A Rat’s Quest: The Way Back Home – Season 1 succeeds where decades of movie-licensed games have failed. It captures the magic of classic animated films while still playing like a video game. For fans of classic Pixar and Disney films, this is easily one of 2026’s must-play titles.
Back in the 90s and early 2000s, games based around popular movies were ever-present. The shift to 3D gave kids dreams of games that would feel like playing the movie. Sadly, history taught us this was rarely the case. Many of these licensed games lacked quality in many areas. They were often basic, had poor controls, and barely followed the movie plot enough to justify having the characters in the game.
While not based on a Disney or Pixar movie, A Rat’s Quest: The Way Back Home – Season 1 fulfils the promise those licensed games once gave. This is probably the closest anyone has ever come to creating a game that feels like a Disney or Pixar movie. The storytelling is phenomenal and strikes most of the chords and story points of classic Pixar movies like A Bug’s Life or Toy Story.
In The Way Back Home – Season 1, we follow the young, impulsive and resourceful rat Mat, who is eager to reunite with his love interest Nat, a highly intelligent and playful pet mouse. Due to a catastrophe, their lives were hastily separated as the rat commune Mat lives in turned into a strict Military Junta. To finally reunite with her, he needs to become a scavenger to gain entry to the upper parts of the house where Nat lives.
Throughout the journey, new dangers and corruption are revealed, threatening to further divide the young lovers. In the same clever way that Pixar movies handle these topics, the need-to-know basics are right there so anyone can enjoy the story. However, darker, more sorrowful elements are right there for those emotionally ready to read into them. This results in a surprisingly mature story that can still be enjoyed by people of all ages, just like the classics it is based on.
To further enhance the magic, the storytelling is seamlessly sewn into the gameplay. It is rare to play a game that feels so naturally constructed while still remaining a fully functional platforming title. Almost all gameplay segments are carefully interwoven into the story to make them feel natural in the world they inhabit. The way A Rat’s Quest: The Way Back Home – Season 1 prevents itself from just being a repetitive back and forth between a few areas is ingenious. Despite taking place in a very limited physical space, each visit to an old place has seen changes due to regular human activity outside of the rats’ control.
One of the best moments that highlights this is in one segment when Mat is going to see Nat. Normally, the final stretch is a straight corridor, as the door at the bottom right is broken, leaving a hole he can enter through. Not this time. The humans had finally decided to repair the door, closing off the one entrance Mat had. Instead, he has to find the key to the room and do plenty of manoeuvres to be able to open the door. This means that, despite the player having already been there three times, it becomes an entirely new challenge. It makes the world feel alive, and the player can truly feel like they live the life through a rat’s perspective.
The graphics and sound further enhance the feeling of being a small being in a big world. The visual direction really is beautiful and has a strong Pixar feel, the voice acting phenomenal, and the musical score truly enhances the atmosphere. One section that truly stands out is when Mat is looking for a key while being worried about being discovered. The music track in this section features a few seemingly random, loud, dissonant spikes, giving the player a sense of dread as they worry that someone is watching them. This is the sort of sound design that sticks with the player forever, and truly elevates a game’s score from a fantastic piece of music to an outstanding video game soundtrack.
The game isn’t free from flaws, though. One issue is that the difficulty starts a bit steeply, with some rough time-based or highly precise platform segments. This happens long before the player has even had the chance to start grasping Mat’s movements. While it makes sense from a story perspective, for the youngest players, it is easy to see these parts as gatekeepers, stopping them from enjoying the full game.
Another minor gripe is the butterfly collectables. In themselves, collectables are great for completionists as bonus challenges or incentives to further explore the world. However, the problem is that it is not really hinted at where these are outside of one of them. To make matters worse, it is not possible to return to earlier levels in a save file once the game is finished. While it could disrupt the flow of the game, it might have been better to either show that a butterfly is in an area or provide an easily accessible level select. That way, completionists don’t accidentally miss objects permanently.
These are minor issues in an otherwise phenomenally designed game. The story told is superb and touches upon important topics in life. It is not an easy road Mat has in front of him, either morally or from a platforming perspective. However, A Rat’s Quest: The Way Back Home – Season 1 promises the start of what might be one of the greatest journeys in gaming of all time. It is truly hard to wait for Season 2 to drop, as the first just makes players yearn for more.
