9 Rad Indie Games We Can't Wait To See More Of From The Mix Summer Showcase

The most intriguing reveal was a tactical RPG from a small studio called Hypersect led by a former Destiny sandbox gameplay engineer, an Octopath Traveler monster artist, and the composer of Enter the Gungeon. Never’s End’s pitch? Final Fantasy Tactics collides with city management as you raise an army of possessed warriors to protect the last human settlement from a magical apocalypse. There’s no release date yet but it’s coming to PC and PlayStation.

Airframe Ultra looks like Wipeout meets Twisted Metal. It’s got a slick PS1 presentation and a gritty vibe that would fit right at home on a long-lost demo disc. It’s the newest project from Rain World maker Videocult so it will probably be uncompromising in every way.

Rig dice to beat evil billionaires at their own deranged games. That’s the basic premise of Dead Finger Dice, a point-and-click roguelike about gambling with ghouls and trying to escape the yacht they’ve imprisoned you on. It’s giving Inscryption meets Cryptmaster if they were made in MS-DOS. A survival horror spin on Balatro? Let’s go.

The gardenvania subgrene expands with Beauty Cult’s Nectarmancer, a gorgeous-looking action platformer that doubles as a farming sim. Grow crops and fight in tight 2D spaces as you try to take down The Throne, a mysterious cabal exploiting the world’s resources for its own gain. Here’s the line from the Steam page that sold me: “Use a network of plants and their latent nectarmancy to build up a planet-scale biological research computer to acquire even more nectar.” Yes. Yes I will.

At first glance I thought Critterrupters was an Animal Crossing clone but it’s actually more like Pokémon. Go from 3D exploration to 2D turn-based augmented reality battles with a focus on interrupting your opponent’s attack to gain an advantage. There’s over 100 Critter Chips to collect, train, and “puzzle out” with the goal of defeating gym leaders and meeting the creator of the virtual Tamagotchi-based warriors.

Motorslice is an atmospheric parkour adventure in which you wall-run and slash your way through a futuristic construction site with the vibe of Shadow of the Colossus inside a mega city. Think indie, PS2-era Mirror’s Edge with a sword and heavy machinery boss fights. There’s a bit of a Tarkovskian undertone. Prince of Persia is also an influence according to the developers. Should I just keep name-dropping cool stuff?

A boomer shooter segment near the end of the showcase included a bunch of experimental first-person shooters, but Moros Protocol has been in production for five years and is the one that stuck out to me. The sci-fi roguelike combines Doom and Dark Souls for a low-poly fever dream that supports co-op. “And yes, you can kick your enemies,” the devs write.

Nocturne is a story-focused JRPG that uses rhythm gameplay for its combat. Rock Paper Shotgun likened it to “Chrono Trigger meets Guitar Hero.” It might not end up an all-time classic like those, but the pixel art and soundtrack are pretty neat. What’s it about? “Your consciousness was uploaded to a world where a sentient AI has taken control, twisted creatures roam the land, and a vast corruption spreads.” An increasingly relatable predicament!

Monsters are Coming! Rock & Road mixes and matches elements from lots of popular genres, including city builders and arcade-y bullet hell grindfests. The neat thing here is that the city you grow travels around and turns into a weapon itself, unleashing hell in Vampire Survivors-style horde mode onslaughts. There’s a closed beta happening later this summer.