Indie gaming chat has never been so fun! Gaming hosts Ryan, Ace and John break down their TOP most anticipated indie games of 2025, and you don’t want to miss out on any of these! It’s another can’t miss indie gaming episode from your favorite video game podcast! Thanks to our MYTHIC Supporters: Redletter, Ol’ Jake, Disratory and Gaius Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/videogamerspod Join our Gaming Community: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/videogamerspod/ Follow us on X: https://twitter.com/VideoGamersPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: https://videogamerspod.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Chapter 1: What are the most anticipated indie games for 2025?
Hello fellow gamers and welcome to the Video Gamers Podcast. Today we're going to cover the most anticipated indie games for 2025. But first, some introductions are in order. I am your host Ryan, and joining me... He's been living Mr. Sleepy Man in real life while on vacation all last week. It's Ace.
Oh, man. I feel like I just woke up. What do you mean we're on a podcast?
Wake up, dude. Come on. We're ready to go. All righty. And then he's forcing me to probably play a game that's first in his anticipation list. So he's no longer first in my heart. It's John.
Hey, everybody. Ryan, first of all, you should be thanking me for that. That is my number one most anticipated game of this year. And I think it's going to surprise you, dude.
You know what? I hope so. I hope this game is amazing and I hope I love it.
Well, in the event that you don't, I hope you have the courtesy to lie about it at least and don't hurt my feelings.
There you go. There you go. Man, I'm excited, guys. So first I want to get off on what have you guys been up to? What have you been playing?
uh shamefully to say i have not been playing an indie uh i have been absolutely cracking out on monster hunter wilds man oh it is an absolute blast me and our uh our good buddy gregasaurus just went ham on it and put like 36 hours in two days
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Chapter 2: What have the hosts been playing recently?
I will say he's been sending me different statistical things about Avowed and other games that I am currently playing. Like, why are you playing that? Come play Monster Hunter. Man, what are you doing? Come on. He's getting close. He's going to win me over soon enough.
Yeah, it's interesting. I've never had any interest in the Monster Hunter games, but Jack with Oddbug, when we did our segment with him, he really turned me on to it. Like just the concept that you can sort of like play as long as you want, but also just kind of like get your little fix every once in a while. That is like right up my alley these days. So I may end up jumping on there.
that's so happy to have you at the hunt john there you go and you create your cool animals and all that stuff but yeah awesome well you know what a little bit about what we're gonna do today is we're doing most anticipated indies for 2025 and i'm beyond excited what you guys think There it is.
Yeah, dude, I'm so stoked to be joining for this episode in particular. Ace and I chat a lot offline about this, but I think probably out of everybody who speaks on this show, Ace and me probably have the closest, most aligned sort of game tastes. And when I was looking at my most anticipated games of the year, basically they're all indies. So this is going to be awesome.
That was the way of the future, baby. I agree. I agree.
There's something to be said about it because Indies and, you know, I'm sure you can speak on this a little more, too, is there just there's an ability for an indie developer to kind of do a little bit more than anyone else can do. They don't have the budget. They don't have the big studio and the large staff.
But they do have that very wide spectrum of creativity and that realm to where they can just explore and try things that otherwise some board meeting with a bunch of suits is going to knock down and say, no, that's not mass appeal. We don't want that. And something that could be revolutionary. So I love...
And being on this kind of the indie side of things and doing this with you, Ace, and talking with you, John, it's opened me up to a little bit more of this indie world where I'm putting back the graphic snob in me and putting away those big, wide worlds to these kind of smaller experiences, if you will, that are just something that makes you just kind of hold these types of games a little bit more near and dear to your heart.
I feel like Indies are like, it's like art. When you're looking at it from a certain point of view, maybe you don't get it. But once you like really start to think about it, you're like, wow, this really speaks to me on a level that other thing couldn't.
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Chapter 3: What makes indie games special?
Yeah, exactly. Love it. All right. Okay, guys, so let's get started, man. We got a lot of games to cover today. I'm super excited. I think I'm going to take the mantle off the bat, and I'm going to go with the big one. Gosh, I hope I get to play this game soon, and I'm so excited for it. I credit Josh for making me play the first iteration of this game, and I'm going to go with Subnautica 2.
Yeah. It was one of those just kind of survival, amazing moments that you just get lost in. I would dream of the ocean and dream of bladderfish and dream of diving deep down in my Cyclops and getting lost and losing batteries and then having to swim around and getting eaten. So there's just something to be said for a game like that that just grips you and holds on tight.
