Video Gamers Podcast - The MOST ANTICIPATED Indie Games of 2025 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: March 12, 2025

Indie gaming chat has never been so fun! Gaming hosts Ryan, Ace and John break down their TOP most anticipated indie games of 2025, and you don’t want to miss out on any of these! It’s another can’t miss indie gaming episode from your favorite video game podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/  Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod  Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q   Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I thought you'd be dead by now. Get to the theater and experience the movie audiences are calling. An adrenaline rush of a good time. It's a big screen blast. Find a badass. I know, all right? Nova Kane, now playing. I'm going back to university for zero dollar delivery fee.

Up to five percent off orders and five percent Uber credits back on rides. Not whatever you think university is for. Get Uber One for students. With deals this good, everyone wants to be a student. Join for just $4.99 a month. Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Today we're going to cover the most anticipated indie games for 2025. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Ryan and joining me, he's been living Mr. Sleepyman in real life while on vacation all last week. It's Ace.

Oh man, I just feel like I just woke up. What do you mean we're on a podcast? Wake up, dude. Come on. We're ready to go. Alrighty. And then he's forcing me to probably play a game that's first in his anticipation list, so he's no longer first in my heart.

It's John. Hey everybody. Uh, Ryan, first of all, you should be thanking me for that. That is my number one most anticipated game of this year. And I think it's going to surprise you, dude. I, I, you know what? I hope so. I hope this game is amazing and I hope I love it.

Uh, so in the event that you don't, I hope you have the courtesy to lie about it at least and don't hurt my feelings. There you go. There you go. Man, I'm excited guys. So first I want to get off on, what have you guys been up to? What do you, what have you been playing? Shamefully to say I've not been playing an indie. I have been absolutely cracking out on Monster Hunter Wilds, man. It is an absolute blast. Me and our good buddy Gregasaurus just went ham on it and put like 36 hours and two days.

I will say he's been sending me a different statistical things about about and other games that I am currently playing. Like why are you playing that? Come come play Monster Hunter. Man, what are you doing? Come on. He's getting close. He's going to win me over soon enough. Yeah, it's interesting. I've never had any interest in the Monster Hunter games, but Jack with with odd bug when we did our segment with him, he really turned me onto it. Like just the concept that you can sort of like play as long as you want, but also just kind of like get your little fix every once in a while that is like right up my alley these days. So I may end up jumping on there.

That's so happy to have you at the hunt. John. There you go. And you create your cool animals and all that stuff. But yeah, awesome. Well, you know what? A little bit about what we're going to do today is we're doing most anticipated Indies for 2025 and I'm beyond excited. What do you guys think? There it is. Dude, I'm so stoked to be joining for this episode in particular. Ace and I chat a lot offline about this,

but I think probably out of everybody who speaks on the show, ace and me probably have the closest, uh, most aligned sort of game tastes. And what I was looking at my most anticipated games of the year, basically they're all Indies. So this is, this is going to be awesome. That was the way of the future, baby. I agree. I agree.

Th th there's something to be said about it. Cause, um, Indies and you know, I'm sure AC you can speak on this a little more too, is there just, there's an ability for an indie developer to kind of do a little bit more than anyone else can do. They don't have the budget. They don't have, uh, the big studio and the large staff, but they do have that very wide spectrum of creativity and in that realm to where they can just explore and try things that otherwise, you know, some board meeting with a bunch of suits is

going to knock down and say, no, that's not Mass Appeal We don't want that. And, and, you know, something that could be revolutionary. So I love, and I, and being on this kind of the indie side of things in doing this with you, ACE and, um, and talking with you, John, it's, it's opened me up to a little bit more of this indie world where I'm putting back the, the graphic snob in me and, uh, putting away those big wide worlds to, to these kind of smaller experiences, if you will, that are just something that are, that makes you just kind of hold, hold these types of games a little bit more near and dear to your heart.

I feel like Indies are like, it's like art. When you're looking at it from a certain point of view, maybe you don't get it, but once you like really start to think about it, you're like, wow, this really speaks to me on a level that other thing couldn't. Well, I have such a like perfect example of this too. I'm like a Marvel ride or die kind of guy.

And my wife and I went to go see brave new world, the new captain America movie and super cool fight choreography. And I like simp for captain America so hard, like you could put them in anything and I'd watch it basically, but bro, it seems like the bigger budget stuff. It there's like this weird situation where it just all becomes like the same. Like when, when, when MCU was young, like each, each, uh, brand within it had its kind of own identity and now like, dude, this was like a cut and paste movie. Like everything was so absolutely

predictable. And then Sarah and I went and saw this little indie movie called companion. And oh my God, what a breath of fresh air. I think the thing that indies have over the big budget studios is that the creators are like laser focused on the vision and the overall kind of like. Ness universe of the, uh, the universe that they know exactly what they want out of it and they still have the freedom to go. No, you, you stay in your own life. Yeah, exactly. Love it. All right. Okay guys. So let's get started, man. We got a lot of games to cover today.

I'm super excited. I think I'm going to, I'm going to take the mantle off the bat and I'm going to go with the big one. Gosh, I hope I get to play this game soon. And I'm so, I'm so take the mantle off the bat and I'm gonna go with the big one. Gosh, I hope I get to play this game soon and I'm so excited for it. I credit Josh for making me play the first iteration of this game and I'm gonna go with Subnautica 2. It was one of those, it was one of those just kind of survival, amazing worlds that you just, you just get lost in. You know, I would, I would like dream of the ocean and dream of bladder fish and dream of, uh, of diving deep down in my Cyclops and getting lost and losing batteries and then having to swim around and getting eaten.

So there's a, there's just something to be said for a game like that that just grips you and holds on tight. And so, man, I cannot wait for, you know, for this kind of next release of this world, whatever it may be. The funny thing with Subnautica 2 is it's actually Subnautica 3 too, which is kind of funny. Right? I had no idea.

