The AAA titles get all the love at E3, but one of my favorite parts of the show is the often underlooked showcase of indie* titles.
*Editorial note – I’m using the term indie pretty broadly, like in music. An “indie” band often isn’t truly independent. It’s a style thing. Same here with video games.
Here are my top 10 hidden gems from E3 2018.
10. Harold Halibut
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
To my knowledge, Harold Halibut only showed up for a brief moment during the ID@Xbox montage during the Microsoft show. But that was enough to grab my attention.
The first thing you’ll pick up on in Harold Halibut is the art style. It’s completely done in stop-motion claymation. It’s handcrafted in a way similar to Cuphead, but with a very different aesthetic.
The game itself looks fun, too. It feels a bit like a cheeky Bioshock. Harold is apparently a worker on some ship/submarine on an underwater planet. The art should be enough to get you into the game; hopefully, the story will keep you in it.
9. Neo Cab
Release Date: TBA – “soon”
Platform: PC
The cyberpunk aesthetic has hit gaming in a big way, and Neo Cab fits squarely into that world. Think of it as cyberpunk Uber.
The game casts you as one of the last human ride-share drivers in an AI-dominated world. It’s apparently a mystery adventure set around the characters you pick up in your cab.
The gameplay looks like it will be slow and narrative-driven. The writing will need to be superb, but if they can craft an engaging story, Neo Cab could turn into a great laid-back gaming experience.
8. Satisfactory
Release Date: TBA – “We won’t release it until we’re happy with it.”
Platform: PC
It’s Factorio as a first-person game, which isn’t something I thought I needed. But I do.
I really like the concept and gameplay of Factorio, but the visuals are off-putting to me. Satisfactory looks to bring a similar giant-machine-building mechanic with a much more polished look. Plus the addition of the first person perspective seems like it will make the game more immersive.
However, the top-down view in Factorio seems critical for building massive machines, so a big part of Satisfactory’s ability to pull off this concept will be how well it can transition between the first-person and top-down views.
7. Rapture Rejects
Release Date: TBA – “2018-ish”
Platform: PC
I grew up attending a church that had frequent hellfire and brimstone sermons, so the rapture was a commonly discussed topic. I read Left Behind and went through a phase of fascination with the rapture. As I matured in my faith, my views on the rapture changed dramatically. While I’m still a Christian, I definitely don’t hold to the fundamentalist view of the rapture anymore.
I think this is one of the reasons I’m excited about Rapture Rejects. I feel a kinship with the creators. I’m not sure if their backgrounds are similar to my own, but the way the game lampoons this concept that I used to take way too literally strikes just the right chord with me.
It’s an irreverent battle royale that likely will only be fun to me as a novelty. But I’m humored enough by it that I’ll spend an hour or two with it just for the lols.
6. Outer Wilds
Release Date: 2018
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Outer Wilds seems to bill itself as a hillbilly space game. You play as an alien in a folksy world who is apparently trying to launch a spaceship off the planet.
The gimmick of the game, though, is that a supernova destroys everything every 20 minutes and you have to start over. But you keep all your memories and progress at each restart.
I honestly don’t know if the gimmick will be fun, but the visual style and the concept have me intrigued enough to want to play it.
5. Ghost Giant
Release Date: TBA
Platform: PSVR
Ghost Giant looks VERY similar to another popular PSVR title – Moss. You control a large protector charged with overseeing and escorting a smaller, quite frail character.
Moss executes a great VR concept fantastically, and Ghost Giant looks like it’ll do the same. One of the best aspects of these games is the scale. You feel like you’re huge due to the perspective and size of the environment – something that can only be truly experienced in VR.
Ghost Giant deviates from Moss in that it seems to be very emotionally driven. You play as the seemingly imaginary friend of an emotionally fragile boy who needs your help to deal with day-to-day issues in his community. It looks incredibly charming and like a fun VR puzzler.
4. Noita
Release Date: TBA – “Coming to Early Access 201x”
Platform: PC
According to its website, Noita is a rogue-lite where every pixel is simulated.
A moment of honesty – I really didn’t know what rogue-lite meant, even though it is really common right now. So here’s my quick understanding of rogue-lite after a bit of research: games that include some elements of procedurally generated dungeon crawling, hack n’ slash, permadeath, resource management, and/or exploration. They’re loosely similar to the game Rogue from the 80s. That still seems quite broad.
To me, Noita seems quite Metroidvania, which I understand better and love. The mass destruction of the pixel environments also seems really cool. The gameplay elements in the trailer suggest a lot of the mechanics will include altering the environment, which could be really fun or a huge buggy mess.
3. Two Point Hospital
Release Date: 2018
Platform: PC
Two Point Hospital is a spiritual remake of Theme Hospital, which I never played. But I love other theme and sim games. Two Point Hospital combines the building and management elements of a sim game with a heavy dose of hospital humor, including unibrow infestations.
The trick to a good sim game to me is to make it fun to manage. Lots of good quality sim games have failed to capture my interest because they take themselves too seriously. Two Point Hospital doesn’t have that problem. It looks like it will poke plenty of fun at itself while giving the player a reason to reasearch and upgrade.
2. Octopath Traveler
Release Date: July 13
Platform: Switch
Octopath Traveler looks like a modernized version of an SNES JRPG. My favorite game of all time is Final Fantasy VI, so the art style and gameplay immediately got my attention.
The game follows eight different playable characters, each with his or her own class. Their stories apparently intersect to weave together a classic RPG narrative.
If classic RPGs aren’t your thing, Octopath Traveler probably isn’t for you. However, if you’re nostalgic about sprite-based stories, as I am, this looks like one of the standout titles for this year.
1. Tunic
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Tunic first showed up last year at E3. Like Octopath Traveler makes me nostalgic for old-school Final Fantasy, Tunic makes me nostalgic for old-school Zelda.
Tunic is an isometric Zelda-type game where you play as a fox. The world looks cool and the gameplay feels familar. While the developer is trying to convince people it’s more than Zelda with a fox, I’m actually perfect okay with that exact premise.
To be fair, it doesn’t look exactly like Zelda. The scale is much bigger and it feels modern in that indie-isometric kind of way. Really, as long as the story has some depth, it should be a quite enjoyable experience.
