In light of Microsoft closing in on the Activision acquisition, I feel is apt to highlight some of your favorite independent studios
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Supergiant
just hit after hit with them.
I just really wish they’d kept up their track record of always trying something new rather than falling back on the money printer that doing a sequel to Hades is sure to be. I know Hades II will be good and all, and it’ll surely have their incredible level of polish and an absolute banger of a soundtrack, but… what else might we have gotten instead, y’know?
I’m sure once they rake in the money for Hades 2 we will see a very interesting, innovative product from them. Seems like a smart business move
I feel that. I’ve loved all of their games and this is the least excited I’ve been for a new release
Hades is maybe even my favorite in their library but the fact that I’m going to walk in knowing how to play it already is a bit of a bummer.
Larian is about as passionate as a team can get about the games they make, it’s hard not to love them.
Deck 13 went from making a crappy Dark Souls rip-off to making really good games.
Gunfire Games knocked it out of the park with Remnant and is now releasing a sequel that every preview seems to love.
Team Cherry made Hollow Knight, probably the best indie game ever made, maybe one day they’ll bless us with Silksong.
Subset Games (FTL, Into the Breach)
Larian should be up for consideration
Is Coffee Stain indie?
Valve, by a far stretch. Also they support their games for a long time. Sadly they don’t make as much games as they could, because of the money printing machine that is Steam.
What exactly are we counting as independent? Like a developer whose game is published by a publisher, but they aren’t like one of the REALLY big publishers. Or is it just purely independent, self-published studios?
Dwarf Fortress, technically speaking, the Steam version isn’t independent, but it seems ridiculous to not include them here.
Team17
I don’t know about truly independant, but nearly every single time I see the devolver digital publishing logo I expect the game to be good, even if it isn’t for me. They kinda just don’t miss.
Annapurna Interactive (outer wilds, what remains of Edith Finch).
Annapurna is the publisher of those games. Outer Wilds was developed by Mobius Digital, whereas What Remains of Edith Finch was developed by Giant Sparrow.
You are correct. I guess Annapurna can be considered a “publisher with good taste”.
the glory society because it’s a worker coop
Subset games, ghost ship games, team cherry, hello games,
I have a soft spot for “one man kiosks” like Hempuli (Baba Is You), Lucas Pope (Papers Please, Return of the Obra Dinn), panstasz (World of Horror) and Miro Haverinen (Fear & Hunger).
Gotta shout out Larian and The Game Kitchen as well, their work is phenomenal.
Does Remedy Studios count? I’m not sure if they have a parent company
Looks like they are a publicly traded company, not owned by a larger studio
I nominate Zachtronics, Subset Games, and Mega Crit.
I liked Klei when they were independent, but I won’t touch them now that they’re part of Tencent.
