whatchu waiting for

A thread for anticipating games that might not rise to the level of getting their own threads.

For instance, this quasi Name of the Rose RPG: https://www.polygon.com/23319825/obsidian-pentiment-preview-xbox-game-pass-pc

Pentiment looks interesting. I'll play it on Gamepass for sure.

I think some of the best releases will just be good existing stuff moving to new platforms, like Tunic and Inscryption on Playstation, or Dorfromantik on Switch.

I'll probably give Gotham Knights a spin unless the reviews are brutal.

Reviews for Pentiment seem pretty well recieved.

I've never played The Witcher 3. There is a free PS5 update upgrade coming in a couple of weeks, I think I'm all in.

Don't get your hopes up like I did. It's not groundbreaking so much as piles and piles of convention.

My hopes are still up!
But my backlog is so bad, I actually have both The Witcher I and II to play first... I need a better PC setup

Huh. People do seem to love it. Helpfully, I typically have low expectations, since because I missed out on basically an entire couple of generations of games, they're all pretty cool to me.

They do love it but I think they're all wrong.

But seriously, take this to the Witcher thread, this is a rolling anticipation thread for smaller niche/indie games!

my most wanted at the moment:
Snufkin: Melody of Moominvalley - loved the Moomins books as a kid, so a gentle puzzle adventure where you get to roam around as Snufkin tootling on his flute is like my dream game
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1808680/Snufkin_Melody_of_Moominvalley/
World of Horror - a "1-bit love letter to Junji Ito and H.P. Lovecraft". been following this for a while, but have held off until it's out of early access next summer.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/913740/WORLD_OF_HORROR/
Future Radio and the Artificial Pigeons - Visual Novel coming out early next year, I just love the "blue sky dystopia" sci-fi stuff that Japan makes
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2156620/The_Future_Radio_and_the_Artificial_Pigeons/

I still eagerly await Truck Heck, whatever the hell it turns out to be.

This sounds like a lot of fun: https://www.polygon.com/reviews/23702866/mr-suns-hatbox-review-roguelike

I need more word games: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2072840/Word_Factori/

Others of note:

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1382070/Viewfinder/ -- I lost interest in The Witness pretty quickly but maybe this time?
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1864950/Beastieball/ -- from the makers of Chicory!

Beastieball looks fun!
looking forward to Sea of Stars https://store.steampowered.com/app/1244090/Sea_of_Stars/
and The Invincible https://store.steampowered.com/app/731040/The_Invincible/

I am waiting for so much right now, Summer Fest showed a lot of interesting developments for me.

Nivalis in particular, as I enjoyed Cloudpunk and would love to see the city used more than just for delivery jobs.

The next Microsoft Flight Sim also looks impressive.

Mars First Logistics

Came out today, early access, and I'm all for these Moebius style looking games lately

(some early gameplay)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uauRDqR4zBY

Yeah there's actually a bunch of indies that I have my eye on and even though I didn't mention it the Mars game is definitely something I'm interested in.

I got it, been playing today in between, ahem, work.
It's great, it's more difficult than expected - the rover rolls over a lot and there's a ton of mountains and rocks to negotiate, i guess that's part of the game to build something that can navigate the terrains.

Very nice to play though, building the vehicles is smooth and frustration free.

Deck building tower defense? Right into my veins, please.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2455350/The_Deadly_Path/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2160480/Hellboy_Web_of_Wyrd/

There's going to be a Hellboy game?!

Viewfinder reviews have been pretty rapturous.

That looks awesome and crazy and the trailer almost made me barf.

Gotta say, Lords of the Fallen 2 looks like the greatest Dark Souls ripoff ever. Maybe it will succeed where all others have failed.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xi7o_WyN43E

just reading my steam wishlist, all games that are not out yet (order in date added):

Toxic Crusaders
Blade Runner 2033: Labyrinth
Ships At Sea
Route 66 Simulator: The Free Ride
Space Trash Scavenger
Blight: Survival
Synergy
Hammerwatch II
Cooking Simulator 2: Better Together
Macabre
Bzzzt
Sand
Breathedge 2
MULLET MAD JACK
Fortune's Run
The Invincible
Dread Pilots
D.O.R.F Real-Time Strategic Conflicts
Star Trucker
ARK 2
The Brew Barons
Life By You
Pixelshire
Pacific Drive
Car Manufacture
Taxi Simulator
Tiny Glade
Streets of Rogue 2
Starship Simulator
Little Martian
Derelicts
Thunder Helix
Pirate Commander
Nivalis

Nivalis is the Cloudounk spinoff? I bought that recently, looking forward to playing it.

yeah, i have cloudpunk plus the dlc story. Not a lot to them, but a nice chill story to plod through and great looking scenery if you like that sort of thing. I turned off the audio dialogue btw, just a word of warning.

I turned off the audio dialogue btw, just a word of warning.

Good god, I thought this was going to be on the hyperbolic side but now having played 5 minutes of it, the VA really is worth turning off.

yeah, I don't think I've ever played another game with such oddly recorded and off putting voice acting, it just sounds like shit. Not turning it off though because I am a masochist.

