafting the story and new characters that take center stage in Super Meat Boy Forever. Level design and platforming mechanics are obviously king in a game such as this one, but how excited are you about the prospect of players getting to experience the narrative aspects of Forever?

One of my favorite aspects of Super Meat Boy Forever is the story. We went through an entire production cycle for the 30ish minutes of cutscenes we created. I wrote scripts, we storyboarded, we had rough animations, we had rough backgrounds, we did post-production, I made videos explaining the emotional direction of the score, and when everything was finished it was all edited together in Premiere. It was a really great experience for me to go from writing something in Scrivener to years later editing the final cutscenes in Premiere. It really fulfilled a dream of mine to basically make a movie. I hope to do it again because it was incredibly gratifying.

Making the characters for Super Meat Boy Forever was also a great experience. In the main story you have Nugget, who is Meat Boy and Bandage Girls little girl. She was written around the time my wife and I were trying for our first child (he’s 2 and a half years old now). I was personally terrified of having a kid but I knew I wanted to be a father. Nugget was a way to sort of make it real without fully making it real. Later in development and writing, the things Nugget does in the story and how she acts is really inspired by my son. Nugget is pretty much joy personified which is basically what my son is. He’s always smiling, he’s always happy, and when he’s sad your heart just breaks but you can easily make him happy again.

With this story I also got to turn Dr. Fetus from “a bad guy” to “a bad guy that maybe has something more to him” which sets him up great for a future game. I’m proud of how he evolved throughout the story in this game.

When it comes to the other characters, my favorite one is Meatsona. He doesn’t appear in the main story, but he is unlocked with a warpzone. Meatsona started off as a joke idea between myself and Paul, the lead animator. I knew we were going to have a Mortal Kombat-themed warpzone but I didn’t know of a good way to really honor Mortal Kombat in the art style we had. So, I jokingly suggested that I get a red stretchy suit and I’ll film myself doing all of the character animations in front of a green screen. We both laughed but I ended up buying the suit, then buying the gi, pasting a cut up Meat Boy shirt on the front of the gi, filming myself, then going frame by frame and cutting off my head to make the most ridiculous character I’ve ever created. He was just called “MK Boy” or “Fatality Boy” until Lillian, our social media / community person, suggested the name Meatsona. He was a joke that I believe has turned into a fan favorite because he’s so incredibly stupid.

"Forever’s approach to difficulty is the same as Super Meat Boy’s approach to difficulty. I have always stressed how important it is for level design and controls to be symbiotic."

Challenge was a crucial part of the original Super Meat Boy. What’s Forever’s approach to difficulty? What sort of a balance does it strike between challenge and accessibility, for both newcomers and returning fans?

Forever’s approach to difficulty is the same as Super Meat Boy’s approach to difficulty. I have always stressed how important it is for level design and controls to be symbiotic. The games that feel good get this 100%, the games that don’t are fighting with one or the other. Once you have controls that work well, then designing levels that push you to the limit of those controls without making you feel uncomfortable is how you create a good challenge. Super Meat Boy was known for being hard but fair. Forever is the same formula. We build levels that complement the controls.

The transition to becoming an auto-runner is one that’s raised a lot of eyebrows for fans of the original. What prompted that change? Can you talk us through the process of how that decision came about, and what ripple effects it has had on other aspects of the game?

I touched on that in the first question and the question above, so I’ll save some space by not reiterating those points here.

When it comes to a ripple effect though, I decided that everything needed to be done with two buttons. So that means the warpzones were all designed to play with two buttons, the bosses are designed to be fought with two buttons, everything gameplay wise is two buttons. The hardest design challenge with this were the bosses by far. The warpzones kind of have no rules so it’s easier to just shape the warpzone and the controls, but when it came to bosses a lot of thought went into how to design a boss fight that makes you forget you only have two buttons. I’m very proud of the bosses in this game. They’re fun and challenging and they fit the story while sticking to the core mechanic of the game.

Randomly generated levels in Forever have allowed the game to have a much wider pool of variety, but how do you as developer ensure that that doesn’t clash with handcrafted design, which can obviously be so important in a platformer?