The multiplayer aspect that they're at, you know, promising with this is going to make this game so much fun, man. Oh gosh. Is this, do you think this is a game where you'd need to play the first one to, to appreciate the second one? I don't think so. I think you could understand Subnautica pretty easily by jumping into the second one. The first one definitely had a story, but I don't think it would be paramount to playing the game. Yeah, I think you could, yeah, it's definitely something that, um, you could cover the, you know,

the story pretty quickly and just get on, get a kind of, uh, uh, cliff notes of it for you there real quick. But overall, the, the main story is just your survival and your encounters along the way, which is just such a cool aspect of that game. So I wouldn't I wouldn't think you need to play the first to play the second. Yeah, like out of all the game, I mean, I've been listening first time caller, longtime listener guys. I've been I've been listening to this show for quite some time.

You guys have been like my workout buddies for a couple of years at this point. And you have spoken so enthusiastically about this game that like, it's always kind of been on my backlog, but I've, I don't know, something just hasn't pushed me over the edge to go do it. But a second one definitely is, you know, interesting for some reason, I ended up favoring the second game in most series. So, well they learned what they did wrong and they can make it better. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. All right. What you got for us, Ace? Oh man.

I cannot tell you how excited I am for this one. I backed this game on Kickstarter, I think a year or two ago. Oh, and it's from my favorite genre. you may know the metroidvania genre It's from a indie studio called Halbert Studios, and it's a game called Mariachi legends oh Man, I'm so excited. You have no idea how excited for this one. I am During the day you play more and more niche down the further into this we go. But in this one, uh, Mary after you legends is a Metrovania, as I said, where during the day you're going to play as a detective named Pablo Cruz,

solving mysteries and you know, working with your department and things like that, but during the night you become the avatar of the Death Goddess hunting down these Mexican cartel bosses and serving justice as it would be in the night, and it's just so cool, man. I mean, it definitely has an old school Metroidvania vibe to it with that kind of art style with a little bit of the kind of grainy depth, you know, and the combat and it looks like, yeah, and the kind of the whips and the way the attacks look. I mean, there's definitely something to it. I mean, man, that's cool that you're in on the ground floor, which is such a cool aspect of the indie world is that they are

somewhat attainable. Like you can, you can almost be part of the development of that game in which, which kind of, yeah, you, you become like part of the game, which is, which is awesome. Yeah. And we've even found that with like our outreach, like dude, the indie developers are like stoked to talk about their games. You know, it's not, it's not, it's not just numbers on a spreadsheet to them. There's like heart in it.

Yeah, yeah. They're like, oh, you want you want to hear about it? Yeah, absolutely. We'll come on. Love it. That's a good one, man. I know you got a soft spot in your heart for Metroidvanias, but this one actually looks pretty cool. But I'm winning over folks.

You heard it here first. Slowly, slowly, but surely is aces ticking the way on me with indie games. What's what you got for us, John? OK, so for anybody who's been a part of the discord, I apologize in advance because I've been spamming this game for like the last like three months. But my number one tied for number one, most anticipated

game for this year is a game called re animal. It is made by Tarsier studios and they are the makers of the original little nightmares and little nightmares too. And I'm going to, going to just say little nightmares was a good game. Little nightmares too, in my opinion is a masterpiece on just about every possible metric. And what they are doing with ReAnimal looks like they're leveling up in every possible way. Do yourselves a favor, check out that trailer.

It looks freaking incredible. And by incredible, do you mean ridiculously scary and just yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, you got it. That's what I meant. Yeah. I watched it. I'm like, Oh, I guess I'm just not going to sleep tonight. You know, no big deal.

Yeah. Josh said the same thing. Josh goes, okay, well, nightmare fuel. Great. Thank you. Those devs are great at that, man. Just making the scariest thing you can imagine. Well, dude, in the best thing about them is like, there's, there's a lot of games

now there that like kind of like over rely on the gore and the shock factor. It's to the point where you almost get like numb to it. And like, man, little nightmares too, is the perfect example. They do so much with just the ambience and the sound design that like it gives you, I'm actually getting chills, like just talking about it. Like it is, it is perfection in my opinion in, uh, in game design. Plus they know how long the game should be. They don't go too long in the tooth.

They're like these short little digestible games that you can probably finish in 10 hours, experience a bunch of new game mechanics in that short time and a wonderful encapsulated story that just sucks you in. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, there's a thing to, I mean, there's a draw for that in a market for games that aren't 30, 40, 50, 60 hours.

You know, you don't have to have that long time. And then as far as the gore stuff goes You know I've seen him it doesn't bother me to see a body blown in half or I've seen it a million times and To me, it's just kind of almost lazy writing and lady lazy creation When you have to create this atmosphere that takes so much more thought and depth You know watching the trailer you see they're in this attic and there's little bits of light that shine through and you see the dust particles and it just creates that kind of eerie world where you're like, you feel like

you're a part of it. You're like, okay, this is, this is real. So that's just, uh, you know, it's cool when they go that kind of extra step and not just do just, oh yeah, let's just throw some blood all over the place and body parts, you know, well, there is a place for that. It's really cool to see people put in the thought for some outlast. Right. Yeah. They're the ones who do it well. I will say, there's definitely a time and a place for it. Love it. All right.

