This afternoon, Geoff Keighley’s annual presentation Opening Night Live kicked off Gamescom in Cologne, Germany. It featured a heap of new footage of games from all corners of the industry. Indie goodness not only kicked off in the preshow but also stood alongside some of the biggest upcoming releases of this year and beyond. Here are a handful of independent games from Opening Night Live that you should get your eyes on ASAP.
Streets Of Rogue 2
Matt Dabrowski is at it again, expanding further on his ambitious top-down immersive sandbox from 2019 with Streets of Rogue 2. The sequel is dialing up the do-what-you-want motif, making wild scenarios like smashing a helpless city as a massive rampaging gorilla. The mayhem of Streets of Rogue 2 pops off in 2024.
Thank Goodness You’re Here!
Debuting before the event’s grand finale, Thank Goodness You’re Here! beamed unrelenting goofiness into our ocular nerves. Described by the developers at Coal Supper as a comedy slapformer, Thank Goodness You’re Here! puts players in the shoes of a tiny yellow traveling salesman tasked with completing odd jobs, thanks to the residents of the town of Barnsworth. Odd is undoubtedly the word, and we can’t wait to see how weird things get when the game releases next year.
Dustborn
If you have not heard, Quantic Dream is entering the publishing business. Two of its indies, Under the Waves and Lysfanga, showed up with new trailers throughout ONL. Its latest addition to the lineup, Dustborn from Red Thread Games, proves that words have power. Vox weaponizes her words while embarking on a road trip across the Divided States of America with an eclectic group of friends. Yes, of course, one of them is a robot. Dustborn cruises onto consoles and PC in early 2024.
Mandragora
Primal Game Studio from Budapest has been cooking on Mandragora for some time now, and this latest look us hungry for more. Fresh gameplay from the 2.5D Soulslike exhibits the various character classes you can embody while trekking through the dark, vicious realm of Entropy. Keep your wits because hacking horrors with greatswords or blasting arachnoid monstrosities with bolts of lightning may not be enough to survive the challenges of Mangragora when its darkness descends sometime in the next calendar year.
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