And so, man, I cannot wait for this kind of next...
release of this world whatever it may be the funny thing with uh subnautica 2 is it's actually subnautica 3 too which is kind of funny right i had no idea the multiplayer aspect that they're at you know promising with this is going to make this game so much fun man oh gosh is this do you think this is a game where you'd need to play the first one to to appreciate the second one I don't think so.
I think you could understand Subnautica pretty easily by jumping into the second one. The first one definitely had a story but I don't think it would be paramount to playing the game.
Yeah, it's definitely something that you could cover the story pretty quickly and just get a cliff notes of it for you there real quick. But overall, the main story is just your survival and your encounters along the way, which is just such a cool aspect of that game. So I wouldn't think you need to play the first to play the second.
Yeah. Like out of all the games, I mean, I've been listening first time caller, long time listener guys. I've been listening to this show for quite some time. You guys have been like my workout buddies for a couple of years at this point.
and you have spoken so enthusiastically about this game that like it's always kind of been on my backlog but i've i don't know something just hasn't pushed me over the edge to go do it but a second one definitely is you know interesting for some reason i end up favoring the second game in most series so well they learned what they did wrong and they can make it better yeah exactly exactly
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: What is Subnautica 2 and why is it exciting?
Yeah, they're like, oh, do you want to hear about it? Yeah, absolutely, we'll come on. Love it. That's a good one, man. I know you got a soft spot in your heart for Metroidvanias, but this one actually looks pretty cool. I'm winning him over, folks. You heard it here first. Slowly but surely, Ace is ticking away on me with indie games. What's what you got for us, John?
Okay. So for anybody who's been a part of the discord, I apologize in advance because I've been spamming this game for like the last, like three months, but my number one tie for number one, most anticipated game for this year is a game called re animal. It is made by Tarsier studios and they are the makers of the original little nightmares and little nightmares too.
And I'm going to just say Little Nightmares was a good game. Little Nightmares 2, in my opinion, is a masterpiece on just about every possible metric. And what they are doing with Re-Animal looks like they're leveling up in every possible way. Do yourselves a favor. Check out that trailer. It looks freaking incredible.
And by incredible, do you mean ridiculously scary and just out of this world?
Yeah, yeah, you got it. That's what I meant.
I watched it and I'm like, oh, I guess I'm just not going to sleep tonight. You know, no big deal.
Yeah, Josh said the same thing. Josh goes, okay, well, Nightmare Fuel. Great. Thank you.
Those devs are great at that, man. Just making the scariest thing you can imagine.
Well, dude, and the best thing about them is like there's a lot of games now that like kind of like – over rely on the gore and the shock factor to the point where you almost get like numb to it. And like, man, little nightmares too, is the perfect example. They do so much with just the ambience and the sound design that like, it gives you, I'm actually getting chills, like just talking about it.
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Chapter 5: What is Mariachi Legends about?
figure out what's going on you know throughout their lives and throughout this world so i'm excited to see more excited to kind of see what they come up with with this game but uh yeah i mean it's i'm uh undoubtedly a sucker for a good trailer uh a la old school redfall way back in the day did not did not pan out And I will admit that, that one, Ace remembers from when I picked that one.
Oh, I remember that one blowing up in your face. When I first, yeah, that one definitely blew up, but I'm a sucker for a good trailer. So hopefully this one doesn't disappoint like Redfall did, because I'm pretty excited.
I mean, Mixtape is, from what I remember, it's a narrative story-driven game, right? Yes. About nostalgia, similar to Life is Strange. It's kind of hard to screw those up.
Yeah. I mean, if you just create like killer music and just good, it's like, it just seems like a, like a good vibe game. It does.
It seems like a good nostalgia trip, good vibe kind of game. Like, man, where did these times go? I say as the 25 year old in the room.
Gosh, you don't want to, you don't want to know how we are. For the record, I am the oldest.
Yeah. I could, I could use a good nostalgia trip. I may be checking that out.
There, there you go.
All right, what you got, Ace? Oh, man. You already know who this one is. It's our good buddy, Mr. Sleepy Man. Mr. Sleepy Man.
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Chapter 6: How does Re-Animal stand out among indie games?
That's probably the sleep deprivation talking there.
There you go.
I'd completely forgotten about this one until you mentioned it because I didn't remember the name at all. But as soon as I pulled it up, I was like, oh my gosh, I remember this.
It has an unmistakable visual style.
This is so unique. It reminded me of, I don't know if you've heard of a game called The Withering Rooms.
Oh, yeah, yeah, absolutely.
