Building The Ultimate Steam Wishlist 2025
Curating The best Indie Game Wishlist EVERY WEDNESDAY
Are you tired of scrolling through the never ending pile of games coming to Steam? According to GamesRadar, in 2023 over fourteen thousand games released on Steam and that number keeps increasing every year.
Every Wednesday, I will dig through the pile, watch all the showcases and read all the press releases in search of a handful of games that you need to add to your Wishlist. Finding games is hard and the biggest problem with this many games releasing is that discoverability becomes major issue, especially for smaller developers.
Some of the games I will have played, others I wont, some might have demos, most will be indie or premium indies, but sometimes there will be AAA titles. Sometimes the group will have a common theme and other times it will just be a random assortment of great looking games.
Every Wednesday, I’ll add a few games to the list with the hope that this will grow beyond a simple wishlist, but instead it will be an ever growing resource of great looking games, so be sure to bookmark and swing back every week. If you already know the game, then that’s great, but if you think something looks great, add it to your wishlist.
GAMES YOU NEED TO ADD TO YOUR WISHLIST FOR MAY 28
HOLLOW KNIGHT: SILKSONG
Yes, I know that you already know this game, but there are reasons I am starting with Hollow Knight: Silksong. To begin with, I want this segment to have the best possible chance at success and there is no better way to do that than by mentioning Hollow Knight: Silksong. Attaching one of the most anticapted Indies of all time or even perhaps one of the most anticipated games of all time will shine a brighter light or smaller titles that might not ever get the exposure they deserve.
Furthermore, 2025 actually might have a chance to see the game finally release. At the Nintendo Switch 2 Direct, we were treated to the first new footage that we have seen of Silksong in years. It might have only been a few seconds of Hornet going down a slope, but it was enough to keep hope alive for 2025. The other reason is that later this year, there will be a playable demo at the Melbourne Museum in Australia, which is where Team Cherry are from. Silksong will be part of an exhibition called Game Worlds in September 2025, but the big question is would this be playable before or after it releases.
Typically, there will only be three titles every week that we think are deserving a spot on your wishlist, but Silksong doesn’t technically count.
RECUR
I love platformers, 2D ones have a soft spot in my heart, especially ones that break the mold in some way, shape or form. Some bring narrative like Celeste, others bring atmosphere like INSIDE and some bring unique puzzle mechanics like Braid. Recur looks to blend a lot of these elements together, but it’s the time manipulation mechanic that is truly attention grabbing. Unlike Braid, where you control time with buttons, time is based around your movement in Recur. Move forward or to the right of the screen and time passes normally, but go backwards or to the left of the screen and time reverses.
In Recur, you play as a postman who has discovered the ability to turn back the clock, which would be interesting on any normal day, but this all happens at the edge of the apocalypse and the fate of humanity lies in your hands. In addition to the mechanics, Recur also features an appealing look with a cel shaded inspired art style and the promise of an engaging story as you try to discover why the world is ending.
PVKK
In PVKK, you are in charge of a giant planetary defence cannon, in what feels like a natural evolution of Missile Command from 1980. On a day to day basis, you remain in your cozy bunker and handle the satisfying minutiae of flipping switches, pushing buttons, rotating dials and pulling levers to fend off the planet from invasion.
This concept alone would be enough for a decent game, but it’s everything else that has me intrigued. In between missions you maintain and improve your living quarters, which are adjacent to the command center. Adding complexity and layers to the gameplay is the fact that you are in the middle of an autocratic regime and your choices will carry weight. You will slowly unravel the what’s really going on and discover puzzles around the bunker that will lead you to the truth.
PVKK is being developed by the team behind the critically acclaimed Dome Keeper. It’s also being published by Kepler Interactive, who have been quietly building up a fantastic publishing resume with titles like Sifu, Windblown, Bionic Bay and the recently released Clair Obscur Expedition 33. This all bodes well for the likelihood that PVKK will be another feather in the cap of Kepler.
LONG GONE
The best zombie games are the ones that aren’t actually about zombies. That’s why Long Gone is the most interesting and best looking game about zombies since The Last of Us because, it really isn’t about the zombies, it’s about the stories within this world. Long Gone doesn’t even feature combat, instead each zombie encounter is a puzzle where you need to utilize the environment around you.
You take on the role of a survivor, who has gotten separated from his group and finds himself in this village where his goal is to find batteries for his walkie-talkie to get back in touch with the rest of the team. In between these zombie puzzles, you will progress through the linear story driven adventure where you will try to uncover the truth by piecing things together from the items people left behind. Long Gone is inspired by The Last of Us, Gone Home and Another World.
Hillfort Games are documenting the entire journey on YouTube, Twitch and Patreon and if you watch any of the Devlogs, you will see how passionate, talented and vulnerable Vin, the solo developer is. If just a fraction of this gets transferred to the final product, Long Gone will be an absolute treat.
INDIE Games You Need to Add to your Wishlist for June 4
ABSOLUM
There is a lot to get excited about when talking about Absolum. For starters, it’s the first original IP from Dotemu, the French publisher behind Streets of Rage 4, Metal Slug Tactics, TMNT Shredder’s Revenge, as well as the upcoming Ninja Gaiden Ragebound and Marvel Cosmic Invasion. It has an absolutely eye melting art style thanks to animation studio Supamonks.
The score is being led by Gareth Coker, but he will also be joined by Mick Gordon, and Yuka Kitamura. If you don’t happen to know any of those composers, you know the games they have scored including Ori, Halo Infinite, Doom, Prince of Persia, Dark Souls and Elden Ring.
