A new year means new games to look forward to and I’d like to bring as many amazing looking Indie Games to your attention as possible. Some of the games on this list will probably have popped up on last years list or in other conversations I’ve had about Indie games I’m looking forward to, but I still want to include them as they’re looking like they will release this year.
There is a lot to get through, so in no particular order, lets get to it.
GTFO
Release Date: Spring 2019
Platform: PC
It looks terrifying, but excellent. I can’t wait for me and my friends to be killed by hordes or aliens as we cower in the corners of various darkened rooms. This co-op shooter looks set to ramp the tension up to 100.
Night Call
Release Date: Summer 2019
Platform: PC, Mac, Linux, Mobile
Night Call is a murder mystery game set in Paris where you play as a taxi driver, working to earn enough to pay your bills while aiding the investigation by doing what you do best: getting people to talk while you have their attention.
Project Winter
Release Date: Q1 2019
Platform: PC
Project Winter is an 8 person multiplayer game focusing on social deception and survival. Communication and teamwork is essential to the survivors’ ultimate goal of escape. Gather resources, repair structures, and brave the wilderness together. I’ve actually had the chance to play it and I really enjoyed it, I’m looking forward to seeing more!
Above
Release Date: Unknown, maybe 2019…
Platform: PC
Above is an aeronautic action-adventure game, in which you fly around exploring islands scattered in a vast ocean, upgrade and modify your aeroplane to progress, in order to find your lost brother and uncover the mystery behind the abominations that dwell beneath the waves.
Ancient Cities
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
Ancient Cities is a survival and strategy city builder based on ancient times. Build your city through the ages with simulated, years, seasons, weather, natural disasters and more. Build defenses, political beliefs, religions as you try to build your population.
Eitr
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
Eitr is an action RPG built around exceptional combat and formidable challenges set within a mythological Norse world.
The Shield Maiden, as with all mortal Norsemen, was to have her fate determined by the three fate-weaving Norns and their sacred loom before she even entered the world. However, her destiny was shattered when the mischievous god Loki interfered, dripping spots of the wretched substance Eitr into the unwoven loom, forever altering the Shield Maiden’s path and engulfing the great tree Yggdrasil in darkness.
Dead Static Drive
Release Date: I’m just hoping it’s this year.
Platform: PC
Honestly, the info about Dead Static Drive is still pretty vague, it pops up now and then at the odd show, but that’s about it. However, Dead Static Drive is a cosmic horror road trip across America, or some strange version of it. I just love the style of it, I think it looks really cool and I hope we get to hear more about it soon.
Close to the Sun
Release Date: March 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
Close to the Sun is a horror game that takes place at the end of 19th century on a mysterious ship complex created by Nikola Tesla for the sake of knowledge. In this alternative version of history, his scientific breakthroughs have already had a major impact on the world.
You’re Rose, a young journalist looking for your sister and, as you approach this enormous and glorious complex for the first time, you quickly realize that something there has gone wrong …
Breach
Release Date: January 2019
Platform: PC
Modern Earth and Mythological Earth collide in Breach, a third person action RPG with fast-paced combat. Create your own character and choose from dozens of classes. Take your character on missions across the globe in Solo, Co-op, or Versus modes.
Hong Kong Massacre
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, PS4
It’s like Hotline Miami was made by John Woo.
Blast your way through the streets of Hong Kong in a fast-paced, top-down shooter. Inspired by classic action movies, The Hong Kong Massacre places you at the center of a hard-boiled revenge story, filled with brutal, cinematic shootouts and vivid underworld locations.
Desperados 3
Release Date: Summer 2019
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
The Western real time strategy game is back and looking better than ever.
You take control of a ragtag band becoming a highly functional group of unlikely heroes and heroines. The very different strong personalities struggle to cooperate at first, but ultimately join forces to combine their distinctive specialties and challenge a seemingly superior foe. Hunted by ruthless bandits and corrupt lawmen, the Desperados III need to turn the tables with every mission.
Between the Stars
Release Date: Q1 2019
Platform: PC
Become the captain of a stellar cruiser and cross the galaxy to save the Interestellar Republic. During your journey you will have to make important decisions, improve the weaponry of your ship and fight against numerous enemies.
Dead Matter
Release Date: Was meant to be 2018 so hopefully 2019
Platform: PC
Dead Matter is a true sandbox survival horror. Players will fight to survive in a zombie-packed, post-apocalyptic world that fosters whichever play-style fits you best. Settle down and defend your home from outside threats with an expansive crafting and barricading system, cultivate and live off the land, or branch out, explore, and scavenge whatever vehicles, weapons, and food you may find in a zombie-plagued Alberta – alone, or with your friends.
Ready or Not
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
Ready or Not is a tactical first person shooter which places you in the boots of an elite SWAT team, tasked with diffusing hostile situations in intense, claustrophobic environments. It’s set in a nondescript modern America, where an income disparity between the classes have become unsustainable and the country has been plunged into havoc. Bring order to chaos with up to 8 players in cooperative play, battle enemy squads in a close player-vs-player environment, or command AI in a striking single-player mode
My Friend Pedro
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch
My Friend Pedro is a violent ballet about friendship, imagination, and one man’s struggle to obliterate anyone in his path at the behest of a sentient banana.
Sable
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Sable is a coming-of-age tale of discovery through exploration across a strikingly rendered open world desert. Go on a deeply personal journey across an alien planet while learning its history and discovering Sable’s place in the world.
