Publisher Annapurna Interactive, the video game arm of the artsy movie studio that has brought us games like What Remains of Edith Finch, Outer Wilds, Donut County, Florence, The Pathless, Wattam, Sayonara Wild Hearts, and many others just announced a slew of promising new projects on Thursday during a digital showcase.
While some of them are early, four untitled game projects sound promising based on each developer’s previous work. The newly announced games includes projects from:
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Outerloop Games, the team behind Falcon Age
Its new, untitled project (expect to hear that a lot) will pair themes of “immigrant culture, growing up in the U.S., gossiping aunties, overbearing parents, and family pressure,” said Chandana Ekanayake, studio head at Outerloop, with skateboarding.
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Ivy Road, a new studio Davey Wreden and Karla Zimonja
Wreden’s work on The Stanley Parable and The Beginner’s Guide, and Zimonja’s work on Gone Home and Tacoma pretty much guarantee we’re going to get a game with some good, good writing. Daniel “C418” Rosenfeld of Minecraft fame is making the music! -
Jessica Mak, who previously worked on Everyday Shooter and Sound Shapes
Mak’s next game looks similarly music game-inspired, and gives off light Rez vibes in snippets of what appeared to be in-development gameplay of the untitled project.
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No Code, best known for Observation
Jon McKellan, co-founder and creative director at No Code, said the team never set out to make horror games. “We’ve set out to make thrillers or atmospheric sci-fi,” McKellan said, but audience reaction is a bit different. This time, however, No Code is setting out to make a horror game, its biggest project ever.
Here’s what else Annapurna Interactive announced during Thursday’s showcase:
The Artful Escape
Musical narrative adventure The Artful Escape will include voice actors Michael Johnston, Caroline Kinley, Lena Headey, Jason Schwartzman, Mark Strong and Carl Weathers, and will launch on Sept. 9 for Xbox and Windows PC.
Neon White
Neon White creative director Ben Esposito (Donut County) shows off the “game for freaks” coming to Nintendo Switch and Windows PC.
A Memoir Blue
Developed by Cloisters Interactive, A Memoir Blue is described as “an interactive poem about a superstar athlete and the all-encompassing love between mother and daughter.”
Storyteller
Storyteller is part puzzle game, part genre storytelling game. It’s coming to Steam (where a playable demo is available).
Skin Deep
The new shooter(?) from Blendo Games (Thirty Flights of Loving, Quadrilateral Cowboy) looks very weird in its first stinky gameplay.
Oh, and Annapurna also showcased the “first and only” expansion for Outer Wilds, announced a release date for Solar Ash, and showed new gameplay from cyberpunk cat adventure Stray.