Every Indie Game Shown During Today’s Guerrilla Collective Showcase

It’s officially E3 season. Between the marquee E3 pressers (Microsoft, Square Enix, Ubisoft, et cetera) and individual events from publishers gone E3-rogue (what’s up, Sony?), you can catch a handful of events focusing on smaller games. The first of those, at least per the calendar, is the Guerrilla Collective, which aired its first of two digital showcases today.

Now in its second year, Guerrilla Collective shines the spotlight on indie games. This year’s event featured a co-stream with Black Voices In Gaming, which showcases games made by Black creators or starring Black protagonists. Today, over the course of a 90-minute event, Guerrilla Collective offered a look at dozens of intriguing indie games on the horizon. Here’s what went down:

• Anno: Mutationem is a cyberpunk-inspired action-RPG with delicious pixel art and a mixture of 2D and 3D perspectives. Combat looks smooth as butter. Kinda reminiscent of Foregone.
• We got a trailer for Bloodstained’s Stadia release.
• The Eternal Cylinder is a 3D survival game that casts you as a creature that looks like Dr. Moreau bred an elephant and a duck. Nightmares.
• Trifox is a top-down, twin-stick action game. You play as—you’ll never believe this—a fox, and appear to get access to a gazillion different gadgets and weapons. Neat cel-shaded art style.

• AK-xolotl is another top-down, twin-stick action game in which you play as a irresistibly cute creature (in this case, an axolotl). Neat pixel art style for this one. It’s co-op. Hell yeah.
• Rubi: The Wayward Mira is a side-scrolling platformer that smacks of ‘80s influences and synth music.
• Huge noooope nope nope nope to Moroi, which looks scary AF. It’s technically a top-down action shooter, but the horror influences are undeniable here.
• Okay, this stream officially veered into “Ari Has Nightmares” territory. Source of Madness is a side-scrolling roguelike oozing Lovecraftian vibes.
• Industria is a first-person shooter inspired by BioShock, Half Life 2, and the “works of David Lynch.” It’s set in a parallel dimension accessed via East Berlin near the end of the Cold War. You fight robots.
• Chernobylite, a sci-fi survival horror game currently in early access, comes out in full this July. It’s definitely a walking nightmare, if that’s your sort of thing.
• Hard rock. Fast-paced 3D action combat. Anime-as-hell art style. Yes, I am so here for Ultra Age.
• Xalavier Nelson Jr., the creator of 2021’s most charming game, An Airport for Aliens Currently Run By Dogs, announced a new game. It’s called El Paso Elsewhere, a third-person shooter set in a version of El Paso, Texas, overrun with vampires and werewolves. Lots of bullet time here.
• Loving the medieval music of Elderand, a side-scrolling action game that, oh, no, what’s that? Lovecraftian influences? Too scary for me!
• Run Die Run Again is a cyberpunk parkour game. It’s currently early in development, but looks like exactly the sort of thing that would appease fans of Ghostrunner.
• Co-host Justin Woodward caught up with indie developer Neil Jones, who just released Aerial_Knight’s Never Yield, a 3D runner set in a futuristic Detroit, for a brief interview. “Black Voices In Gaming freshman class was an idea where we reach out to upcoming games made by Black talent in the game development space and game industry,” Jones said. “I really wanted it to be something to highlight all these games that were coming out relatively soon, and show that all these creators in the space, we’re all in it together and support each other, rather than it being some kind of competition.”
• Guild of Dungeoneering’s ultimate edition is out this year.
• Between the magical animals, the cotton-candy visuals, and a notable absence of combat, the world-crafting Grow: Song of the Evertree looks like it’ll be terrific rainy Sunday gaming fodder.
• Return of the Goddess is the first DLC for Legend of Keepers, a turn-based RPG. It’s out later this year.
• Tinkertown, a multiplayer sandbox game that’s been in early access for some time, is getting a new patch—the “Desert Dungeon”—on June 16.
• Zodiac Legion is a tactical RPG with hexagonal tiles and that looks unsettlingly complicated, if that’s your thing.
• The minimalist space shooter Super Space Club is basically Asteroids, But Twee. Out later this year. Sign me up!
• Onsen Master is a management game in which you cater to customer needs via crafting, kind of like the Overcooked series.
• Ynglet, a meditative side-scrolling swimming, is out now. All you need to know is… just look at this art style:

• Kraken Academy is a time loop game set in a high school infested with otherworldly monstrosities.
• Kung Fu Kickball is getting a new character. The game was playable during last year’s Summer Game Fest demo event. Pretty fun, the type of game you play for a few rounds as a drinking game.
• Aeon Drive is a cooperative side-scrolling platformer. Out later this year, and free to play on Steam this weekend.
• It took me all of two seconds to start weeping during the trailer for Endling, a side-scrolling game with a minimalist art style in which you play as a fox who immediately loses your baby fox. Your goal is to find the one place on the planet where humans can no longer harm you. “At the end of the day, the most dangerous predators of call start roaming the world: humans,” says the narrator. So true.
• Beasts of Maravilla Island is a 3D adventure game where you play as a wildlife photographer. Think: Pokémon Snap, but not on rails and also not featuring Pokémon.
• Dinosaurs. Mythic ruins. Muted art style. Journey-esque sandsurfing. Omno is one to watch. (It currently has a demo on steam.)
• Fire Tonight is a cyberpunk-colored 3D adventure game about a couple, out August 12. Features roller-blading.
• The Lightbringer is a 3D puzzle-platformer. The Windwaker influences are undeniable, what with the cel-shaded graphics and boomerang weapon.
• Alfred Hitchcock Vertigo is a video game adaptation loosely based on the cinematic classic.
• The Legend of Tianding is a side-scrolling action game, set in the early 20th century, in which you play as the iconic Taiwanese folk hero, Liao Tianding. Really cool comic-book effects here. Out this October.

• Lamentum, a pixel-art survival horror game set in New England—home of Mr. Horror Master Stephen King—cites Resident Evil and Silent Hill as references.
• My Lovely Wife is a “mix of dating, management, and alchemy sims” that explores the depths of grief following the death of his wife.
• Retrograde Arena is a multiplayer top-down arena shooter, currently available for free on Nintendo Switch.
• Publisher Neon Doctrine announced Project Altheia, a fantasy game that received all of 10 seconds of air time, starring a wolf.
• RPG Time: The Legend of Wright features a mishmash of art styles, including sketchbook drawing and papier mache-esque styles reminiscent of Paper Mario.
• Potato Flowers In Full Bloom is a dungeon-crawler that mixes first-person exploration with isometric turn-based combat.
• RPG Golf Legends is a role-playing game about golf that also has you do RPG things like fight bears, go fishing, and sail the open oceans.
• The 3D “high speed blade battle simulator” Varvarion looks bonkers. Dibs on the character with the biggest sword.
• Survival Quiz City is basically Fall Guys + Trivia Night At Your Local Bar.
• The fighting game Antinomy of Common Flowers is coming to Switch and PS4.
• The pixel-art shooter BlasterMaster Zero III is out July 29.
• Azure Striker Gunvolt 3 is out next year.

And that’s a wrap. The Guerilla Collective will return for a second showcase—which will feature a whole new batch of games—next Saturday, June 12, at 11:00 a.m. ET, smack in the middle of E3 proper. (That same day, Ubisoft, Gearbox, and the infamously not-E3 Devolver Digital will air press conferences.) Guerrilla Collective’s second event will be followed by the reliably mellow Wholesome Direct. If you’re looking for a chilled apértif before the spicy bombast of big-budget games press conferences, next weekend’s double header is worth your time.