Image: Stormind Games
The video game marketing season is an exercise in duality. For every Sony State of Play or Geoff Keigh3, there’s a lower key event: a Developer’s Day, for example, or a Devolver Digital showcase. Today’s big one is the annual live broadcast of Guerrilla Collective.
Now in its third year, the Guerrilla Collective has reached a familiar cadence, spending 90 minutes of news and revelations of unknown games. It’s a refreshing antidote to the never-ending parade of sci-fi horror games being shown to the biggest pressers. Here is everything that was shown in the Guerrilla Collective 2022:
- Well, first, he opened up with the hosts by making a joke about not having to wear more masks. Needless to say, this pandemic continues. Please bring a mask!
- From Space is a cooperative isometric shooter about fighting an alien invasion. It will be released later this year.
I was a teenage ex-colonist. (Screenshot: Northway Games)
- And Was A Teenage Exocolonist is exactly what it seems: an adventure game in which you are a teenager who, along with other teenagers, bets on an exolplanet. Lovely picture book art style. Departure on August 25.
- Ugly makes use of a dual-realm perspective like The Medium, except for the double-fear and two-thirds that dimensional. (It’s a 2D platformer.)
- First-person astronaut shooter Boundary will receive a beta this summer.
- Alaloth: Champions of the Four Kingdoms is an isometric fantasy role-playing game.
- Okay, I guess even independent events aren’t immune to science fiction space horror games. Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle, at least, seems to fold into Mass Effect-inspired space magic skills.
- Confirmed: Independent events include many horror games. Signalis is happily low on poly, which means, uh, maybe I’ll be able to play it.
- Gravewood High is a first-person platform game that tries not to get caught by an imposing figure. Cooperative or competitive playable, and currently in early access to Steam. It sounds a little scary.
- Madison is a first-person psychological horror game in which you walk through rusty bathrooms and abandoned churches. You’re accompanied by a Polaroid camera and it looks like there’s some sort of interdimensional trick in play. The bells are ringing without explanation. Definitely a little scary. Departure on July 8.
- The first-person psychological horror game The Fridge is Red currently has a live demo on Steam.
- I’m very much here for the painful music and vibes of East Berlin Industry, a first-person shooter in which you fight robots. Now available for next-generation consoles and PCs.
- Ugh! Out of the forest of horror. South of the Circle is a surprisingly beautiful adventure game about power, memory, and the “promises we make in life.”
- Five years after the release of the survival game This War of Mine, the developers have released a “final size” edition, adding new content to the game.
- The Last Worker is a first-person narrative adventure game about the inevitable decline of capitalism in the midst of the rise of automation. It stars Jason Isaacs and is out this year for consoles and VR. There are some sharp comic book-inspired images that should be interesting in virtual reality.
- Maybe Doja Cat would like EA to remaster SSX Tricky, but Slopecrashers, an arcade snowboarding game that allows you to grind like farm animals, may be all we get in the snowboarding game genre in the foreseeable future. You already have a demo available.
Cassette beasts. (Screenshot: Raw Fury)
- The latest entry into the growing realm of Pokémon-like creatures is Cassette Beasts, which blew up Kotaku’s brain when it was first announced last fall. No new information available today, unfortunately.
- Contract Killer is a side-scrolling action game coming to Switch and Xbox this summer. It’s cooperative, yes.
- Right now, the only thing people want to know about the TMNT beat-em-up: Shredder’s Revenge is “gimme gimme gimme.” It will be released on June 16 and will have the cooperation of six players.
- Skald: Against the Black Priory is a fantastic pixel art role-playing game that will hit PC at some point. Great last vibration here.
- The pixel art action game BATS: Bloodsucker Anti Terror Squad will receive a physical release for PS4 and Switch.
- They said it couldn’t be done, but they did it anyway. Yes, Arkanoid is getting a modernized remake. It will be released in October and will feature, sit down, a Battle Royale mode.
- In Nine Years of Shadows, a side-scrolling fantasy action platformer game, you become the best friend of a magical teddy bear. Ancient castles. Giant monsters. Various armors that give you different elemental skills.
- WrestleQuest is a turn-based wrestling role-playing game that includes real wrestling icons.
