LIFTED’s official release date was announced during this year’s MIX Summer Games Showcase. A little over two years after its original announcement in June 2024, it will be “leaping” onto PC via Steam on Wednesday, July 22, 2026.
LIFTED markets itself as a wholesome, family-friendly buddy comedy, Back to the Future meets Indiana Jones. You play as Ari, a physics student looking for extra credit who finds himself tagging along with Professor Raventhorpe and Julius the Chinchilla on a time-traveling adventure, searching for treasure and true love. Using the professor’s invention, the Anytime Elevator, you’ll travel from the 18th century Caribbean to 19th century Egypt, from snow-capped mountains to deepest valleys.
Originally titled Ari Baktu and the Anytime Elevator, the puzzle-platformer takes inspiration from classic adventure games, both in gameplay and in visual style. The bright palette, the cartoonish proportions, the floating hands and feet detached from the bean-shaped bodies are all perfectly matched for the Banjo-Kazooie cohort of the late 1990’s/early 2000’s. The same goes for the mechanics you can spot in the trailer: vine swinging, boulder pushing, and a sparkly mid-air pirouette to mark a double-jump.
This is the first game from Adventure Works, an experienced production company founded by former Imagineer Jeffrey Ashbrook. Ashbrook described a trip to Egypt where he saw Giovanni Belzoni’s name “carved by hand into the walls of ancient tombs and temples”, and finding out who Belzoni was. Belzoni was not only a noted Italian explorer and archaeologist, but he also had a colorful past that included a stint as a circus performer. “I could instantly see the game,” Ashbrook wrote on the Adventure Works website, “A collision with real history that felt funny, dangerous, and huge. That was the spark that became LIFTED.”
Releases for the Playstation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2 to follow at a later date. To keep up with the latest releases, stay tuned to GameObserver!
