INDIE GAMES 2025 (Wishlist Ep.3)
29Are you tired of scrolling through the never ending pile of games coming to Steam?
Every Wednesday, I will dig through the pile, watch all the showcases and read all the press releases in search of a handful of games that you need to add to your Wishlist.
Some of the games I will have played, others I wont, some might have demos, most will be indie or premium indies, but sometimes there will be AAA titles. Sometimes the group will have a common theme and other times it will just be a random assortment of great looking games.
Every Wednesday, I’ll add a few games to the list with the hope that this will grow beyond a simple wishlist, but instead it will be an ever growing resource of great looking games, so be sure to bookmark and swing back every week. If you already know the game, then that’s great, but if you think something looks great, add it to your wishlist.
DISPATCH
Dispatch is being developed and published by AdHoc Studio, a studio founded in 2018 from many of the talented people behind The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands including Creative Directors and Writing Directors who banded together shortly after Telltale Games filed for bankruptcy and laid off 90% of its employees.
In addition to being smart with the size of the studio, which is only around 40 people compared to the 250 that Telltale had at their largest, Dispatch is also an original IP. This means that the studio can save loads of money not having to pay licensing fees, and instead invest that into other areas of Dispatch that would be more effective.
In Dispatch, you play as Mecha Man, a superhero who has lost his suit was destroyed in a battle with his nemesis. Powerless, Mecha Man must now work at the superhero call center and dispatch superheroes across the city where they are needed. You will need to juggle office relationships, life or death decisions in the field, and rebuilding your mech suit to get revenge.
THE SEANCE OF BLAKE MANOR
Hot off the heels of publishing Blue Prince, one of the best games of 2025 and arguably one of the best puzzle games of all time, Raw Fury is back with The Seance of Blake Manor. You are a supernatural detective from Ireland. The year is 1897 and your services have been requested at a remote hotel known as Blake Manor. One of the guests has disappeared and the hotel is on lockdown with 2 residents, 5 staff and 17 guests.
Every single one of them is a suspect and you will need to talk with all of them, eavesdrop and scour Blake Manor for all the clues before it’s too late, because in 48 hours there will be a seance to open a portal between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Time plays an important role because you will need to be in the right place at the right time based on the clues you have uncovered during your investigation if you want to get to the bottom of this mess and saved the disappeared woman before it’s too late. To increase immersion The Seance of Blake Manor features engaging cutscenes and a soundtrack that reacts to the environment around you.
The Seance of Blake Manor is being developed by Spooky Doorway, the 12 person indie team behind the 2017 award winning and critically acclaimed title The Darkside Detective. Coverage might be minimal on The Seance of Blake Manor, but based on what has been shown so far, as well as the pedigree of the Spooky Doorway and Raw Fury, there is enough to warrant a wishlist.
SWORD OF THE SEA
The elevator pitch for Sword of The Sea is that it’s Journey, but you surf on your BladeBoard. This isn’t a lazy comparison, because the lineage is easily traceable from thatgamecompay to Giant Squid Games as many of the senior members left to begin their own studio. Giant Squid is clearly great at one thing and instead of reinventing the wheel, the studio continues to evolve and hone what it does best, which is Atmospheric Adventure games. After founding Giant Squid, the studio released Abzu in 2016 and The Pathless in 2021.
In Sword of The Sea, The atmospheric adventure has you exploring the remnants of an ancient culture as you try to restore the ocean beneath the desert. The studio is trying to emulate that outer-body spiritual experience that you get when fully connected with the world as you see it at speeds and heights that aren’t traditional. In the words of the studio director “you get to understand nature that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise and connect with the world in a deeper way”
Sword of The Sea is heavily inspired by the skateboard and snowboard classics like Tony Hawk, 1080 and SSX. The gameplay inspriation is full of jumps, carving and half pipes, but completely reimagined in a different context.
The end goal for the studio is to have all of the elements in place to try and create a spiritual experience for the player. It also just got a release date of August 19th at Summer Game Fest.
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