I’ve seen this a lot from various outlets and I’m actually extremely flattered that people think we didn’t handcraft these levels and that I could somehow create an AI that not only understands how to make a good level but also understands how to decorate levels and make them look pretty. The truth of the matter is we did design handcrafted levels… literally thousands of them.

To understand what is randomly generated in Super Meat Boy Forever I need to define two terms:

A Chunk is a section of a level that we’ve designed and decorated by hand. These are usually about the size of a Super Meat Boy level from the 2010 game. They have a defined start and a defined end. We built these levels like you would build any level in any platformer. We iterated on the design until it felt right, made it look pretty, played through it to give it a par and a difficulty rating.

A Level is a collection of 8 Chunks. Each Level has between 70 and 100 Chunks that it can choose from. That means we made 70 to 100 Super Meat Boy sized chunks per level. 1-1 has their own collection of 100, 1-2 has 100, etc, etc. For reference, Super Meat Boy had approximately 300 levels total. We have 300 in chunks in the first 3 levels of the game. To call it a massive undertaking would barely do it justice.

When playing through a Level in Super Meat Boy Forever, we randomly pull from that Level’s library of Chunks, randomly determine if there should be a pacifier or a warpzone, order them by difficulty and then add up all of their par times to get a par for the Level.

So for example, let’s say you’re playing Level 1-1 in Chipper Grove. When you start the level the game randomly pulls 6 chunks from 1-1’s chunk library and smashes them together to create the level you play.

Now let’s say you beat the game and do New Game Plus. When you load Level 1-1 again it’s a different level because it is pulling 6 different chunks. This new level could have a pacifier or a warpzone in it. We keep track to avoid duplicates so you can play through the game several times and not see duplicate chunks.

So the game isn’t randomly generated in the sense that it’s creating levels based on an algorithm, instead it’s randomly giving you levels that we’ve handcrafted.

"There is another game planned in the “Meat Boy Cinematic Universe” but it won’t be like Super Meat Boy or Super Meat Boy Forever. It’ll be an entirely different genre. We set it up in the story for Super Meat Boy Forever though, so it isn’t really a secret after you beat the game."

Roughly how long is an average playthrough of Super Meat Boy Forever?  

I think the average playthrough just starting out is probably 2-3 hours on New Game if you only go through light world, then it drastically increases if you also do dark world and then increases even more if you want to unlock everything. At that point it then multiplies from there if you do New Game plus a few times. Most of the people on our discord have over 10 hours on their save games.

To 726% the game (the highest percentage you can get, unlock everything, etc) is a huge undertaking. I do know the first person to 726% it played it like crazy on launch day and it was a few days after the game came out before they reached that milestone. I’d say if you were a super genius platforming savant you could expect at least 10 hours of solid gameplay to unlock everything. Then if you want to New Game plus and play through literally everything we’ve made I think you have several days’ worth of gameplay ahead of you.

Are there any plans to have a more traditional follow-up to Super Meat Boy?

Not really. There is another game planned in the “Meat Boy Cinematic Universe” but it won’t be like Super Meat Boy or Super Meat Boy Forever. It’ll be an entirely different genre. We set it up in the story for Super Meat Boy Forever though, so it isn’t really a secret after you beat the game.

When can we expect the PS5, Xbox Series S and Xbox Series X versions?

Probably late January early February.

What kind of graphical enhancements can we expect on those platforms?

Super Meat Boy Forever is pretty heavy on the vector graphics so we will support 4K on those platforms. Not much else we can do though. Maybe we’ll make a new character called Ray Traceman and he’s just a puddle that reflects the world accurately in real time.

What frame rate and resolution does the game run on them?

1080p at 60hz to 4K at 60hz.

"Super Meat Boy Forever is pretty heavy on the vector graphics so we will support 4K on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S."

The PS5 features an incredibly fast SSD with 5.5GB/s raw bandwidth, which is faster than anything that is available out there. How are you taking advantage of this? How does this compare to Series X’s 2.4GB/s raw bandwidth SSD?

Our load times are already really low, even on Nintendo Switch so I feel like the PS5/Series X will just insta-load like it does on my PC with NVMe SSD drives.

