The “Carpet Game” was just unveiled at ONL 2026. Natalie has already had a chance to play it and tells you who should keep this action-adventure game on their radar.
On the table in front of me sits a small casket with a doll’s head on top. The doll is richly decorated, wearing elegant clothes and a headdress. This is the legendary Scheherazade from *One Thousand and One Nights*—at least that’s what my grandmother told me back then.
As a small child, I was mesmerized by this little fantasy world that my grandparents, my cousins, and I had created. On a tablecloth decorated with ships, treasures, and palaces, we moved around little porcelain figurines, keychains, and other odds and ends we found at Grandma’s house. All the while, she would tell us wondrous stories—like Scheherazade—about Ali Baba and the Forty Thieves, Aladdin, and magical flying carpets.
When the announcement trailer for 1001 Threads of Mizan flashed across the big screen at gamescom 2026’s Opening Night Live, I immediately felt transported back to my grandparents’ living room. My imagination immediately began running wild, picturing what a modern game featuring flying carpets, colossal jinn, and magical weapons might look like.
After my brief hands-on session at the expo and a conversation with Game Director Scott Lussier, I know this:1001 Threads of Mizanmay not be the game I initially hoped for—but fans of cool, lighthearted co-op action should definitely keep an eye on this title.
Arabian Nights
Normally, humans and jinn from the Otherworld live in balance and harmony. That is, until a jinn king decides to rewrite his own story. He infiltrates the human world and, in doing so, corrupts other jinn.
To restore the balance, three heroes set out on a quest: the so-called Mizan (Arabic for “equilibrium” or “balance”). Their mission is to defeat the evil jinn and thus save humanity.
The story tells their side of the tale of Scheherazade, who engages in a sort of verbal rap battle with the evil jinn king to determine whose story is cooler—and ultimately outshines the other.
1001 Threads of Mizan aims to guide us through various tales from *1001 Nights* and present an authentic interpretation of the famous collection of Oriental fairy tales.
Disclaimer: Who are the developers, and who is behind the publisher?
1001 Threads of Mizan is the debut title from MBC Game Studios, which is composed of developers from around the world and industry veterans from BioWare, Hi-Rez, Ubisoft Montreal, and Bungie.
The studio is part of the MBC Group (Middle East Broadcasting Center), the largest broadcasting network in the Arab world. The MBC Group is majority-owned by the Saudi government. In September 2025, Saudi Arabia’s state-owned Public Investment Fund (PIF) officially acquired a 54 percent majority stake. The chairman of the PIF is Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman. This was preceded by a wave of arrests in 2017, during which, among others, the founder of the MBC Group, Waleed al-Ibrahim, was detained and, upon his release, was forced to cede a large portion of his company shares to the Saudi government.
Given this background, we can assume that the 150-person development team is backed by a massive budget, even though the game director didn’t want to reveal too much about it here. However, we want to share this information about the studio’s funding transparently with you so that you can decide for yourselves how to evaluate such productions.
For example, Aladdin was actually Chinese in the original story, Game Director Scott Lussier explains to me. The playable characters themselves are also said to be connected in one way or another to famous literary figures.
Exactly how the story will unfold and which locations we’ll see along the way is still unclear at this point. However, the developer promises small hub worlds with plenty of verticality, many secrets, and unique settings such as desert valleys or abandoned cities.
Nimm 3
While we can play 1001 Threads of Mizan entirely on our own, it’s much more fun in online co-op with up to two friends. Co-op partners can seamlessly join the game at any time (drop-in/drop-out).
Conveniently, the “Carpet Game”—as we’ve affectionately dubbed it internally because we’re too lazy to say the long name every time—offers three different characters who also serve as classes:
- Yusra fights with a spear and a bow, making her the group’s ranged fighter.
- Malik charges right into the fray as the tank, wielding his shield.
- Sufyan, with his sword, is the classic, agile melee fighter of the group.
At first glance, 1001 Threads of Mizan plays like a classic action game. I pummel bandits with light or heavy attacks or take aim with my bow to blow their heads off.
Once I’ve charged up enough elemental energy, I can use my special ability. Using Yusra, I then mark the enemies’ weak spots and unleash a devastating hail of arrows upon them.
But you don’t just fight against puny bandits—you mainly battle the jinn—and they can range from tiny to absolutely massive.
In the demo, my co-op partners and I first take down a smaller boss by focusing our attacks on its weak spots. Once it starts to falter, each of us has to land a hit to chip away a good chunk of its health bar.
The next jinn boss, however, doesn’t make it quite so easy for us. Luckily, we still have a faithful companion: the flying carpet!
A Whole New World
1001 Threads of Mizan isn’t just set in the world of humans—it also regularly catapults us into the magical realms of the jinn.
For the demo’s final boss battle, a vortex pulls us into a fantastical arena. Towering above us is a figure wearing a crown full of eyes, who hurls magical ball lightning at my partners and me, flings painful shards our way, and makes huge chunks of rock rain down from the ceiling. On foot, we’d be completely helpless here.
Fortunately, we can summon our flying carpet at any time and shoot up into the air in a flash. According to Game Director Scott, the flying carpet isn’t meant to feel like just a ride, but rather to play an active, tactical role in the combat system.
With the carpet, I can perform completely new maneuvers—for example, diving from above to target enemies and their weak spots, or closing the distance between the boss and me in milliseconds.
I use loop-the-loops to dodge deadly showers of shards, fly sharp turns to avoid massive obstacles, and hurl the energy balls back at the boss to make him vulnerable and stab his numerous eyes.
After successfully completing the first phase, we’re hurled back into a vortex where we fly after the djinn and eventually land on its arm. “Oh, this really reminds me of Shadow of the Colossus,” I think to myself just as we start climbing up its shoulder—but unfortunately, the demo ends right at this exciting moment.
1001 Threads of Mizan is still in development, and the developers aren’t revealing a release window just yet. But if you’re in the mood for a fun, straightforward co-op game, you should definitely keep an eye out for this title.
Editor’s Verdict
Admittedly: After seeing the first trailer, I’d imagined a slightly different direction for this carpet-themed game—something more immersive, more focused on the single-player story and environmental storytelling, and perhaps with a slightly darker tone. That’s not what 1001 Threads of Mizan is. And that’s perfectly fine. Because what awaits us here could be a truly fun co-op adventure set in a completely fresh setting, featuring easy-to-learn action and entertaining boss designs.
Did 1001 Threads of Mizan completely blow me away when I played it? No. Because at its core, it’s simply an action-adventure game that plays it safe and doesn’t rewrite the genre’s fundamental rules. But I’ve only seen a tutorial area that lasted just under 15 minutes, and the developers promise plenty of surprises down the road. As a purely single-player game, this “carpet game” probably wouldn’t fully appeal to me—but as lighthearted, mindless action with friends, accompanied by really cool Arabic battle music, it immediately becomes much more appealing.
