Highlights from Day of the Devs: indie games to look forward to in 2025 and 2026

You may have missed one of the best video game showcases of today, and I’m not talking about Summer Game Fest. Immediately following Geoff Keighley’s presentation was the Day of the Devs summer showcase, featuring twenty independent video games narrowed down from over one thousand submissions that the team received. The show featured seven world premieres and generally provided a look at some of the best indie games. I wish this article could be as long as possible, but it would be far too long if I included every game. If you’re interested in learning more about the other games featured at Day of the Devs, I highly recommend watching the whole hour-long stream.

Day of the Devs gives us a look at some of the best indie games to look forward to this year

If you’re a fan of indie games or just games in general, I highly recommend watching the entire showcase. Day of the Devs is a nonprofit focused on promoting independent creators. The organization was founded by iam8bit and Double Fine Productions, the studio behind games like Grim Fandango.

There are a ton of notable games from this presentation, which somehow included three heist games, a cooking-based RPG, an atmospheric skateboarding-inspired game, a game where you play as a half-tire, half-human, and so much more. that if any of these games look interesting, add them to your Steam wishlist! It’s free and goes a long way towards ing independent developers.

• Day of the Devs gives us a look at some of the best indie games to look forward to this year
• Snap and Grab
• Big Walk
• Sword of the Sea
• Mixtape
• Blighted
• Dosa Divas
• Possessor(s)
• Please, Watch the Artwork
• Relooted
• Thick As Thieves
• Pocket Boss
• Tire Boy
• Conclusion

Snap and Grab

The first of several heist games shown in this presentation is Snap and Grab, a game developed by No Goblin and published by Annapurna Interactive. Snap and Grab turns heists into photography puzzles. As “the world’s greatest photographer,” wander around high-end parties with your camera and snap photos of valuable items, helpful hints, and dangerous obstacles. It’s up to your crew to follow your instructions and pull off the perfect heist.

Compared to the other heist games in today’s showcase, Snap and Grab does not have a ton of action. Rather than dashing through a mansion, grabbing what you can, and avoiding capture, this game has a much slower pace. Your goal is to blend in, devise a plan, and equip your crew with the tools to succeed. There is a detective hot on your trail, so it will be interesting to see what kinds of clues the player can leave behind to put themselves at risk, or if that mechanic has more to do with keeping your crew out of harm's way.

Related:Sword of the Sea From Co-creators of Journey and Abzu Announced

This was the world premiere of this creative puzzle heist game, and I’m looking forward to learning more sometime in the future. Snap and Grab is planned for release in early 2026 and will be available on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S.

Big Walk

You may some earlier trailers for this odd multiplayer title from House House, the makers of Big Walk is an open-world exploration game designed for cooperative multiplayer with friends. The bulbous, colorful characters stand out in stark contrast to the somewhat realistic landscape around them. During today’s deeper dive into gameplay, we learned more about House House’s intentions for making this a creative multiplayer experience. Proximity chat is a crucial feature, as it changes according to the player’s location and surroundings.

Players are free to wander around and explore, but they will also encounter various structures and rooms featuring puzzles and challenges. It’s not yet clear what kind of progression the game will have, or if it’s a sandbox experience through and through, giving players the freedom to explore at their own pace. But one thing is core to Big Walk: cooperation. If you get separated from your friends, use the megaphone to ask them to send up a flare so you can locate them. Or grab the binoculars out of their hand and kick them into the ocean. It really depends on what kind of cooperation you’re feeling in the moment.

Since seeing the initial trailer for Big Walk a while ago, I wasn’t sure what to expect. This game is undoubtedly a major departure from Untitled Goose Game. But today’s trailer showed off how thoughtful the team has been in creating the ultimate cooperative multiplayer experience, and it’s quickly becoming one of my most anticipated games on this list. There is no release date yet, but I’m hoping Big Walk will arrive sometime later this year.

Sword of the Sea

From the creators of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater-inspired way.

You play as a Wraith, an odd being with a flame-wreathed head, who is tasked with restoring life. Much of the trailer for this game appears to feature a mix of desert landscapes and ocean-scapes. This might suggest that this desert was once an ocean, and the player will work to restore the once-underwater landscape to its previous state. There are also plenty of ways to traverse, such as bounding on top of jellyfish, riding along a vertical wall, and, of course, shredding an impromptu halfpipe.