The Xbox Series S features lesser hardware compared to Xbox Series X, and Microsoft is pushing it as a 1440p/60fps console. Do you think it will hold up for the graphically intensive next-gen games?

Yeah, I think it will. I mean you may have a few less effects, some crustier looking shadows and puddles and stuff but overall having a game run at 1440p at 60FPS is pretty great. It might make a difference in 5-8 years, but I imagine by then even the Series X and PS5 will be nearing the end of their life cycle if they haven’t already been upstaged by their respective bigger, better versions.

Team Meat recently released their long-in-development sequel to Super Meat Boy for Nintendo Switch and PC, but there’s still more launch milestones to look forward to for Super Meat Boy Forever. The platformer is also due out on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S soon, and as you’d expect, the more powerful hardware of the consoles will also lead to some nifty boosts.

Speaking recently with GamingBolt in a recent interview, Super Meat Boy Forever designer and the series’ co-creator Tommy Refenes said that the PS5 and Xbox Series X’s SSD will allow the game to insta-load on those consoles, which is a step up from the game’s already low load times.

“Our load times are already really low, even on Nintendo Switch so I feel like the PS5/Series X will just insta-load like it does on my PC with NVMe SSD drives,” Refenes said.

Refenes also confirmed that the game will run at upto 4K and 60 FPS on the new consoles. When asked about an estimated launch date, he confirmed that it’ll be out on the PS5 and Xbox Series X/S by late January or early February.

Super Meat Boy Forever is currently available on PC and Nintendo Switch. In addition to PS5 and Xbox Series X/S, it is also slated to release for PS4, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. Our full interview with Refenes will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.

The Xbox Series S has been a point of contention for many in the industry since pretty much the moment it was first unveiled, if not before that. The console offers a surprisingly cheap new-generation alternative to prospective buyers, but that cheaper prices comes at the cost of significantly reduced specs as compared to the Xbox Series X. While many have claimed that the console’s lower specs will prove to be detrimental in the long run, especially for multiplatform developers who will have to build all of their games with the low-spec machine in mind, others have insisted that that won’t be the case, and that the console is a very capable machine in and of itself.

Another developer who falls in the latter camp is Tommy Refenes, co-creator of Super Meat Boy and lead designer on its recently released sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever. Speaking recently in an interview with GamingBolt, Refenes said that though the console will suffer from sacrifices in terms of image quality in some areas, having games running at 1440p and 60 FPS (which is what Microsoft have been touting for the machine) is still a good deal, and that by the time the Xbox Series S becomes weak enough to not be able to keep up with the demands of game development, the current console generation will be nearing its end as it is.

“Yeah, I think it will,” said Refenes, when asked if the Xbox Series S will hold up for graphically intensive ninth generation games. “I mean you may have a few less effects, some crustier looking shadows and puddles and stuff but overall having a game run at 1440p at 60FPS is pretty great. It might make a difference in 5-8 years but I imagine by then even the Series X and PS5 will be nearing the end of their life cycle if they haven’t already been upstaged by their respective bigger, better versions.”

Microsoft themselves seem supremely confident in the Xbox Series S and what it will be capable of. The company has insisted that the machine will not hold back new generation games on a technical level, while Xbox boss Phil Spencer has stated that Microsoft expects Xbox Series S to be the more successful Xbox Series model in the long run.

Super Meat Boy Forever is out now for PC and Nintendo Switch, and is also due out for PS5, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, Xbox One, iOS, and Android. Our full interview with Refenes will be live soon, so stay tuned for that.

Last week at The Game Awards 2020, Team Meat confirmed that Super Meat Boy Forever would be releasing on December 23rd. Whether it would come to other platforms along with the PC version or not was unconfirmed. However, in the recent Indie World Showcase, Super Meat Boy Forever was announced to be launching for Nintendo Switch on the same date.

It will be available on the Nintendo eShop for $19.99, though pre-orders can net a 10 percent discount. PS4 and Xbox One players thankfully don’t have to wait for much longer though. Both versions will be out in January 2021 as per the development team.