So, uh, I guess we'll go back to me for one. I'm excited for this one. Um, it's, it's weird cause it's almost like a, uh, it's like a nostalgic piece for me. I'm going with one, Josh and I had talked about it. Ace kind of reminded me of this game that I honestly totally forgot about, but I'm going to go with one called mixtape. Um, the trailer is, you know, and John C exactly like I forgot about it, but I rewatched the trailer and I'm like, Oh my gosh, I totally forgot about this game. Cause it was, um, it was just one that it, it's, you know, even the trailer, it's like

a throwback to like old school trailers. It's like in a world where, you know, and it's, and it's throwing you back and, and, uh, it plays all this old school music and it's kind of explorative, uh, as you kind of figure out what's going on, you know, throughout their lives and throughout this world. And so I'm excited to see more excited to kind of see what they come up with with this game, but, uh, yeah, I mean, it's, I'm, uh, undoubtedly a sucker for a good trailer, uh, all, uh, old school red fall way back in the day.

Did not, did not pan out. And I will admit that that one ACE remembers from when I picked that up when I first, yeah, that one definitely blew up, but I'm a sucker for a good trailer. So hopefully this one doesn't disappoint like red fall did. Cause I'm pretty excited. I mean, mixed tape is from what I remember. It's a narrative story-driven game, right?

Yes. About nostalgia and similar to like life is strange. It's kind of, oh, it's true. Those up. Yeah. I mean, if you just create like killer music and just good, it's like, it just seems like a, like a good vibe game. It does. It seems like a good nostalgia trip, good vibe kind of game. Like, man, where did these times go? I say as the 25 year old in the room.

Gosh, you don't want to, you don't know how we are. For the record, I am the oldest. Gosh. You don't want to, you don't know how we are. For the record, I am the oldest. I could, I could use a good nostalgia trip. I may be checking that out. There, there you go. All right. What's he got Ace? Oh man.

You already know who this one is. It's our good buddy, Mr. Sleepy Man. Mr. Sleepy Man. Buddy, Mr. Sleepy Man. Mr. Sleepy Man. That song was after that trailer and I played that demo, dude, that song was stuck in my head for days.

Dude, I don't think I've ever, I've never had a song that I've never actually heard stuck in my head, but. It's just, just third party, like just embedding it into your brain. It's an earworm. I'll tell you that. There you go. But, uh, Mr. Bad Leaping Man, as we know, is a solo dev done by, uh, Devin Santee.

It's a 3d sandbox platformer with, you speak, talking about nostalgia, uh, you know, like Banjo Kazooie style, open world, it's insane. It's a fever dream. It's kind of scary too. And sometimes some of the stuff. Yeah. Some of the stuff is a little spooky.

Uh, John, I know you haven't seen too much about it, but, uh, it's definitely it's, it's super throwback to like N 64 cartoony, outlandish graphics and like, almost like Nickelodeon cartoon style look to it, but it's, it's goofy and it pays attention to kind of what you're doing in the world. You know, where ace and I talked about it when we talked on the last indie episode, if you skip the cut scenes, you know, he goes, Oh, I guess you don't care what I have to say. All right. All right. That's pretty funny. It's pretty funny. He's like, Oh,

you don't want to hear me, you know? And he just starts giving you a gruff for that. So that's pretty clever. It's a time loop. It kind of feeling except for, uh, I guess you don't remember things in a time loop, but still like felt like that. Yeah. So the problem is, is that as somebody who sleeps like a maximum of two to three hours a night, like for years at a time, I'm like prejudice against the title, like that he gets to feel sleepy. So I may end up skipping that one.

I'll take the cliff notes on that one and you guys can keep singing it though. I like the song. Maybe that'll, maybe that'll put you to sleep. Just loop you guys singing Mr. Sleeper mail. Oh man. All right. Let's, let's, let's, uh, in lieu of you going to sleep now, what do you, what do you got for us, John? Oh man, if I could, I would, uh, so I'll throw, I'll throw one out of left field for you guys too. And, um, this one, there hasn't really been a lot in the way of gameplay that's come out yet,

but it's combining two things that I have a really strong fondness for. I grew up in SoCal and was a really, really big fan of Disney and Disney properties and sort of the old school hand drawn Disney animation. It will always have a special place in my heart. And I feel like it's shaped a lot of what animation is today. I mean, it based animation exists in its current state because of the Disney

legacy and in survival horror, because I like creepy stuff and watching people die slowly. Whoa. All right. Fictionally. There is a game coming out called by sweet Carol that combines those two genres in a really interesting way. Uh, again, it's limited stuff. That's come out so far, really interesting way. Uh, again, it's limited stuff that's come out so far, but we have sort of that old hand-drawn Disney aesthetic sort of Circa sleeping beauty era, maybe sleeping beauty, beauty in the beast era,

combined with this really dark, moody kind of, uh, little nightmares sort of atmosphere. And it just looks great. Like, I cannot wait. I can just see so much fun to be had with the mixing of the really, really bubbly kind of, uh, you know, Disney vibe and then juxtaposing that with this dark gritty, you know, sort of resident evil style survival horror kind of theme. It looks, it looks really cool and unique.

And honestly, I mean, like, dude, we have been talking for what? 20 minutes now. And like, we've covered a huge span of genres. Indie does it better than everyone, but seeing something new, seeing something fresh is like not very common. And this felt feels new and fresh. I haven't seen anything like this. It definitely does look, you can see it in that design like you were talking

almost like OG like Anastasia or that kind of grainy look but it's got a little bit of pops of color but it does have that dark kind of nature to it. I also do want to say, I do think it's quite funny that within 30 seconds you said that, uh, all this stuff about Disney and then you talked about like body parts and dismembering and all these things. So I love how those things went together within 30 seconds. That's probably the sleep deprivation sleeping or talking there. There you go. No, no, but've completely forgotten about this one

until you mentioned it because, uh, I didn't remember the name at all, but as soon as I pulled it up, I was like, Oh my gosh, I remember this. It has an unmistakable videos. It reminded me of a, I don't know if you've heard of a game called the withering rooms. Oh yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Very much. But with this morning, unique Disney cartoon aesthetic and it's super impressive, man. I agree. I'm stoked for it. That's and that's, you know, honestly, as a game design kind of style,

make make these games that are somewhat adult content, but designed in a way that was animated from like those adults childhood, you know, to give them that kind of warm fuzzy feeling, but then they can kind of be adults playing like adult content, you know, that kind of does go together. It's a smart way to do kind of game design. Simp too. But that's something that Andor did particularly well is that I thought, I think they took sort of like the really authentic visual style of the old Star Wars where everything's practical and you know, the sets are sort of like retro future, like kind of almost, I don't know, almost vapor punk or whatever. Uh, but they adulted up the storyline and, um, you know, it's interesting to me that you haven't seen more of that happen with the Disney stuff. I mean, it's like, it's ubiquitous.