I’ve had Sword of the Sea on my wishlist for a while already. I can’t wait to jump into a “flow state” and experience another atmospheric adventure from this studio. Thankfully, the wait won’t be much longer. Sword of the Sea is planned to launch on August 19th for PlayStation 5 and PC.

Mixtape

More than just a collection of awesome music (although it is that too), Mixtape from developer Beethoven & Dinosaur is also a mix of game mechanics. Skateboard down a winding road, calling out to your friends when you see a car, shoot cans off a rusted pickup truck with a slingshot, put on a fireworks show out of the back seat of a car, and take photos of an abandoned theme park, among many more adventures. The game is a blend of music, art styles, and game mechanics, designed to transport you on a nostalgic journey to the 1980s.

Mixtape is a collection of memory vignettes from the pivotal moments of three best friends, exploring the times that shaped them into who they are, re-experienced en route to one last party. During the Day of the Devs trailer, the team read a long list of artists whose songs appear in the game, including Smashing Pumpkins, Devo, Joy Division, The Cure, and many more. Unfortunately, there is still no release date for this trip down memory lane, but hopefully it will live up to its Steam page’s promise of sometime in 2025. But Mixtape feels like it could be a perfect summer game, so fingers crossed.

Blighted

Just as I was starting to think that most of these games so far were low on action, DrinkBox has me covered with Blighted. Described as a “hardcore action Metroidvania set in a psychedelic Western nightmare.” You might DrinkBox Studios from their previous action games like Nobody Saves the World. Blighted takes on a much darker tone than this studio’s previous games. Play as the last surviving member of a village obliterated by a supernatural blight. Fight off your own blight, or embrace the powers it offers as you face off against horrific creatures roaming the wasteland.

The blight that infects you serves as a source of power, but also gives the game a unique dynamic difficulty that constantly changes and shifts depending on how you approach the game. This terrible apocalyptic event began when an individual corrupted the village’s sacred burial practices, gorging on human brains to gain their power. Now, using the blight to your advantage, you can call upon the powers of defeated enemies to help defeat other blighted creatures.

This is the first game by DrinkBox that makes the jump to 3D. It will also feature co-op right from the start, allowing two players to take on the blight together. The team plans to release a playable demo on Steam later this year. If you add Blighted to your wishlist, you'll be one of the first to know when the demo becomes available.

Dosa Divas

From Outerloop Games, the celebrated developers of Thirsty Suitors, comes Dosa Divas. Described as “a spicy narrative turn-based RPG,” Dosa Divas follows the story of two sisters who team up with their ancient spirit-mech to take down a “rotten fast food empire” that puts profit over making good meals. Samara and Amani plan to take down the empire and reconnect people with their traditions through cooking great meals and maybe knocking out a few corporate goons along the way.

Dosa Divas has the same colorful aesthetic and serious tone, complemented by humor and brevity that Thirsty Suitors was so well known for. It’s easy to tell that this will have a heartfelt story that encourages people to connect with their community and culture, so I’m eager to give it a try. For now, we’ll have to wait for more news about a release date, considering the game was only known as Project Dosa until today.

Possessor(s)

The product of an incredible indie collaboration, Inscryption, and so many more great indie games. The term “platform fighter” conjures images of Super Smash Bros., but Possessor(s) isn’t a multiplayer game. As Luca, you will explore an apocalyptic city and fight off strange monsters in a dark, horrific story.

Today’s trailer began with a tragic cinematic that seems to set the tone for the game. A happy professor witnesses his students being attacked and killed by a demonic creature. It’s unclear how this character or this part of the story will fit into the overall narrative, but the protagonist, Luca, does appear to interact with this professor at some point. Possessor(s) is planned for a 2025 release date, but today’s new trailer didn’t get any more specific than that.

Please, Watch the Artwork

One of today’s strangest games, which is saying something, was Please, Watch the Artwork. The name might sound familiar, as this is a follow-up to Please, Touch the Artwork from Studio Waterzooi. The gameplay might sound a little more straightforward with the initial games, but how could a game be about watching artwork? Well, this eerie psychological horror places you in the position of a night guard at the MaMA (the Museum of Animated Modern Art). But you’re not tasked with stopping thieves, you’ll be keeping an eye on the artwork itself.