Super Meat Boy Forever follows Meat Boy and Bandage Girl as their child is kidnapped. Thus do they embark on a new journey to save them. Along with embracing a runner-style approach, our two heroes an also punch their way through foes. Unlike its predecessor, levels are randomly generated with unique locations (though the amount of handcrafted levels numbers in the thousands).

As if The Game Awards weren’t packed with huge announcements already, Team Meat confirmed that Super Meat Boy Forever will be launching on December 23rd. You’ll probably remember the brutal platformer being slated for release in April 2019 before facing another delay. Better late than never, at this point.

Super Meat Boy Forever will be available on the Epic Games Store for $19.99. It will remain exclusive to the storefront for one year – whether other platforms will receive it on the same date is unknown. At least the game’s auto-running style mixed with punching, kicking, jumping and split-second timing is intact.

Why has it been taking so long though? According to co-designer and programmer Tommy Refenes last year, the aim was to launch with 5,500 levels. Other features include 55 minutes worth of animated cutscenes, Dark World levels and more. There will even be DLC down the line for making levels “ridiculously hard.” Stay tuned for more details (and hopefully not another delay) in the coming weeks.

Super Meat Boy Forever is taking its name a little too literally, since it does seem to be taking forever to come out. Originally announced to be releasing in April, the game has since been delayed with no date or time frame seemingly in sight. The head of Team Meat intends to keep it that way, too, as he says the game’s ambition is proving hard to pin down on the calendar.

In an interview with Destructoid, Tommy Refenes jokes about the delay, saying he’s terrible at estimating time. He’s refrained from pinning down another date or month, because the game has a lot of ambition with plans to launch with no less than 5,500 levels.

“We have the entire soundtrack done, we have almost 55 minutes of fully-animated cutscenes all done. We’re testing levels, making Dark World levels, and making adjustments. I think we’re going to launch with 5,500 levels. I really underestimated with April. But I don’t ever want to guess again until [all the content is finished] because then it’s all me. It’s just getting it through certification and fixing bugs and stuff like that. Then at that point, I’ll go ‘Okay, it’ll be like two months’ or whatever.”

So pretty much, don’t expect any kind of date or release window until the game is close to done. Super Meat Boy Forever will release across multiple platforms at some point in time. For Refenes’ interesting, and maybe surprising, thoughts on the whole Epic Games Store controversy, take a look through here.

One of the earliest games to be announced to be exclusive to the Epic Games Store was Super Meat Boy Forever, the much-anticipated sequel to the indie sensation. The reaction online to the Epic Games Store has been polarizing to say the least, and how developers have handled that has varied. Largely, they have ignored it and weathered the storm, while some have poked fun at the criticism. It seems Team Meat is taking a bit of a different approach, and saying that they actually completely understand why people aren’t happy.

In an interview with Destructoid, Creator Tommy Refenes says the deal with Epic Games was a “no-brainer” due to the guaranteed upfront money that was offered. He was honest in saying that it was all about the money, something Team Meat, as a smaller developer, found invaluable. However, he did offer sentiments to those who are not a fan of the move, and the storefront as a whole. Despite taking the deal, Refenes admits there’s legitimate criticisms to level at the store, even if it’s getting muddy with some nonsense.

“Gaming is a super important thing to a lot of people. It’s a part of their lives,” he explains. “When something comes up and challenges that, it’s completely reasonable for the reaction to kind of assume the worst is going to happen. I can see the passion of having something that’s near and dear to you change, and being averse to that change.

“I was completely expecting that, and I was completely expecting people to bring up Tencent stuff. What’s unfortunate is that the concerns some people have are reasonable. You have people who are like ‘It’s not that great of a store’ or whatever. But then you have the wild bullshit of Chinese spyware conspiracy theory crap. It’s like ‘Okay, you people shut up’ because the people who have actual concerns are being drowned out, and I think it’s a shame. They all get lumped together.”

For the most part, developers and many of those covering the whole Epic Games Store situation have been dismissive of criticism aimed at the Epic Games Store, so it’s nice to see that Refenes understands where some detractors are coming from with legitimate concerns

Super Meat Boy Forever has been delayed a few times, but it will release at some point across all major platforms.