Disco Elysium
Release Date: TBA, but probably 2019
Platform: PC
I’ve played it and it blew me away.
A groundbreaking blend of hardboiled cop show and isometric RPG. Solve a massive, open ended case in a unique urban fantasy setting. Chase down leads, interrogate suspects, or just get lost exploring the gorgeously rendered city of Revachol. What kind of cop you are — is up to you.
Beyond Blue
Release Date: Early 2019
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Venture with Mirai and her crew far below the surface of our largely uncharted ocean in an experience that explores the awesome wonder and unbounded mystery that infuses our planet’s beating blue heart.
Untitled Goose Games
Release Date: Early 2019
Platform: PC, Nintendo Switch
Untitled Goose Game is a slapstick-stealth-sandbox, where you are a goose let loose on an unsuspecting village. Make your way around town, from peoples’ back gardens to the high street shops to the village green, setting up pranks, stealing hats, honking a lot, and generally ruining everyone’s day.
Void Bastards
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Inspired by BioShock and System Shock 2, Void Bastards is a revolutionary new strategy-shooter that will test your wits as well as exercise your aim. Can you lead the misfit prisoners of the Void Ark through the derelict spaceships and myriad dangers of the Sargasso Nebula?
Ori and the Will of the Wisps
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Ori and the Blind Forest is one of my favourite games of all time. I can’t wait to experience what the sequel has to offer
Embark on an adventure with all new combat and customization options while exploring a vast, exotic world encountering larger than life enemies and challenging puzzles. Seek help from discoverable allies on your path to unravel Ori’s true destiny.
The Occupation
Release Date: 5th February 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
The Occupation is a first-person, fixed-time, investigative thriller set in North West England on 24th October 1987. You play as a journalist in a detailed, systems-driven world where people react to your actions and time is your biggest enemy.
New World
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
A lot of info is still quite sparse as it’s all under wraps and NDA’s, but I’ve been playing the closed alpha and I’m looking forward to it quite a bit!
New World is a massively multiplayer, open-ended sandbox MMO set in a cursed and supernatural version of Northern America in the 17th century. Players can be anything they want from farmers to soldiers to lone wolves, as what you do, and whom you work with or against is entirely up to you. The land of New World will be evolving one that changes with the seasons, weather, and time of day.
In the Valley of Gods
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
From the creators of Firewatch, In the Valley of Gods is a single-player first-person adventure. Explore a remote and ancient valley in the Egyptian desert, uncovering treasure and treachery in pursuit of a discovery that could bring you fame and fortune—or leave you for dead, buried beneath the sands.
Tunic
Release Date: TBD Fingers crossed for 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One
TUNIC is an action adventure about a tiny fox in a big world. Explore the wilderness, discover spooky ruins, and fight terrible creatures from long ago.
Sea of Solitude
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4
This game disappeared for a while, but now it’s back and being published by EA, so I guess you could argue it’s not an indie game but what ever. It looks interesting and is fairly unknown, so I’m including it.
When humans get too lonely, they turn into monsters. That’s what happened to Kay. Now only monsters can change her back.
Creaks
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, Xbox One, PS4, Nintendo Switch
Creaks is an upcoming horror platform adventure game by Amanita Design where you will “Meet your new neighbours.”
That’s basically all we really know… But it looks cool.
Lost Ark
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
It’s actually already out in open beta in Korea, but there is an English version in the works.
Lost Ark, a 3D massively-multiplayer online role-playing game offers an immersive action-centric playing style and adopts a non-targeting combat system and a dynamic quarter-view angle to maximize the game experience.
Read more at https://www.mmorpg.com/lost-ark#XgqiGprVreB38pKP.99
Torchlight Frontiers
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC, PS4, Xbox One
Torchlight Frontiers is an upcoming free-to-play dungeon crawler hack and slash role-playing game and the third game in the Torchlight series.
You can sign up for a chance to be part of the closed beta on their website by creating an account!
Inmost
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
A Knight sworn to the forces of darkness. A creature which feeds on pain. A stranger searching for answers. One interconnecting tale of suffering, sacrifice, and the young girl in the middle of it all.
Ooblets
Release Date: “Soonish”
Platform: PC, Xbox One
Ooblets is a farming, town life, and creature collection game inspired by Pokémon, Harvest Moon, and Animal Crossing. Manage your farm, grow and train your ooblets, explore strange lands, and have dance-offs!
Among Trees
Release Date: 2019
Platform: PC
A small vibrant survival sandbox, Among Trees is set in a colorful wilderness world teeming with life.
Mineko’s Night Market
Release Date: 2019
Platform: Nintendo Switch, PC
A whimsical adventure/simulation game where you play as Mineko, a curious girl who has just arrived at her new home on a peculiar Japanese-inspired island overrun by cats. Discover the mysteries of the island while crafting crafts, friending friends, eating eats, and… catting cats.
I think that probably just about sums up this list. This year is certainly looking very strong in the indie scene and we should be getting some truly amazing projects to play.
-Will
Disco Elysium, The Occupation and In the Valley of the Gods – I’m so there!
I feel like The Occupation has been coming for so long now. Really interested to see how it turns out.
It looked pretty good at Rezzed a while back so hopefully we’re in for a treat. 🙂
I’m still not convinced that My Friend Pedro is even a real game rather than a massive piss-take by Devolver. There are some really cool looking horror games coming this year that I want to have a go at.
I guess you can never quite tell with Devolver. I’m too much of a wimp to play horror games.