Everybody knows everybody grew up with it. Basically. I mean, like, yeah, AC or the youngest guy in the room, but I'm sure you've seen some of the Disney, you know, traditional animated stuff. And so seeing, seeing them take that style and like you said, Ryan, bringing it to a more mature audience, I don't know, man. It's got me locked. They've got my money.

Love it. Yeah, I'm gonna definitely have to check it out. I mean, I'm a big Disney guy too, so that one will definitely be on my list. And I'm glad, I mean, this is why we're here, because I had no clue about this one. Ace, you know all things Indie, so you kind of had a little bit of a inkling of what that game is but uh yeah I'm sure a lot of people have no idea and they're gonna look it up and and be

ready for it so awesome well I am going to come back with my uh third game right after this break. With the Fizz loyalty program you get rewarded just for having a mobile plan. You know, for texting and stuff. And if you're not getting rewards like extra data and dollars off with your mobile plan, you're not with Fizz. Switch today. Conditions apply. Details at Fizz.ca.

All right, I am back here to give you probably everybody's most anticipated game in the indie world. And Ace is like making a face right now. He's like, yeah, right. He's like, get out of here. This one I am very excited for. It is from the creators of No Man's Sky. And this one goes by a little name of Light No Fire.

Yep, yep, yep, yep, yep, yep. This one, man, if you wanna like ride dragons, you wanna go in a procedurally generated world where you can just do anything and all this, you know, it's just, this one, for the way it looks, I'm always surprised when I see these cause I'm like that's an indie what that's an indie game and it just it shows how wide and that spectrum is of indie games how many you know have you have these little kind of pixel art kind of you know teeny little 12 megabit

games and then you have these monstrosities that, that are just blow your mind that it's an indie and, uh, there's, there's nothing else to say other than just, it's, it looks amazing. I'm, I'm very, very excited for this. Uh, I don't know. What do you guys think? I mean, based on the absolute monster that is no man's sky coming from the same developer, I think we're in for a massive treat because this developer has definitely

learned his lesson from no man's sky. That's not to give you a half baked product. So that's what I learned. Cause I, I was at best buy buying a physical copy. I bought a hard copy of no man's sky on day one. I went to three best buys to find it. I got it. I could barely play the game.

And I was like, this is ridiculous. You know, I was such a big turnoff. They made a bunch of changes. They learned from their issues and their faults. And from what I've heard now, I haven't gone back, but it's, I mean, it's like out of this world. Bro. Get it? I love it when devs respond to the to the audience feedback like that man. That is so so welcome.

Like they did it with Final Fantasy 14. The Sonic the Hedgehog movies famously did it man. I mean like bro if Star Wars and Marvel would just get on that bandwagon, listen to the fans. We have the answer I swear. Just listen to us, please. No, don't start. This is gonna turn into a Star Wars podcast real quick. I have a lot to say about that. We'll stick to gaming. But yeah, no, like you said, man,

it's to be, have enough humility and to be humble enough as a developer to listen to the people saying like this isn't it man you guys need to fix this and then they go and they do and then they make it 10 times better and everyone's like yes this is what we wanted thank you you know they learn from all that and then they're coming coming back with this you know this fantasy world um i just think i mean it's just it's it's not as much of an undertaking with No Man's Sky to where it's just like millions and untold numbers of worlds. This is an earth-sized world, but it's all

procedurally generated and there's just, that allows them to put so much more depth into those designs and into that generation. So yeah man, I am man, I'm, I'm stoked for this one. I have a feeling, uh, when it comes out, it's going to take a lot of my time and hopefully it does. Cause that means it'll be really good. Yeah, man. It, I'm stoked. So very stoked for that one, man. Love it. All right. What you got for us, bud? I know like it's real hard to get people interested in these kinds of games for some reason, know, like it's really hard to get people interested in these kind of games for some reason.

Oh, I'm going to be talking about a little game called mouse PI for hire, which is a boomer shooter kind of game, which if you don't know what a boomer shooter game is basically doom, you know, doom is a boomer shooter. That is what the genre is. I had to look it up because nobody knows. Nobody knows what it's called, but it is a boomer shooter with a 1930s rubber hose aesthetic, where once again, you will be playing as a detective, but this

detective is a mouse and you'll be, go ahead. I was going to say, you know, you mentioned that, like, you don't know who's heard of this game, but bro, I bet you'd be surprised man with his, with his big of a runaway hit as Cuphead was like there is a there is a market for this dude. I see this game going far and I think this game is going to find a big audience. I mean based off what I've seen and how impressive all the animation is just from the trailers alone. This game is doing justice because the games that take on that style only do well when they put the effort forth to actually make it accurate to that 1930s style.

Dude, and it looks gorgeous. It does. It nails that aesthetic. Absolutely, man. It looks gorgeous. If you're going to do that look, you have to do it well. And they certainly did it well. I know I watched your video Ace as far as covering it and I just don't know, I mean I don't know what your thing is with rats and mice and whatnot, but like you just somehow have a knack for finding any game that ever includes them. I may send you one, a mouse or something for Christmas, but it does have that cool look where it just, it's one of those that's, But it does have that cool look where it just, it's one of those that's, there's not a ton to it, I don't think, but that doesn't mean it's not gonna be fun.

