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Title: Surfing sand and sea, herding beasts and other new indie games worth
checking out

Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2025 11:00:53 +0000
Link: https://www.engadget.com/gaming/surfing-sand-...

Welcome to our latest recap of what's going on in the indie game space. It's
been a very busy week in that realm, thanks to Gamescom. Before we jam
through a few of this week's new releases and some of the many, many Gamescom
reveals, there's one game that has risen high above the din to the point
where it's drowning out many of the smaller announcements.

Yes, Hollow Knight: Silksong has a release date, and it's very, very soon.
September 4, in fact. I feel for all the developers who have games coming out
around the same time, such as Cronos: The New Dawn, Hell is Us, Baby Steps
and even NBA 2K26. Sure, Silksong may primarily be for a different audience
than the latest edition of a massive basketball franchise, but it's going to
take up much of the oxygen in the gaming space for a while. As such, some
developers are delaying their games to give Silksong a wide berth.

CloverPit was scheduled to drop on September 3, but it's getting the hell out
of Silksong's way. The grimy, slot machine-based roguelike is now going to
arrive on September 26. "We like a gamble, but this one is too risky lol,"
developer Panik Arcade said. "We want to give ourselves and our fans some
time to enjoy Silksong, so weΓÇÖre launching a few weeks later and will use
the time to polish CloverPit even further." Meanwhile, Talegames is pushing
back the 1.0 release of its adventure RPG Faeland and Aeternum Game Studios
is delaying a Metroidvania called Aeterna Lucis from September into 2026.

There's no doubt that Silksong's arrival is a big deal. It's been the most
wishlisted game on Steam for yonks, was a focus of Microsoft's Xbox Ally
handheld reveal and is a sequel to an indie blockbuster that has now sold
more than 15 million copies. In any case, we'll soon find out if that very,
very long wait was worthwhile. Years of Silksong memes sure were. IΓÇÖm going
to need some other long-awaited game to joke about before every showcase now.

New releases

I have no earthly idea why it took me so long to try this, but I tested my
PlayStation Portal by my building's pool for the first time this week and it
turned out that the Wi-Fi was, in fact, strong enough there for me to use the
handheld. It was a fitting place to check out Sword of the Sea, which hit PS5
(including on PlayStation Plus Extra and Premium) and PC this week.

I'm only an hour or so into this $30 game from Giant Squid, but I'm enjoying
the relaxed approach to exploration here. As you'd might expect from
developers who have worked on The Pathless, Abzu and Journey, the movement in
Sword of the Sea is delightful. You'll take off from wavy dunes and pull off
tricks like you're in an SSX game as you surf across sand and water on a
sword in the aim of restoring life to the barren landscape. Sword of the Sea
is a looker, and I'll surely be getting lost in it some more over the coming
days.

Speaking of games that have an eye-catching aesthetic, Herdling is another
exploration and adventure title that dropped this week. This one's from
Okomotive (Far: Changing Tides, Far: Lone Sails) and publisher Panic.

Here, you'll be guiding a ragtag herd of beasts across hilly terrain toward
the summit of a mountain. You'll have to solve some "light" environmental
puzzles and even endure some stampedes along the way. Herdling typically
costs $25, but there's a 25 percent launch discount. It's available on Steam,
Epic Games Store, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.
It's on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass too.

With Ball x Pit on the horizon, I figured we were all taken care of for the
foreseeable future as far as Breakout-esque roguelites go. Not so fast, said
the team behind Vampire Survivors.

Poncle has spun up its own publishing arm and the second game it's releasing
(after Berserk or Die) is Kill the Brickman from Doonutsaur. Poncle released
the game on Steam and Xbox without prior warning this week, and it costs five
bucks.

You'll collect and augment various bullets that you use to destroy bricks
from outer space. There's a lot going on in the minute-long trailer, but I
particularly love how some of the bricks "cry" when a bullet smacks into
them.

Discounty is a life sim about managing a supermarket in a small town.
Hopefully, you'll be a more magnanimous proprietor than the operators of the
JoJa Mart in Stardew Valley, but you'll still have to deal with some folks
who are none too pleased about the effect of the business on their town.

Developer Crinkle Cut Games and publisher PQube suggest there are some
secrets to discover in Discounty, which is out now on Nintendo Switch, PS4,
PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, Steam and Epic Games Store. It's coming to
GOG as well at a later date. The game typically costs $20, though there's a
20 percent launch discount on PC.

Upcoming

Engadget senior reporter Igor Bonifacic spent a few hours with Absolum, a
fantasy beat-'em-up with a roguelite spin from co-developers Guard Crush
Games and Supamonk and publisher Dotemu (Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles:
ShredderΓÇÖs Revenge, Streets of Rage 4). I highly recommend reading his
write up for the full lowdown as Absolum sounds like a real treat.

The demo for this slipped through the cracks for me during the early June
chaos of Summer Game Fest and Steam Next Fest, but it's still available and
I'll absolutely be checking it out to get a taste of Absolum before it
arrives on October 4. It's coming to Steam, Nintendo Switch, PS4 and PS5.

