There were so many games at GDC's ID@Xbox showcase
We couldn't play them all, so we picked four at random.
Microsoft's ID@Xbox showcase is a staple of GDC, packing a ton of independent video games into a single room and letting players go wild. This year, ID@Xbox featured 20 games across a range of genres, from shoot-em-ups and RPGs to first-person cyberpunk horror. It's impossible to play every game, so we picked four at random: Full Metal Furies, Observer, Moonlighter and Ruiner. And we had a blast.
Full Metal Furies is probably the highest-profile game on the list, coming from Rogue Legacy studio Cellar Door Games. It's a multiplayer, pixelated brawler that blends Greek mythology with hostile robots in a rapid-fire, extremely challenging experience. It's due to hit the Xbox One and Steam later this year.
Observer takes things to a darker place. It's a distinctly cyberpunk first-person horror game set in a dystopian future where corporations reign and advanced technology is reserved for those at the top of the economic ladder. The corporate government hacks the minds of its citizens, splintering the very foundation of reality. Observer is the work of Bloober Team, a studio that proved its prowess with horror when it debuted Layers of Fear last year. Watch for it later this year.
On the same gritty page, Ruiner comes from Polish studio Reikon and publisher Devolver Digital; it's a top-down action game set in a future that's also been taken over by corrupt corporate entities. Your mission? Kill the boss. Or whoever you're hired to kill, of course. Ruiner plays like a 3D, highly polished version of Hotline Miami, with enemies swarming in from doorways and down narrow hallways in a cold metal world. Ruiner hits Xbox One, PlayStation 4 and PC later this year.
Finally, Moonlighter injects some levity into our playtime. Spanish studio Digital Sun Games raised $134,000 on Kickstarter to bring this top-down, pixelated action-RPG to life: It follows a young shopkeeper who lives in a world of heroes and dreams of defeating evil beasts himself. However, for now, he has to keep his store stocked by venturing into the dungeons to find supplies -- and battle bunches of enemies in the process. Moonlighter is set to land on Xbox One, PS4 and Steam in October.
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