That doesn't mean it's not gonna be enjoyable and you'll get your 10 hours out of it. And that's what's so neat about these indie games is, a lot of times they're like 10 bucks, 15 bucks. We played Headliners, that was $7. I played it three, four sessions. I more than got my $7 worth, you know, and there's something to be said about that with these types of indie games, but this one definitely does look, it does look pretty neat.

I mean, plus it's not only just the, uh, the shooting, you're also a detective. So you'll be gathering clues to find your way to the boss or whatever else. There's not a whole lot of information, so I don't exactly know what you're going to be doing with the story is, but man, does this game look good? I'm just imagining some like human guy. He's like, this is the detective. He's a mouse. Did you know he's a mouse? Oh man. That's great. All right. Uh, John, let's,

let's hear your rat or mouse based indie game next. I do want to give a shout out to, uh, to Jack and John over at odd bug for tales of iron, tales of iron two, great games. My next game is sadly not mouse themed that I know of. is sadly not mouse themed that I know of. But, uh, but their studio happens to be named after a rabbit. It is hair brain studios, new game coming out called graft. And what I'm going to say about graft is as soon as you get done with this

episode and listen to five other episodes, and then between that and listening to yet another five episodes, take a quick break and watch the, uh, the graph trailer. If nothing else, the song in that trailer is going to hook you. It's, it's some of the best like teaser music I've probably ever heard in a game. Um, but aside from that, this is kind of like a top-down, I don't know what you'd call it. Would you call it, Ryan, I know you've seen the trailer, would you call this like a survival horror-y type game,

like a cyberpunk sort of, I'm having trouble putting into words what I would call the actual aesthetic, but I would call it cyberpunk meets horror. And again, what I look for, especially in these like preview phases, we have no idea what these things are actually going to play like. And frankly, I think that's a plus. Like when I look at a game and I go, oh, that's this, you know, that's street fighter meets, I don't know, street fighter meets Hades or something.

I don't like that. Like I, I want to, I want to be curious about what I'm getting into. And I, and I am with this, but what I can tell you is that the trailer made me feel something. You know, I like walking away from that little one minute clip. I go, Oh God, I want to, I want to know more about this universe. And it looks fantastic. It does.

And I will second the music, uh, is some of the best I've heard. I mean, just from the trailer. It's it's some of the best I've heard in years from whole game soundtracks like it. I'm I am beyond stoked just to hear what the rest they have on that end. I would say I do agree it does give that little bit of cyberpunk but like almost like maybe cyberpunk alien. Oh yeah. Yeah. Like something like that to where you're kind of in that, in that kind of sci-fi space world where, you know,

stuff's coming at you and good luck brother, you know, something like that. Kind of like the nineties version of what the future would look like or something. Yeah, that's a really good description. I like it. At least like what they thought it would, thought it would look like or something. Yeah, that's a really good description. I like at least, at least like what they thought it would, thought it would look like, you know, I wish it did man. Right. Yeah. But no, this one, this one definitely does look cool. I'm, I'm, uh, I'm thoroughly excited to see kind of where this one goes. Um, and it's, it just shows too, how much,

how much the, the music in the sound affects a game. I mean, like you see those videos in those movies where they just take the sound away or they input sound in like another kind of video clip and it totally changes the mood of what is there. And so it shows how important that genuinely is to a game. And good audio, good sound makes a difference to a game and good audio good sound makes a difference you know in a game it makes all the difference man yeah like for me usually the sort of

cyberpunk dystopian horror doesn't usually you know catch my attention as much just not my thing usually but I saw this I was like this is special I agree it doesn't even have rats. It doesn't. I mean, we don't know. There might be rats. There may be rats. Let's not. This is a dystopia.

There could be rats. There'll be, yeah, they'll be crawling across, crawling across the pipes and whatnot. They're like, there they are! Nah, they did it. Right with the air, rats! That's gotta get, yeah! Well, being that I am not an indie aficionado, I'm tapped down on three guys.

So I'm just going to hand the baton over to you, ace on the next game. Oh yeah. All right. Cause I'm sure I have your list and there's some very good ones. So I don't want to poach you and I'm just going to let you go, uh, go on your next one here. All right. I think this is probably, I'm poaching this one from John too, unfortunately, but

we have this one shared. Uh, but this is probably everyone's most anticipated indie. If you played the first one, and that would be the full release of Hades too. Hades too, you know, famously developed by super giant games. Hades was a surprise hit for the year it came out in just, as I've said before, absolutely set the standard of quality for what we expect out of Roguelikes with this style and this genre. And it's amazing. Yeah, I honestly, sorry, I didn't mean to cut you out there.

At this point, it's like, this is one of those games where I'm like, can you even call this an indie anymore? I mean, like, God, it's so good. So popular. It's like, it's a masterpiece. It's so polished. It's so beautiful. There's so many like spoken lines, unique pieces of art and dialogues. Like this is, this is a labor of love. How did they afford to make this? And for 29 99. Well, dude, and like, like the fact that like, I'm one of these guys where I,

I generally, unless I'm like really dialed into a game, I'm like hitting X to get through all the dialogue as quick as possible. And this game isn't real rich on like cut scenes. I don't think there's many cut scenes at all in the first one anyways, but the dialogue is so like witty and engaging that like I listen to every single line of dialogue in it. It was such a good game, the first one. That's cool. So I think I told you this, John, I have yet to play Hades. So I am excited. I think what I don't know, what do you guys think? Should I check out Hades first? If I was a newcomer?