Between TotK, Elden Ring, and perhaps BG3 I'm probably set for gaming for the next 2 years, not including other shit I bought, but I'm eagerly anticipating the Switch release of Dave the Diver:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p85VHMpE0to

Have we talked about these Spellbound rumours, ostensibly the working title for the next FromSoft IP?

I'm hoping it'll be amazing, but personally I'd be just as happy for them to keep releasing Elden Ring DLC content every couple of years rather than a new Souls-based franchise. That, or make a Souls game based on the Mandy movie, but that's not gonna happen

AFAIK the sole source of those rumors is a 4chan post, so I am taking that with an enormous grain of salt. IMO it would be cool if Miyazaki & the studio at large broke out more of the Souls formula. I'd really like to see their take on other styles.

I watched some youtube video on it, of course I'm down for a new Souls-like variation from From. Their approach to spells really hasn't changed that much from Dark Souls to Elden Ring (and I almost never play a magic-focused build), so I'm into the idea of a wizard game.

Moebius art + language puzzle solving, definitely intrigued:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d5fsaiDgfoU

Psychedelic Hollow Knight?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M2HHC--J_M4

Chants of Senaar looks very interesting

xpost A trippy Metroidvania seems like a path not yet taken.

Speaking of Souls-like, everyone seems to love "Lies of P."

Also, the clips making the rounds from Spider-man 2 show off what the PS5 can do when designers actually design with the PS5 exclusively in mind.

For some reason Lies of P just doesn't look appealing to me, b but Lords of the Fallen really does.

Lies of P I'm definitely waiting on, but the reviews have been pretty convincing, basically saying it's one of the few Soulslikes that gets it right but also makes the right changes.

I never played Dragon's Dogma but I'm intrigued now seeing some footage from the upcoming sequel. Kinda seems like a blend of Souls-like combat x more straightforward D&D/Baldur's Gate type story & quests? So many giant fantasy games these days.

The first game is only $5 on PS rn, just grabbed that because why not.

dragons dogma is more like a character action game meets open-world fantasy rpg, not 'souls-like'. its by the same designers as the devil may cry series

Ha I guess I haven't actually played any 3D third person action-rpgs besides From games. So that always reads as Souls to me, but I guess Devil May Cry/Monster Hunter/God of War/The Witcher/etc must feel quite different.

the fundamental gameplay concept of the souls games is "you can't cancel your attacks"
the fundamental gameplay concept of character action games is "you can cancel your attacks"

so they're fundamentally opposed

(cancel in action game parlance meaning interrupt the attack with a new one before its animation finishes)

Interesting, I don't think I've ever heard it put like that before but it makes a lot of sense.

Hmm. If this is turn-based or tower defense or real time strategy or whatever I'll probably skip, but if this is, as implied, more adventure/story-based, I'm intrigued.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TY5r0nEd2ag

Replaced, gorgeously animated pixel art cyberpunk side scroller:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cWkOcpZEk4I

Looks cool!

Patient though I may be, my fomo flares up when they start announcing DLC for games I haven't gotten yet because I'm waiting for lower prices. Remnant 2, Ragnarok, Lies of P ...

Yeah, two DLC packs are planned.

Night Springs – 2024

Night Springs will allow players to control several familiar characters from the Alan Wake setting. They’ll experience mysterious and unexplainable events inside multiple, self-contained episodes of a fictional TV show called Night Springs. If you thought Alan Wake 2 got very meta a couple of times, it sounds like you’ll get more of that with this expansion, which should launch some time in 2024.

The Lake House – 2024

A secret government organization, a lonely research facility, and ambitious scientists – naturally, something goes wrong with that combination of factors being involved. Players will explore the Lake House in this expansion in two separate adventures as the realities of Alan Wake and Saga Anderson once again collide.

Brew Barons out tomorrow, but will wait for reviews obv

Indika, AKA weird/psycho Orthodox nun game:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GR5yBSiUwQ4

Hauntii
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zj2WcfUJOT4

Death of a Wish
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FOr-pX4zFDw

oh wow, Indika looks bananas and that's great

is dragons dogma 2 good ? it looks good

Slay The Spire 2 hell yeh

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=krDFltgjLtE

hype

Oh God not again

Vampire Survivors is getting Contra DLC -- which means Konami is on board but they didn't do Castlevania. Pretty funny troll if that's what was intended.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4Y9-IntWLM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7AJBiX-N3Sg

Style for days, at $15 so maybe I'll get it straight away? https://kotaku.com/children-of-the-sun-devolver-sniper-sim-steam-pc-1851403350

FINALLY a game (albeit upcoming) for dog-lovers: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1626620/Koira/

(Last Guardian and TLOU2 don't count.)