It very much reminds you of that, but with this more unique Disney cartoon aesthetic. And it's super impressive, man.
I agree. I'm stoked for it.
And that's, you know, honestly, as a game design kind of style, make these games that are somewhat adult content but designed in a way that was animated from like those adults' childhood, you know, to give them that kind of warm, fuzzy feeling, but then they can kind of be adults playing like adult content. You know, that kind of does go together. It's a smart way to do kind of game design.
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Chapter 7: What is the unique concept behind By Sweet Carol?
I do want to give a shout out to, uh, to Jack and John over at odd bug for tales of iron, tales of iron to great games. My next game is sadly not mouse themed that I know of. Uh, but, uh, but their studio happens to be named after a rabbit. It is harebrained studios, new game coming out called graft. Uh,
And what I'm going to say about Graft is as soon as you get done with this episode and listen to five other episodes, and then between that and listening to yet another five episodes, take a quick break and watch the Graft trailer. If nothing else, the song in that trailer is going to hook you. It's some of the best teaser music I've probably ever heard in a game.
But aside from that, this is kind of like a top-down... I don't know what you'd call it. Would you call it... Ryan, I know you've seen the trailer. Would you call this like a survival horror-y type game? Like a cyberpunk sort of... I'm having trouble putting to words what I would call the actual aesthetic. But I would call it cyberpunk meets horror. And again...
What I look for, especially in these preview phases, we have no idea what these things are actually going to play like. And frankly, I think that's a plus. When I look at a game and I go, oh, that's this, that's Street Fighter meets, I don't know, Street Fighter meets Hades or something. I don't like that.
Like I want to, I want to be curious about what I'm getting into and I, and I am with this, but what I can tell you is that the trailer made me feel something, you know, I like walking away from that little one minute clip. I go, Oh God, I want to, I want to know more about this universe and it looks fantastic.
It does, and I will second. The music is some of the best I've heard. I mean, just from the trailer, it's some of the best I've heard in years from whole game soundtracks. I am beyond stoked just to hear what the rest they have on that end. I would say, I do agree, it does give that little bit of cyberpunk, but almost like maybe cyberpunk alien... Oh, yeah. Good observation. Yeah.
Like something like that to where you're kind of in that in that kind of sci fi space world where, you know, stuff's coming at you and good luck, brother. You know, something like that.
Kind of like the 90s version of what the future would look like or something.
Yeah, exactly.
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Chapter 8: What is the appeal of Mouse Pi for Hire?
game of the year i bet wow what bold that's a it's a bold claim as a bold claim my friend so i i just pulled it up for the first time ever i you guys have said it so many times you've told me oh really i forget every time yeah this is indie this is right this is incredible looking like yeah
How can you put Bellatro and this in the same general category?
I look at this and I see, like you said, Final Fantasy, but also it brings me back to Xenoblade Chronicles. Have you ever played those? It's just so beautiful to look at. It's so stunning. And I just know the combat's going to be incredible.
And something, something that it does really well that I loved from the old, like I know I actually got into final fantasy at eight. So I kind of missed seven and the new, the seven remakes haven't really done it for me. Honestly, I got in at eight, but really I peaked like my, basically like my Renaissance period for gaming was final fantasy 10, 10, even 10, two as, as, as cringes.
There was a lot of great game diamond dynamics in 10, two, but 10 and 12, uh, man, like the fact that you had these like really kind of like dark undertones that, you know, like it's the world in threat. Like, you know, it's every, every major game, every final fantasy game basically has the whole world is going to die as, as it's, that's usually, but you also go to these like,
Wonderful worlds where it's like fantastical and you can like just go there and it's almost becomes like a cozy, you know, where it's like, man, I just want to like smile and look at my pixelated sunset for a while and play cards with this dude on the beach or go fishing or whatever. And the new Final Fantasies of 15, 15.
got there kinda but 16 big miss for me man 16 and the and the seven remakes for me man it's just like they they try to double down on the on the dark you know gloomy aesthetic and that that just doesn't say final fantasy to me this claire obscura looks like it checks all those boxes and i highly encourage i i know you guys have talked about it ad nauseum on the show
But for all you lurkers out there who haven't drank the Kool-Aid yet, now's your opportunity. The Kool-Aid is delicious.
It has that look. I mean, I am a self-proclaimed hater of the turn-based combat. To me, I like to make my decisions real-time, on the fly, in the moment when I see the axe flying at me. I like to jump out of the way and try to attack or shoot an attack. Do something like that. I don't like to sit and select what I want to do and then wait for everybody's turn.
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