Absolutely. Dude, it is a, it is a masterpiece and it actually has a very specific purpose to like, uh, switch is still one of my favorite systems. Uh, prior to coming on the podcast and meeting with you fine gentlemen, I used to travel a lot for work and for, for pleasure, but traveling a lot, like my wife and I were traveling at least a couple of times a month and spending a lot of time in airplanes and airports and stuff. And Hades might be the ultimate, like travel slash short time game.

You can like pick it up over and over again and play it as long as you want or as short as you want and have like a memorable worthwhile experience with it. And bro, the I mean, for a rogue like it is absolute perfection. There's so many different ways that you can approach every single level and boss. I generally tend to favor you, Ryan, where I'm like, don't want to die a hundred times fighting millennia like that that upsets me like I Get upset at the game Hades dude. I plowed right through that to the end man That's the one thing I've got on Josh is that I beat Hades and he did not Take the time right here, we're gonna save that and send it to Josh.

I love it, that's cool. I didn't think about the fact that you could play it on the Switch. So that to me, Josh is chiming in here. Uh. Yeah. He fired him up. Sorry, we're a little behind the scenes there, but anyways, um, I, I do get late at night.

I get, you get sleepy Ryan and I don't want to sit at the computer. I don't want to sit on the couch. I go and I lay in bed and I doom scroll, uh, my life away for, you know, half an hour door an hour before I am ready to fall asleep. So the option to sit and play like such a substantial game in bed with my switch. Like that would be, that would be money for me. So I, I'll tell you one thing right now. I will download Hades today and I'm going to play tonight.

Sick. It's going to set a whole new standard for what you expect from a rogue leg. Yeah, I'm amped up cause then, and then I'm going to beat Hades before Josh does as well. So we'll have to, in the off pod chatter, he says reinstalling Hades right now. Oh, love it. Yeah. You then John, what'd you get? Yeah. So I knew you, one of us was going to cover it and that's awesome. Um, I don't want to dive too deep into this next one.

So I'm just going to like throw out like a little special mention for me, but little nightmares three again, big fan of the first two part three is taken on by a different student. I think it's actually Bandai that's doing the third one. So I don't, I don't even know if you can call it indie anymore. Um, the, the previews still look pretty, pretty good and pretty faithful to the originals, but, uh, you know, I'm not really sure whether to call that an indie anymore, just like kingdom come deliverance to, I'm not really sure whether to call that in India or not, but the game that I am most excited about right

up there with three animal kind of fits into the niche where you guys were talking about, like how can you have these little simple pixel art games and then also still call this an indie game is Claire obscura expedition 33. Oh my golly gosh, that game looks so good. I can't believe an indie studio pulled this off. And as somebody who like, you know, I've had a lot of wonderful moments in my life.

I've traveled all over the world. I have built and sold a successful business. My wife is my best friend. I'm thankful every day for her and for this awesome life I have. But some of my favorite life experiences were playing Final Fantasy games. Like I put those right up there with like real life, you know, IRL type experiences that I've had. Yeah. And this game based on what I've seen so far

looks more Final Fantasy than Final Fantasy. I've the, the aesthetic of it, the mood, the fit, you know, I know Ryan, you're not a big fan of turn-based combat. You'll get there, son. The older you get, the more you'll appreciate it. Yeah, you'll grow out of it. But, uh, it, it, it looks like it was basically designed for me and I'm very thankful for that. If you guys haven't checked it out, please check out the trailer. That game looks absolutely fantastic. And my early call here, game of the year. I bet. Wow.

Bold. That's a, it's a bowl clean. That's a bowl clean my friend. So I just pulled it up for the first time ever. I, you guys have said it so many times. You've told me to look it up. I forget every time. Yeah. This is Indy. This is right. This is incredible looking. Yeah. Right. How can you put Bolatro and this in the same general category? I look at this and I see, like you said, final fantasy, but also like, it brings me back to like Xenoblade Chronicles. If you ever played those,

it's so beautiful to look at. It's so stunning. And I just know the combat is going to be incredible. And something, something that it does really well that I loved from the old, like I know I actually got into Final Fantasy at eight. So I kind of missed seven and the new, the seven remakes haven't really done it for me. Honestly, I got in at eight, but really I peaked like my basically like my Renaissance period for gaming was final fantasy 10, 10 and even 10 to as, as cringes, there was a lot of great game dynamics and 10 to, but 10 and 12, man, like the fact that you had these like really kind of like dark undertones that

you know, like it's the world in threat. Like, you know, it's every every major game every Final Fantasy game basically has the whole world is going to die as it's But you also go to these like wonderful worlds where it's like fantastical and you can like just go there and it's almost becomes like a cozy, you know, where it's like, man, I, I just want to like smile and look at my pixelated sunset for a while and play cards with this dude on the beach or go fishing or whatever. And, uh, the new final fantasies of, uh, 15, 15 got there kinda, but 16 big miss for me, man, 16 and the seven remakes for me, man. It's just like, they, they tried to double down on the, on the dark, you know, gloomy aesthetic. And that, that just doesn't say final fantasy to me. This Clara Obscura looks like it checks all those boxes.

And I highly encourage, I know you guys have talked about it ad nauseam on the show, but for all you lurkers out there who haven't drank the Kool-Aid yet, now's your opportunity. The Kool-Aid is delicious. It does. It has that look. I mean, I am a self-proclaimed hater of the turn-based combat. To me, I like to make my decisions real time on the fly.

In the moment when I see the axe flying at me, I like to jump out of the way and try to attack or shoot an attack, do something like that. I don't like to sit and select what I wanna do and then wait for everybody's turn. So when you play chess with somebody, do you just slap all the pieces at the opponent? These are all my moves right there. Yeah.