As I mentioned in our liveblog for Gamescom Opening Night Live this week, any
new Ron Gilbert game is worth getting excited about. He's the director of the
first two Monkey Island games and Return to Monkey Island, as well as a
developer and producer of so many other projects over the years. Death by
Scrolling. is something completely different for Gilbert.

It's a vertical-scrolling, action-heavy roguelite in which you need to stay
alive and earn enough gold to pay a toll to a ferryman to escape from the
afterlife. The look is very heavily reminiscent of Stardew, so if plundering
the mines in that game was more your jam than farming and fishing, this might
be up your alley.

There's no release date as yet for Death by Scrolling, which Gilbert started
working on back in 2019, but it's said to be coming this year. In the
meantime, you can read updates about the game's development on Gilbert's
terrific blog.

It's fun that we had mentions of two John Carpenter-related projects at
Gamescom this week. Not only was there another look at John Carpenter's Toxic
Commando during Opening Night Live, there was the reveal of Halloween the
Game from IllFonic and co-publisher Gun Interactive.

Set to arrive in 2026, Halloween the Game follows the likes of Friday the
13th: The Game (from the same teams) and the Gun-published The Texas Chain
Saw Massacre. It has a 1 vs. 4 asynchronous multiplayer mode in which the
quartet will have to use anything at their disposal ΓÇö from wielding weapons
to calling the cops ΓÇö to survive the threat of the unkillable Michael
Myers. There's going to be a single-player aspect to this game as well, as
you'll be able to control the legendary mass killer in an adaptation of the
original film's story. Halloween the Game is coming to PlayStation, Xbox,
Steam and Epic Games Store.

A game about a guy with a brown backpack who scours ruined, overgrown
suburban homes in search of valuable resources that can help him survive a
bunch of zombies in the post-apocalypse? It has to be Long Gone, of course!
What other game could you possibly be thinking of?

This is a linear pixel-art narrative adventure from Hillfort Games and co-
publisher Outersloth (Among Us studio Innersloth's publishing wing). The
developers seem to have been influenced by a little game you might have heard
of called... Gone Home, as you'll look through the belongings of people who
used to live in this world and learn the truth about what happened. There's
no combat here. Instead, zombie encounters require puzzle solving. There's no
release window as yet for this point-and-click game, which is coming to
Steam.

Fittingly enough, I've had my eye on Militsoner for some time, so I was
delighted to hear that there's a two-week playtest on Steam that's open to
everyone. This is an immersive sim in which you'll try to escape a town, but
that may not be too easy as there's an enormous policeman watching your every
move. The playtest is limited to a slice of the town, but I'm really looking
forward to getting in there and finding out what this is all about.

I have to hold my hands up here and admit I'm not familiar with puzzle game
maker Rusty Lake. But when the trailer for their next game popped up this
week, it had me utterly captivated, because Servant of the Lake looks very,
very pretty.

This is a point-and-click puzzle adventure that will see you carrying out
tasks as seemingly innocuous as straightening picture frames to helping with
experiments and cleaning up afterward. You'll play as a housekeeper of an
estate, but it's not entirely clear whether you'll be able to survive the
weekend... Servant of the Lake is coming to Steam, Itch.io, iOS and Android
in Spring 2026.

BPM: Bullets Per Minute developer Awe Interactive is back with another rhythm-
based shooter, albeit one that has a top-down perspective instead of a first-
person one. BPM Bitcrushed (which is being published by Kwalee) is a
roguelite, pixel art dungeon crawler that syncs shooting, jumping and dodging
to the beat. The dungeons are procedurally generated and there's a "wide
variety of powerful weapons, unique items and rhythm-based abilities" to
discover.

What's most interesting to me here though is that, along with the game's own
soundtrack, you can load in your own tunes via the custom music feature.
Perhaps setting the action to some slow-tempo sludge metal will make things a
bit easier.

Couch Planes is an arcade plane racer from Skylab Interactive that's coming
to Steam, Epic Games Store and consoles next year. There are a few different
modes, 15 maps with environmental hazards and collectable power ups including
homing rockets, mines and speed boosts. There's support for four-person local
multiplayer and 12-player online action.

From Starfox and Grand Theft Auto V to The Falconeer and Microsoft Flight
Simulator 2024, I've never been much good at flying in games. But hey, Couch
Planes looks like it could be a fun time with friends.

Let's close out this bumper post-Gamescom edition of our indie games roundup
with something that might not be for me, but could be for you. Canvas City is
the first project from Disc 2 Games, which is self-publishing the game with
help from Dredge studio Black Salt Games.

Turn-based tactics games aren't typically my jam, but I'm always going to
have at least some interest in one that's about a group of upstarts rebelling
against an oppressive force. In this case, you'll take charge of skaters and
street artists who are fighting back in a "vibrant yet suppressed urban
world" (which sounds a little similar to Unbeatable, which this week got a
November 6 release date).

What caught my attention here is that fluid movement is a key part of the
game. When it's your turn, you can use rails, ramps and other parts of the
environment to pull off combinations of tricks and attacks. These chained
actions can also earn you Style Points that can enhance your abilities.

Disc 2 hasn't revealed a release window for Canvas City as yet. It's in
development for Steam and Nintendo Switch.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at
https://www.engadget.com/gaming/surfing-sand-...
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