Future of Play Direct 2023: Our 10 Favorite Games

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Hosted by the creator-led organization Glitch (and its android VTuber host Melios), Future of Play Direct highlights upcoming indie games every year. This year’s showcase featured updates and galaxy premieres of nearly 40 titles, with games ranging from 3D sci-fi base builders to side-scrolling pixel horror games and nearly everything in between. Here are 10 of our favorite games featured in this year’s Future of Play Direct.

Featuring an adorable pixel art style, Hermit and Pig follows two unlikely heroes — a reclusive hermit and his truffle-hunting pig — on a mission to fight an evil corporate plot while dealing with social anxiety. Its action-packed first trailer shows off traditional turn-based combat, foraging, and exploration, all guided by over 100 types of mushrooms that can be used for health and bartering. Hermit and Pig was officially announced during today’s Future of Play Direct and doesn’t yet have a release date, though it’s headed to Steam in 2024.

Shown off with a terrifyingly ominous trailer, narrative-focused side-scroller Psychroma is officially headed to Steam and consoles in February 2024. In Psychroma, players take on the role of a digital medium who experiences nonlinear time. Within the game’s cybernetic house (depicted with stunning stylized pixel art), players work to ultimately regain the protagonist’s memory and piece together the story of a psychological experiment gone wrong.

The team behind Ritual Night, a new Among Us-esque social deduction game, revealed that its demo is out now on Steam and that the full game will be out in the fall during today's Future of Play Direct. In Ritual Night, monsters gather for a ritual to summon Cthulhu but must find the humans who have crashed the party in an