OK I lied, this is the actual Dog: The Game game:

https://kotaku.com/best-indie-games-steam-wishlist-indiepenance-day-1851577525/slides/3

If the full game has even an ounce of this trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xWNwFSNFw74

UNBEATABLE

looks simple and know nothing much about it, but looks so damn nice

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2756920/?snr=1_5_9__205

("Keep Driving")

That looks really cool, thanks for the heads up

For the Scavengers Reign fans -- Nidus: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2372170/NIDUS/

Also, I have this wishlisted because pretty: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2105620/Sektori/

I saw a couple reactions to the upcoming Indiana Jones game, which I was not planning to play or get, and let's just say that now I am.

very intrigued to hear that guns are not that important a factor in this game

Heard it described as Hitman meets Dishonored, and elsewhere that it affirms MachineGames as simply the best at first person Nazi killing simulators.

Also, people seem to be going bonkers for Nine Sols. It's a Metroidvania that looks like Hollow Knight meets Sekiro, which means (predictably) supposedly pretty tough stuff!

Oooh

taisho-era yakuza game is instantly my most anticipated game

It really hasn't been that long since Last of Us 2, but Naughty Dog just announced what appears to be a space bounty hunter game. Nine Inch Nails does the soundtrack, Pet Shop Boys in the trailer, I am in.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o7TVPoxwi74

The new game, Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet, was announced on Thursday in a cryptic trailer at the Game Awards that showed a few seconds of gameplay in which the protagonist battles a hulking cyborg with swordlike weapons. The story is set in an alternative universe where space travel has significantly advanced by 1986.

*Druckmann declined to share many details about Intergalactic, which is the first original story he and his team have created in almost 15 years and does not have a release date. But he said it was a return to Naughty Dog’s roots in the action-adventure genre that helped build the studio’s reputation with franchises like Crash Bandicoot. It takes inspiration, he said, from classic anime like the 1988 movie “Akira” and the 1990s series “Cowboy Bebop.”

Tbf I'm not a fan of anime. But hey, ND is on a (really slow) winning streak.

ND apparently also working on multiple projects at the same time.

lol what's with all the product placement in that trailer? v jarring

glad they're making something with a fun tone again even if it's late to the party style wise

Apparently lots of people have been (probably) overanalyzing the product placement. As in, is it just shameless product placement? Or is it (or will it be) just part of the retrofuturistic aesthetic? Personally, I'm always a little torn by that kind of stuff. On the one hand, I don't like product placement. On the other hand, is it really product placement if the product doesn't exist? (Like a Porsche spaceship.) Also, if you're going for immersion, I do find fake brands kind of jarring, too, so ... dunno.

Ever since Colony Wars I've wanted a game with real-ish space physics where I do missions and stuff - I hope there's som flight stuff and it's not all on-world. In any case I will obviously play it lol

What you need is a space power wash simulator.

the indiana jones game is the first one to kind of make me wish i had a next-gen platform

Witcher 4? Maybe this one won't be deadly boring.

I would also love a new Colony Wars-style game, it's mystifying why it doesn't already exist.

What happened to that Moon game "No Rest for the Wicked"? Did it ever get officially released or is has it been in early access for almost a year?

Spamming Death Howl on ILG:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=14MSXWMFIYg

very excited for Blue Prince coming out later this week. reviews/impressions are extremely positive

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1569580/Blue_Prince/

Ooh thx, always looking for a game my wife and I can play together (complete list so far: Portal/Portal 2, Limbo, Inside, Cocoon, Inscryption, I think that's it).

Would Lorelei and the Laser Eyes be up your alleys?

https://bsky.app/profile/papapishu.bsky.social/post/3lmabtmtcqs2j

I loved the Blue Prince demo. Probably the rare day 1 buy for me.

Jordan: have a look at this page for some ideas. I think you'd really like Outer Wilds.
https://thinkygames.com/games/?essential=true&page=1&query=&sortBy=-relevant

Blue Prince (took me a second to get the pun) looks really intriguing! I'm worried it's a sort of game my brain struggles with. Logic puzzles, inventory management, needing a notepad by your side to figure out what is going on...How difficult is it meant to be?

The inventory system is very simple. From my memory, you can carry 2 items and there are around 10 items. The demo had one room that required some inventory planning. (spoiler: the garage.)
A notepad can help but the main things to write down are some short passwords. No need to memorize a map as you always have a map.
The logic puzzles in the demo were all easy, on the level of "find the two numbers that add up to 100". What's harder is finding some of the puzzles.

i'll definitely try the demo, if it's steamdeck compatible.

Crashlands 2!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yY9A6asR3qs

This looks like ... Crazy Taxi meets GTA meets Teardown meets ... awesome.

that does look like a fun lark with a silly bad story

I played the Steam demo and couldn't get on with it. The silly bad story was too much

New 2D Ninja Gaiden looks fun and I'm sure I will play it at some point, but I hate the music :(

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wqh5gBmLlIM

Type Help is getting a graphical version made by the Roottrees are Dead team
https://william-rous.itch.io/type-help/devlog/967999/the-incident-at-galley-house-announcement

"Without revealing too much, there are certain things that I couldn't do with the original game" ooooo