From the aging music acts to the partnerships with earth-destroying capitalist empires, there’s a lot to be annoyed with Summer game festival. One thing that is unironically cool? The demo event where Xbox players can play a ton of indie games for free. episode the successful opening run last year, will be back next week. Microsoft announced the news in a blog entry today.
Last summer, if you remember, was flooded with lively press conferences. Without merging an E3, it felt like publishers large and small had weekly events for months. It was … a lot. So between the hustle and bustle, it was nice to take a breather with an event that not only put smaller titles in the spotlight, but also gave players the opportunity to play them. And a lot of those games were really great. Of the more than 70 made available
Fortunately, this year’s event will feature 40 games. (As great as 70 are, a week just isn’t enough time to play them all.) Xbox hasn’t revealed the full list just yet, but five today:
- sable, an open world exploration game with a soundtrack by Michelle Zauner (who you may know as a Japanese breakfast).
- The riftbreaker, a sci-fi base building game about giant mechs, planned for an autumn release.
- lake, a story-based adventure game set in 1986 in a seaside village, wait, no, by the lake.
- Echo generation, a turn-based adventure game with delicious voxel art.
- tunicwhat … little fox. That’s all you need to know.
If this year’s event is comparable to last year’s event, it’s worth finding a place on your schedule. Yeah, yeah, I know we’re all excited about that glorioles and Elden ringso. But this lighter tariff tends to offer a gentler, often thoughtful countermeasure to the cortisol spectacle you see with larger publishers.
The Summer Game Fest demo event – that Really doesn’t roll off your tongue, huh – runs June 15th through June 21st.
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