Hands-on: grotesque kitchen cooks eyeballs, bugs, organs, filth—fail and you're eaten!? Dark cooking roguelite “SATED” [TGS2026]

"CRITICAL REFLEX," the developer behind dark and bizarre games such as *Buckshot Roulette* and *Arctic Eggs*, exhibited at the "Tokyo Game Show 2026."With numerous upcoming titles available for hands-on play, I had the chance to try out the cooking roguelike *SATED*, so I’ll share the game’s flow and key features here.

The goal is to satisfy the “customers”

When you start the game, you immediately find yourself in the “kitchen,” which serves as the game’s setting. It appears this kitchen is located inside a train-like vehicle, as there are no beds or entertainment options in sight aside from the kitchen itself. It seems you have no choice but to keep cooking here nonstop.

Beyond the door, you can see “customers” waiting for their orders. You might find yourself wondering if you’re actually the one who’s supposed to be eaten… but let’s just ignore that and take their orders to start cooking. First, pull the lever next to the “refrigerator” to spin the wheel. The first spin is free, so you’ll want to land on an ingredient that matches the order.

When you spin the wheel, ingredients like eyeballs and bugs appear in the refrigerator.Each ingredient is assigned to a category, and the goal seems to be to get the quantities as close as possible to what the order calls for. The categories include “Offal,” “Excrement,” and “Skeleton”—names that sound ominous even on the surface. Since this is your first time, just keep spinning the wheel until the ingredient you’re looking for appears.

Once you’ve gathered a decent amount of ingredients, toss them into the pot and press the cook button. When I handed the finished dish to the customer, they judged it to be just barely “edible,” so I was able to move on to the next stage. Since I also received a reward from the previous customer, I headed toward the shopping cart icon.

When I arrived at the “Shop,” an armored transport vehicle and a female clerk were waiting for me. I’m not sure why there’s an armored transport vehicle, but now that I’ve already seen a “customer,” I don’t even notice this kind of abruptness anymore. Since I can buy upgrades here, and I’ve come all this way, I’d like to buy something.

Next, I chose a spot where I could select ingredients from three options to expand my selection. Here, too, there were some rather raw-looking ingredients lined up. After completing the upgrade, I headed toward the next customer, but since I’d spent too much money at the snack bar earlier, I couldn’t spin the wheel very many times.

I hope the right ingredients for the order appear, but perhaps it was too difficult with so few spins—it doesn’t seem like I was able to create a dish that satisfied the customer. And in the end, it was gobbled up in one big bite.

There’s also a “vending machine” where you can buy ingredients from specific categories, so there are other ways to upgrade and gather ingredients. As I make my way through the game, carefully choosing my options, I wonder what exactly awaits me once I reach the very last customer…

When you’re first getting the hang of it, your creations will likely end up in the customer’s stomach in the blink of an eye, but the game’s appeal lies in the raw, gory nature of the ingredients, the grime, and the dark premise where your dishes get eaten if the “customer” doesn’t like them. The game is addictive—you’ll find yourself playing “one more time” just to catch a glimpse of a new customer.

*SATED* is scheduled for release in 2026 on PC (Steam).