The paintings are being invaded by a mysterious, sad clown, “whose sorrow quietly spreads to the other paintings.” Identify anomalies, like a clown appearing where it shouldn’t, but also watch for more subtle changes: a missing object, a possession, or plenty of other unexpected differences. By forcing you to focus and pay attention, I worry that Please, Watch the Artwork will surprise the player with slow-building tension, and the confusion and psychological fear that comes from this strange experience. There’s no official release date, and the developer has asked everyone not to disclose it, but I'm told to keep an eye out around Halloween. If you add Please, Watch the Artwork to your Steam wishlist, you can be among the first to know when this strange puzzle game becomes available.

Relooted

The second heist game from today’s presentation is Relooted, the newest title from the Johannesburg-based developer Nyamakop. In Relooted, a crew creates plans to return stolen artifacts from museums back to their home country. While the game has a futuristic vibe with fictional locations, the developers made sure to point out that the seventy artifacts that appear in Relooted are real artifacts that are currently housed in museums to this day. Every item comes with a real-world history of the object that the characters discuss in-game.

Relooted takes place over several phases. First, you’ll case the t. Observe the level from a distance, locate the target, and identify any obstacles. Then, explore the level, being careful not to trigger any security measures, and plan an escape route. Then, you’ll execute. Grab the item and dash for the exit, avoiding security measures and security guards in the process in a fast-paced side-scrolling race against the environment. Relooted may not have a release date yet, but it is planned for release on Steam, the Epic Games Store, and Xbox Series X/S, hopefully sooner rather than later, because I can’t wait to see how this team brings this concept together.

Thick As Thieves

The final heist game on today’s list is Epic Mickey. Thick As Thieves introduces a player-versus-player component. The team puts it well, explaining that you can learn the guard’s route, understand what sounds tip them off, avoid cameras and lasers, but the other human players will almost always throw a wrench in those plans.

The footage shown in today’s trailer was from a pre-alpha build, but it already looks great. The team is placing a special emphasis on sound design, which will be crucial in a stealth game like this. I can already imagine the ridiculous situations my friends and I would get each other into with this game. There is no release date yet, but the team is seeking players to help with playtesting, and I hope to be one of those individuals.

Pocket Boss

I know I already mentioned that some unusual games were showcased during today’s presentation, but Pocket Boss, developed by Playables and Langfilm, might be the most bizarre. From what I can gather, the game takes place on a phone or computer screen. As your boss messages you with work-related tasks, you do whatever is needed to make the charts and data look beautiful. It appears to be a collection of ridiculous puzzles and mini-games.

While in real life, this might mean putting in long hours of hard work, in Pocket Boss, the player can adjust the chart and erase data with the tap or swipe of a finger. Swipe up to bring productivity up to 100%. Remove a slice of the pie chart that your boss wants gone. Or connect the dots on a graph to show continuous growth. Oh, if only it were that easy. Pocket Boss is planned to launch later this year.

Tire Boy

While it is in contention, Tire Boy, from developer GameTeam6, somehow avoids being the strangest game from this presentation just because it has some normal-ish open-world, exploration, and 3D platformer and RPG mechanics. But yes, it is a game about being half boy, half tire. Tuck your arms and legs into the tire to roll around the world full of giant objects, fish people, and other strange things to discover. This is by all means a ridiculous concept, but hey, sometimes that’s just how indie games roll.

The development team describes Tire Boy as an action-adventure, and the trailer does indeed feature some action. Tire Boy heroically fights off a group of snails and a frog with a guitar, because that just makes sense at this point. In the story, Tire Boy may be the last of his kind, so part of why he decides to venture out into the vast world is to discover the mystery of his origins. I really hope that Tire Boy finds whatever it is he is looking for, but since this is a small team, we may have to be patient to learn more about it. to add it to your wishlist in case the team decides to release a demo or announce a release date in the near future.

Conclusion

Every year, I look forward to the Day of the Devs presentations. Not only do they put together a great showcase, but it’s always guaranteed to have some of the best indie games to look forward to. I’ve already added a ton of these games to my Steam wishlist, and hopefully you’ve done the same. It goes a long way to helping out these smaller teams get their games made.

Thanks to the Day of the Devs team for giving me an early look at this amazing showcase, and thank you for your continued of indie developers!

Summer Game Fest is far from over! Over the next few days, I’ll be in Los Angeles playing some hands-on demos of a bunch of games, so make sure to check back with Gamepressure to learn more about all kinds of great games to look forward to.

Sword of the Sea

2025

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