Deal with it. No, that's why I play checkers. Ah, okay, this makes sense now this makes sense uh but yeah i'm actually you know for someone who's not excited with that world in that type of game i will say that that this one has piqued my interest it is something you know hopefully it's not just because i have to play it but uh i i do think that it's it's not just because I have to play it but uh I Do think that it's it's something that they've done a good job creating a world that is enticing It's almost exhilarating like the look of it. It's just amazing It's it's something that we haven't seen in a long time

Like you said, it's kind of is that that throwback to like the real Final Fantasy games that give you that feeling So I'm excited, man. I don't know a ton about it like you do, but from what I have looked at and researched on it, it looks pretty sweet. Game of the year. I'm calling it game of the year. I can't wait to replay that later. It's going to be a trash fire.

All right. All righty. Well, we'll run a little short on time here. I think we're gonna get one more each I'm gonna go with one We won't spend too much time on this because the more we say it the longer it will take and then it won't be this Year, and I'm sure you already all know what we're gonna go with Don't and I'm gonna go with silk song Five more years, I don't even go with silk song. The curse continues. Five more years. I almost don't even care anymore. I don't. I'm just gonna keep doing it every year until the game comes out.

That's what's gonna happen. I am a big, I mean, Castlevania. I'm a huge Metroidvania guy, more old school than a lot of the newer stuff. I know Ace, you are obviously a huge Metroidvania guy. More old school than a lot of the newer stuff. I know Ace, you are obviously a huge metroidvania guy. Something about Hollow Knight was just it changed that kind of realm of gaming in metroidvanias and made a lot of copycats, made a lot of people think, okay, these types of games still are alive, these are great, And there's something that they're doing with Silksong that they haven't told us yet that they're taking five million years to accomplish. But you know what? I have all the faith in the world in them. I am very impatient. I want it now. I want it now, but I'll wait, you know, and hopefully it's this year, but I'll wait.

I have no doubt. Go ahead. Like you said with Hollow Knight kind of brought back the interest in the Metroidvania genre. Yes, dude. And he did it so well that we kept getting free content updates and kind of got spoiled with how good Hollow Knight is and how much of it there was. And now team cherries is like, we're not talking to you anymore. We got nothing to say. Look guys, it was and is a really good game,

but man, there are like in that genre, there are, there is a wealth of amazing games. That's probably my favorite genre right now. It's probably one of yours too, if not my favorite. Yeah. But, but dude, I'm playing, I don't know how I slept on it, but thanks to Super Mario 64 on the discord for recommending this, uh,

the Prince of Persia game, the most recent one, dude, so fun. And then ACE, uh, it turned me on to, uh, uh, uh, Ender met Andrew Lilly's and, uh, uh, Magnolia. Oh, yeah. Those, those look fantastic. If you haven't checked out, uh, Ori either the Ori games, games man are those good. They're so good I mean like you got so much to choose from Hi, I have no doubt Hollow Knight or silk song is gonna be a great game. But like man, I If it comes out fine It's like come on well, we'll get excited when it's here, but I'm gonna I'm just gonna say it every year That's my most anticipated for, for the year.

I feel like you're going through the stages of grief here. I met, I met acceptance. Yeah. We're at denial. Petulia denial. You'll get there guys. You'll get there. All right.

What's your last one, Ace? All right, man. How do you guys feel about fixed cameras and tank controls? Oh no. This is a, what I like to call a spiritual successor to Silent Hill and Resident Evil known as Tormented Souls. Interesting. Yeah. It is a, it's a super hard game.

I'll say it is punishing. You can Interesting. Yeah. It is a, it's a super hard game. I'll say it is punishing. You can't save unless you find like, um, a record to put on the tape player and save your progress. So you save too early and you get a bunch of stuff done. You don't find another one. You got in trouble, but I'll just say it's getting a sequel called Tormented Souls 2.

I have no idea where they're going to go with the sequel based on how the first one ended, but the sequel based on how the first one ended, but I'll tell you how the first one started. You play as this girl named Caroline who gets a letter from a hospital that when she opens it, it has a picture of two twins and on the back it says like, I know what you did or something like that. She starts having nightmares until she goes to this hospital. Soon as she walks in, she gets knocked out, wakes up naked in a bathtub,

missing her eye. And then the game just says, go. Yeah. And you unravel this whole mystery behind the twins. What happened to your eye, where you are, what's going on? It's crazy. That's, that's wild. This, uh, I mean, it looks all the, I'm looking at it.

Cause I honestly, I had no clue about this game. Tormented souls. Yeah. So, but these, the, these screenshots are all, I'm wondering, is this all gameplay on the, on the Steve's? Oh yeah. I mean, there's no cutscenes really. It's all gameplay. Again, this is one of those where it's like, dude, I mean, this is almost like a cathedral with these intricate stair railings and kind of gothic style, uh, church aesthetic to it. And I mean, this is another one of those just nods to like, man, this is an indie

game, which is wild to me, but the development looks, looks killer. I'm always down for a good, just kind of spooky, psychological, wild ride. Uh, yeah, I mean, all of the already looking at the pictures, there's like a weird looking doll person thing and like a freezer. And so, yeah. Why are you trying to freak me out, man? I gotta go to bed. Oh, wait till you see the guy in the wheelchair with knives for hands.

Right. Knife hands? Knife hands. Awesome. It's man. Now we're any game with knife hands. I'm in. So you can, you can count me in on that right away. Well, my last one is called knife hands. Oh boy.

My favorite best game. No, I, uh, ACE, I, uh, I eat member berries for like breakfast, lunch, and dinner, man. And like the old school days of fixed camera, silent Hill and resident evil with like the limited resources, man, that just, that, that tickles something in me. That's, uh, that I, that I miss a lot and games have largely moved away from that. So this will probably be one that I check out for sure. Oh, you can't wait to just like try to run into a door and just run to the wall.

I've been doing, man, I've been trying to, I've been trying to play it on keyboard and mouse. And that's what I keep doing. And I was like, no. Right? Yeah. See, I knew, I knew, I remember. I remember. Oh, that's awesome. All right, well, last for the best.

