Highlights
- Evil Empire’s Triple-I Initiative showcase will highlight over 30 indie studios with new reveals and gameplay demos on April 10.
- The event aims to focus on “Triple-I” games with indie studios featuring AA or AAA production values, like A44’s Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn.
- Expect appearances from studios like Focus Entertainment and Gearbox Software.
Evil Empire, the studio responsible for the 2018 hit indie title Dead Cells, has revealed the Triple-I Initiative showcase ready to go live next month. The new event plans to highlight upcoming games from over 30 indie studios and publishers, many of which are well known for past hits and have dedicated followings.
Showcases held exclusively for AA and indie-sized video games have become ever more prevalent over the past several years. Some longstanding annual events like PC Gamer’s PC Games Show, the Devolver Digital Direct, and Tim Schafer’s Day of the Devs opened the door for newer annual indie showcases like Future Games Show, Wholesome Direct, Guerilla Collective, Annapurna Interactive Showcase, and more to crop up. While many of these yearly shows sufficiently and succinctly highlight their games in a quick manner, many of the larger AAA-centric shows like Summer Game Fest, Opening Night Live, and others still draw criticism for being overtly long and padded out.
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Now, Evil Empire has taken it upon itself to orchestrate a massive new indie event, the Triple-I Initiative showcase. Going live on April 10 at 10AM PT and 1PM ET, gamers can tune in on YouTube, Twitch, and Steam to catch a tight, 45 minute flow of new reveals and gameplay demos coming from some of the most celebrated independent studios in the industry. Developers like A44, Extremely OK Games, Heart Machine, and Thunder Lotus populate the long list of game makers involved. COO of Evil Empire Benjamin Laulan adds that there will be “No hosting segments, no advertising, no sponsorships, no extra fluff, just games.”
Triple-I Interactive Indie Showcase
- April 10
- 10AM PT / 1PM ET
- YouTube, Twitch, IGN, Steam
- 45 Minutes
- Over 30 Indie Studios
It seems the Triple-I Interactive showcase will feature a bit of a more AA splash, with appearances from Focus Entertainment, known for publishing Asobo Studios’ Plague Tale games and Don’t Nod’s Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden, and Gearbox Software, the Borderlands company. Evil Empire’s marketing director, Berenger Dupre, playfully mentioned that the show is looking to have somewhat of a focus on what he calls “Triple-I” games: games from independent studios that feature AA or even AAA production values. In that case, it makes sense for a studio like A44 to appear with its third-person action game Flintlock: The Siege of Dawn, as it perfectly fits the description of a “Triple-I” game.
No hosting segments, no advertising, no sponsorships, no extra fluff, just games
Triple-I Interactive Showcase Studios
- A44
- Assemble Entertainment
- Awaceb
- Blobfish
- ColePowered Games
- Digital Sun
- Drop Bear Bytes
- Evil Empire
- Extremely OK Games
- Fireshine Games
- Focus Entertainment
- Fumi Games
- Gamera Games
- Gearbox Software
- Gearbox Publishing
- Gentlymad Studios
- Ghost Ship Publishing
- Heart Machine
- Hooded Horse
- Humble Games
- Ishtar Games
- Kepler Interactive
- Mega Crit
- Northplay
- Passtech Games
- Pathea Games
- PlaySide Studios
- PlaySide Publishing
- PM Studios
- poncle
- Quite OK Games
- Realm Archive
- Red Hook Studios
- Re-Logic
- Stunlock Studios
- The Arcade Crew
- The Gentlebros
- Thorium
- Thunder Lotus Games
- tinyBuild
- TRIBAND
- Youthcat Studio
Many of the studios that’ll show up at the Triple-I Interactive showcase have already announced highly anticipated games on the horizon. Extremely OK Games, the team behind 2018’s Game of the Year-nominated indie darling Celeste, will likely be showing off some of its next game, Earthblade. Heart Machine, responsible for highly praised titles like Hyper Light Drifter and Solar Ash, will undoubtedly have more to share about its Hyper Light Breaker follow-up. With several more months to go until Summer Game Fest, it’ll surely be nice to have a large indie event like this to hold indie fans over.
Dead Cells
Motion Twin’s roguelite Dead Cells is an old-school-style platformer game ideal for Metroidvania fans. As players progress through Dead Cells’ multitude of non-linear levels and areas, they can level and upgrade their character through new abilities and weapons, as well as spice up their gameplay with spells. Combat remains challenging, with five Souls-level difficulty bosses.
- Released
- August 7, 2018
- Developer(s)
- Motion Twin
- Publisher(s)
- Motion Twin
- Genre(s)
- Roguelike
