I know, you’re all excited about Spiderman and Horizon: Forbidden West but there’s more. It’s cool to want these big games but sometimes it’s the smaller ones you should be talking about. I always like to shine the spotlight at the smaller games at the yearly E3 conferences but since we’re not getting one this year, this will have to do. Here are the games I think you should be watching out for.
Stray
Published by Annapurna Interactive, we don’t know a great deal about Stray. You play as a cat after all the humans have died and the robots are taking over. As said we don’t know much about this but Annapurna tends to invest in interesting titles that have a big emotional hit. I was sold by the publisher but the concept of a sci-fi world with no humans is an interesting one and coupled with the great looking neon style and well animated cats I think Stray is one title well worth keeping an eye on.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
The first thing you see about Kena: Bridge of Spirits is the beautiful Pixar-style animation, the adorable black furry marshmallows and the badass female lead who commands them. Seemingly inspired by games like Overlord and Pikmin, Kena looks like it’s going to be a lot of fun but also shows a really interesting storyline. We’ve seen a bunch of combat already and Kena looks to be a blast. This is Ember Lab’s first game and it already looks so promising, it’s not a sure shot but it is for certain worth a look. Hopefully we’ll find out more when it’s closer to release.
Goodbye Volcano High
Goodbye Volcano High is an indie narrative led title featuring high school dinosaurs at “the end of an era.” Just like the other games on this list, the art style is wonderful, the game looking like a modern show on Cartoon Network. As with the rest, we don’t know an awful lot about the story but the writer, Kate Grey, describes it as beautiful, personal and very gay. So if that’s your bag alongside dinosaurs in a band then this will be right up your alley!
Little Devil Inside
This game caught my attention immediately with its unique art style and the trailer’s fun approach to humour. The trailer shows our main character as a hunter, adventuring in many a diverse wilderness with different weapons juxtaposed with his butler, going about his daily life, bathing with his rubber duck or going to the toilet. The action looks extremely well animated with combat going from standard shooting to anime style sword fights in the blink of an eye and I’m very interested in what’s to come with this one.
Bugsnax
Bugsnax! It’s the latest game from Octodad: Dadliest Catch developer Young Horses and that would be enough for me. It’s not all that’s on offer though. With a theme song from Kero Kero Bonito and a ridiculously charming concept of bugs that are also snacks I can’t wait. There’s one thing in life I love more than anything else and it’s googly eyes. Bugsnax takes googly eyes and puts them on EVERYTHING. There’s a strawberry, a burger sheep, a pot noodle spider, basketball snails, I don’t know if there’s anything else you could want from a game. Ice cream snakes? Done. It’s also planned as a launch title for the PlayStation 5 so you can Bugsnax forever starting from Christmas. Excite!