So let's, let's hear it, John. Take. Well, last for the best. So let's let's hear John take us home last for the best. Best for last. Yes, there you go. Attaboy, attaboy. My last one is a game that Josh actually is playing. He's playing the demo right now. And I think it's supposed to come out in a couple of weeks. So if anybody's itching for something to play, you know, kind of on the sooner end of things. playing he's playing the demo right now and I think it's supposed to come out in a couple of weeks so

if anybody's itching for something to play you know kind of on the sooner end of things RIP silk song uh is uh a game called grit and valor and grit and valor uh it looks like uh kind of like a I don't know it again I'm not quite clear on what the gameplay is at this point. I should probably download the, the, uh, the preview, the demo, if I'm being serious. But, uh, but what I can tell you is mechs and mechs are awesome. Like robots. Oh my God, I'm in no matter what.

And, uh, I'm a big warhammer, uh, big Warhammer geek. This looks like pulled straight out of the grim dark future and it looks great. So I mean, really I don't have much to go by other than the aesthetics of the game at this point and that the devs have been like super cool to talk to. But this is one that's right around the corner. I haven't downloaded the demo because I'm going to be playing the game. But highly recommend it, looks good. It is a pretty sweet, I have played the demo. Josh and I talked about this earlier in the week. It's pretty neat.

The way you can, the strategically used to like high ground matters. Oh cool. Fire versus other mechs that are susceptible to fire matters. And then like your power ups, and then you have waves coming in where you have a chance to go get this power up chest, but you have to go and run and grab it and upgrade and get back in time and place your mechs before the next wave comes. So there is a lot of cool aspects to the world

as you kind of get through those levels. So it is pretty neat. Is it kind of like a, is it turn-based? Is it like a tactical RPG, like a Fire Emblem? I was thinking Fire Emblem, that's where my brain went. I wouldn't say it's really turn-based. It's more of a, from what I played on the demo, it's more of just kind of like waves coming through

and you get your upgrades, you get set up, you defend your tower, almost like a tower defense style where the waves come through, you defend them, get them set up however is most advantageous for you, and then go on to the next one, do your upgrades and so on and so forth. I didn't play a ton ton of the demo, but what I played was pretty neat. So I'm excited to see kind of where this one goes. I know it says a Diesel punk real-time tactics roguelike. So just put punk after any word Sweet well, uh, you know, that was a lot of fun guys

we had we had a lot of games to cover there and I Think I think we're gonna, you know, I would like to say that we'd hurt a lot of people's wallets with these, but they're indies. So they're not gonna hurt people's wallets. You know, that's the cool part is. Dude, I wanna hit on that point. Support your local indie gamers or game developers. I just played a game called arise on my switch because switches I've been moving. And so that's like my primary console right now. Yeah. And this game had just like a wonderful little Pixar story attached to it. Two bucks, two dollars.

I played for that game. Best $2 I've spent all year. That's, that's awesome. That's what's so cool about the indie stuff is, is that, uh, you know, the price point is so, it's so affordable to take risks on these types of games, which is, which is just awesome. But, um, you know, speaking of taking a risk, uh, we know there's a lot of podcasts out there in this world and we're so happy that, you know, you guys

decided to listen to us, if you like what we do and you feel that we've contributed something to you or your life, maybe think about contributing a little bit back and helping support us. We have Patreon on MultiplayerSquad.com. If you head over there, you can join as little as five bucks a month. It really helps us out kind of creating all this content. We're trying to add a lot of new shows. We're trying to bring on devs and voice actors and all these different things. So all your support really helps that out. So, again, multiplayer squad dot com.

Love to have you over there. Again, you get discord perks and a lot of cool options as well. Early access to episodes, so on and so forth. But other than that, did you guys have any other closing thoughts or any other games you want to just give a shout out to? I think this is going to be an absolutely legendary year for indie horror games. I will say that. Totally agree.

So far they are looking good. That's probably a good call, man, because a lot of these seem to be that dark kind of horror, gritty kind of nature games and they all, they all look pretty good. And yeah, I want to piggyback on what you just said to Ryan, for anybody who's been listening to the last, you know, few weeks of content, you've probably noticed that there's been a theme of giving back to charities that mean a lot to us. I think everybody here on staff at Video Gamers Pod has a real soft spot for kids who are going through disadvantaged situations, whether they are in the pipeline

for Make-A-Wish or they are in foster care displaced from their families. And, uh, we have all of us been a kid. Most of us started gaming when we were kids and that's a magical time in your life. And it's also a very vulnerable time in your life. And it has been really fortunate that we've been able to be in a position where we've been able to give back and how you, the listener or the viewer, however you're consuming this podcast can help is please follow the podcast on whatever platform you're consuming it, Spotify, Apple podcasts, YouTube, Instagram, et cetera,

and leave us a review that helps us so much for being able to contribute to these awesome causes. And you get to be a part of it. You get to be a part of improving lives around the world, which is what we are all about here. One game at a time. Love it. Love it. All right. Now everybody remember these games that we shouted out today.

Give us yours, hop on over to our Discord. The link is in our episode descriptions on all the social platforms and all our social medias come on over tell us what your most anticipated games are if you think we're crazy tell us that as well and then save this and remember for the end of the year when you can give us a bunch of gruff saying you guys are so dumb because these games were horrible or you can tell us how smart we are that's probably less, but hopefully that's true. So That's all for us today. But until next time happy gaming. See ya. I'm so sorry slay the spire 2 fans

Be so toodaloo everybody Thank you, and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast, Zen hour. I'm going to go to the video. I'm going to go ahead and put this in the video. I'm going to go ahead and start the video. So I'm going to go ahead and start off the background. Thank you.