Nodding Heads Games has put out an extended developer commentary for Raji: Kaliyuga, and it's the most detailed look yet at how the sequel handles combat, traversal, and its two playable characters. The video runs a little over three minutes, with Avichal Singh, the studio's co-founder and game director, walking through footage of Raji and a new character named Darsh in action.

The commentary premiered during the Xbox Tokyo Game Show 2026 Broadcast. Raji returns with the Trishul and the acrobatic fighting style she's known for, but a good chunk of the video is spent on Darsh, whose ranged, ability-driven combat works almost nothing like hers.

The Story Picks Up Six Years Later

Raji: Kaliyuga takes place six years after the first game. Mahabalasura has broken the seal on the heavens ahead of schedule, plunging every realm into war. The sequel splits its story between two playable characters: Raji, the warrior of faith from the original game, and Darsh, a new character known as the Dreamwalker. The two switch off depending on where the story is, traveling together as companions rather than running as two separate threads.

Raji Still Fights Up Close With Her Trishul

Raji's core hasn't changed much. She fights and moves with her Trishul, chaining together attacks of different weights and speeds. The commentary shows her Trishul knocking enemies down before she follows up with a quick execute, and it highlights a couple of aerial options too. Raji can launch herself off an enemy mid-fight, and other attacks send enemies flying upward instead of down. Her combat stays tied closely to movement rather than treating attacking and repositioning as separate systems.

Darsh Fights From a Distance With Siddhis

Darsh works almost opposite to Raji. Instead of closing distance, he throws conjured orbs that interact with enemies based on whichever Siddhi he currently has active. He can switch Siddhis mid-fight, and different combinations of Siddhi tags open up different attacks. Once an enemy is fully tagged, Darsh can yield the Siddhi to unleash a stronger attack that hits everything nearby. It's a slower buildup than Raji's combat, built more around setting enemies up than reacting in the moment.

Energy, Gravity, and Time Shape His Powers

Darsh's Siddhis run on three forces: Energy, Gravity, and Time. The commentary shows a few examples in action, including high-damage energy orbs and a gravity tornado that can disable enemies outright. One of the more striking moments has Darsh summoning a black hole, which falls under the reality-bending end of what Gravity-based Siddhis can apparently do. The video doesn't get into a specific Time-based ability, though Time is listed alongside Energy and Gravity as one of the forces he can manipulate. Nodding Heads Games is treating the Siddhis less as a fixed moveset and more as a toolkit that gets combined through the tag system mid-fight.

The Evasion System Does More Than Dodge

One system Avichal Singh spends real time on is what the studio calls the Customized Evasion System. As he points out, most games hand players a single dodge roll and call it done. Raji: Kaliyuga gives its two characters separate options instead. Raji can side step, flip, or roll, while Darsh twirls and rolls. The bigger detail is that each of those moves leads into its own follow-up attack, so evasion isn't purely defensive here. Depending on which move a player uses and which character they're controlling, dodging an attack can open up an offensive option on the way out of it.

There's Also Platforming and Puzzles

Combat takes up most of the commentary, but Nodding Heads Games also touches on platforming and puzzle sections running through the game. Specifics are thin here. The studio doesn't break down individual puzzles or platforming setups, but it does mention special abilities tied to bringing Raji and Darsh together, which suggests some of these sections lean on cooperation between the two rather than combat.

Two Characters Built to Play Nothing Alike

Put the two characters side by side and the differences are the whole point. Raji fights close, chains combos off her Trishul, and moves through fights acrobatically, with side steps, flips, and rolls feeding straight into attacks. Darsh keeps his distance, tags enemies with orbs, mixes Siddhis together, and cashes in that setup with a bigger hit once an enemy is fully marked. Switching between them mid-story isn't just a change of character model. It changes how the player is expected to approach the same fight.

More Is Still Being Held Back

The commentary closes by teasing a few surprises Nodding Heads Games hasn't shown yet, with Avichal Singh noting there's more to come as development continues. No specifics were given on what those surprises might be.

Raji: Kaliyuga is currently available to wishlist on PC via Steam, Epic Games and GOG, PlayStation 5, PS5 Pro, and Xbox Series X|S. The game is also being planned for a Nintendo Switch 2 release but no further details are available at this moment. The game itself has no release date or time frame yet.