Windblown

In Windblown, the player controls a Leaper, an anthropomorphic creature in a world made up of floating islands. The Leapers, who live in the Ark—a village of their kind—work together to explore the nearby Vortex, fighting off Sentinel robotic creations that patrol the islands within it, while locating survivors, materials, and gear to bring back to the Ark. The character can use up to two weapons with various combination attacks, along with other gear and powerups they gain while exploring the Vortex. If the Leaper dies, they are returned to the Ark, losing their gear but retaining materials, which allow them to unlock new gear and abilities for future exploration.

Motion Twin achieved success with their roguelike Dead Cells, first released in 2018. As they transferred ongoing development of the game's expansions to Evil Empire, the group began to brainstorm on what their next game would be. While they initially wanted to move away from the roguelike genre, they decided to build upon what they learned through Dead Cells to create a new roguelike.

One goal with Windblown was to introduce cooperative multiplayer, compared to the single-player Dead Cells. Another was to give the player the ability to quickly move about the game's levels, placing islands that they could reach in sight and providing routes to get there using a dash ability. Initially this was an ability with a cooldown but they found the game's pacing was improved by allowing the player to dash indefinitely without any cooldown.