- Zeoti is a roguelike based on the most classic game of all: poker. Various skills are tied to various hands; a sheet will be more powerful than a pair of two, but you are less likely to draw it. It seems, if nothing else, like nothing else I’ve played.
- Thrill cart! Grid Force: Mask of the Goddess, Live by the Sword Tactics, Necroboy: Path the Evil Ship. They all flew too fast to understand what they are.
- Alterium Shift is a fantastic turn-based role-playing game with very obvious old-school Final Fantasy inspirations.
- Greedventory is a fantastic turn-based role-playing game with no obvious Final Fantasy references. Lots of metal music, and most of the enemies seemed to be shirtless guys with wide eyes.
- Bring the tactical games. Keylocker is an 80’s vibrant sci-fi tactical game (also known as an intense synthesizer soundtrack). It is set in a robot factory where music is banned and includes rhythm-based cyberpunk piracy.
- Kingdoms at war. Grid-based tactics. Delicious pixel art. Symphony of War takes clear directions from Fire Emblem. Now available for PC.
- Drummer: Lost Haven is a narrative game about interstellar travel. It mixes the action of hacking and cutting with two sticks, and will come out this fall for consoles, PC and Switch.
- Asterigos: Curse of the Stars is a third-person role-playing game that, based on the combat images shown today, looks like another game from the Soulslikes procession. Departure in the fall.
- XEL is a third-person action game with vivid images and poppies, slated for summer release. The trick? You can switch between past and future, and you need to use this mechanic to solve environmental puzzles.
- In the third person Roguelike Spells and Secrets, you are a student at a magic university. It will arrive on Switch and PC.
- A cat and a fish are unlikely to be the best friends in the cooperative action game River Tails: Stronger Together. Remember the cult favorite for PlayStation 2 from FromSoftware The Adventures of Cookie & Cream. It is intended for consoles and switches.
- Many games try to collect creatures. But on Ikonei Island you become creatures, using their powers to fight, explore, and all the other things you do in third-person games. There are also base building elements and a multiplayer mode provided for the line. The beta version will be released on Steam on June 17th.
- Time on Frog Island is a sand game in which you are shipwrecked on an island. July 12 for Consoles, PC and Switch.
- As if a frog game weren’t enough, there’s Frogun, a third-person platformer game that looks like a throwback to the era of pet platform games. You play a treasure hunt as a child, accompanied by a frog that is also a hook. Very colorful and cheerful.
- And Am Future is perhaps the brightest post-apocalyptic game on this side of Biomutant. It’s a survival crafting game, with an isometric perspective, and this year it’s coming out on Steam.
- Flat Eye is a strategy management game that lets you build and supervise a robot factory that is also a futuristic hospital. The narrator sounds kind, but a little too kind, so my point is that here is more than meets the eye (plan).
- Garden a! is an organizational game in which you decorate unique rooms, all seen isometrically.
- Death Stranding was not just a tour de force. It was also the genesis of a new genre. Witch Strandings is a standalone version, which will be released on July 7, 2022 for PC.
- Monster Outbreak is a top-down pixel art game that combines Animal Crossing’s resource search with the dungeon crawl of The Legend of Zelda. He presents cooperative adventures and arrives on Switch and Steam on August 25, 2022.
The puppy. (Screenshot: Demagog Studios)
- The Cub is a Limbo-like platformer set in a post-apocalyptic Earth that has seen its citizens leave the planet for Mars. There’s a demo on Steam right now.
- Look: The Legend of the Djinns is a side-scrolling action game with tough-looking boss fights. It looks like a quintessential metroidvania and is scheduled for 2023.
- The Rain World survival game will receive five new “slug cats”, its player characters, through the upcoming Downpour expansion.
- The minimalist Exo One racing game will hit PlayStation later this year. The trailer quoted Kotaku’s initial writing.
- Shashingo is a photo exploration game that also doubles as an intensive course for learning Japanese. It will come to PC and Switch.
Guerrilla Collective reinforced what Ian pointed out the other evening: that events focused on independent games often exceed the fare with a larger budget. Really, many of the games on display today look great. It is a testament to the craft of video games and how, at this juncture, it is at its best. That’s also just a little bit; Guerrilla Collective will host a second showcase on Monday, June 13 at 4:00 p.m. ET.