The story sounds extremely intriguing about a mad king who has ordered the death of all the wizards of the land and only these four rag-tag rebels can help who all have their own style, but they all have their own important story and deep motivations.
Most importantly, on a gameplay level, the combat system demands skill and timing, which takes it far beyond an average beat ‘em up as well as branching paths. Most importantly there are also rogue-lite elements including in run upgrades and camp upgrades, which is why Dotemu have labeled Absolum the worlds first rogue ‘em up. Early Previews were glowing and it was already selected as one of the Tribeca Festivals official selections.
HELL CLOCK
Hell Clock combines and executes flawlessly on two of the most addictive genres of gaming: ARPG’s and Roguelike. However, just like Hades, the most addictive thing about Hell Clock is the story that keeps you hanging on for new morsels of narrative. Hell Clock is developed by Rogue Snail, who are a small indie team from Brazil and are telling the story about one of the darkest moments in Brazilian history, but with a dark fantasy twist.
In the late 1800’s famine and drought had people looking for salvation and they followed the counsellor and built the settlement of Canudos. The counsellor was known for believing that to fix the problems radical change was needed in Brazil. Threatened by this, the government sent the military four different times and eventually massacred 25000 men, women and children. You play as a warrior and clock maker fighting to rescue the soul of the counsellor deep within Hell and find the truth.
One of the most interesting gameplay aspects is that each run begins with 7 minutes and when it’s over, you go back to the start. Hell Clock is loaded with upgrades in true roguelike nature as well as ARPG gear and skill trees to explore. The devs have also talked a lot about endgame content coming post launch. There is still a demo live on Steam currently, but you also don’t have to wait long because Hell Clock will release on Steam on June 18 and even better, it wont be early access.
TENJUTSU
Deepnight games only have one title on their portfolio and it’s a short 2D game about firefighting your way into a mysterious government facility to uncover what lies behind this inferno and you also had to rescue cats. It began in a game jam and was created in 48 hours and was designed with the creators three year old son in mind who loves firefighters. The game is only a few bucks, only takes a handful of hours and I highly recommend playing Nuclear Blaze if you haven’t yet.
But why should you be excited for their follow up Tenjutsu? To put it simply, Deepnight Games is Sebastien Benard, who just happens to be the creator of Dead Cells, who eventually left Motion Twin to start his own studio. Nuclear Blaze had the incredible game feel that Dead Cells had, which was the litmus test that proved how talented Benard was. It is obvious that game feel is his specialty.
On his sophomore game at Deepnight Games, Benard changes perspective and puts the player into the shoes of a Yakuza looking for revenge. As you dismantle the Yakuza, you also loosen its grip on the city, which breathes new life with shops and restaurants popping up. This will add hidden shortcuts to future runs and will also allow you to unlock new weapons, and moves. Clearly, I wasn’t the only one who played Nuclear Blaze as Devolver Digital snagged publishing rights Tenjutsu, which bodes well.
INDIE GAMES TO ADD TO YOU WISHLIST FOR WEDNESDAY JUNE 11
DISPATCH
The hope is that Dispatch will prove once and for all that the problem with Telltale games wasn’t the lack of talent, but it was just unfortunately mismanaged, which is slightly ironic since Dispatch is a game about management.
Dispatch is being developed and published by AdHoc Studio, a studio founded in 2018 from many of the talented people behind The Walking Dead, The Wolf Among Us and Tales from the Borderlands including Creative Directors and Writing Directors who banded together shortly after Telltale Games filed for bankruptcy and laid off 90% of its employees.
In addition to being smart with the size of the studio, which is only around 40 people compared to the 250 that Telltale had at their largest, Dispatch is also an original IP. This means that the studio can save loads of money not having to pay licensing fees, and instead invest that into other areas of Dispatch that would be more effective.
In Dispatch, you play as Mecha Man, a superhero who has lost his suit was destroyed in a battle with his nemesis. Powerless, Mecha Man must now work at the superhero call center and dispatch superheroes across the city where they are needed. You will need to juggle office relationships, life or death decisions in the field, and rebuilding your mech suit to get revenge.
Not only do the visuals look like a high profile, high budget animated series from Netflix or Disney +, but the story sounds engaging and best of all the performances are anchored by a stacked voice cast, which is likely due to having resources not used up from licensing fees, Aaron Paul from Breaking Bad, Jeffrey Wright from American Fiction and Laura Bailey from The Last of Us 2 are just a few of the names that will be giving these superheroes personality.
Dispatch has also been named as one of the official selections for the Tribeca festival, who have a pretty keen eye for spotting great games. 2024 Selections including games like Neva, Thank Goodness You’re Here and Blue Prince.
THE SEANCE OF BLAKE MANOR
Hot off the heels of publishing Blue Prince, one of the best games of 2025 and arguably one of the best puzzle games of all time, Raw Fury is back with The Seance of Blake Manor. You are a supernatural detective from Ireland. The year is 1897 and your services have been requested at a remote hotel known as Blake Manor. One of the guests has disappeared and the hotel is on lockdown with 2 residents, 5 staff and 17 guests.
Every single one of them is a suspect and you will need to talk with all of them, eavesdrop and scour Blake Manor for all the clues before it’s too late, because in 48 hours there will be a seance to open a portal between the land of the living and the land of the dead. Time plays an important role because you will need to be in the right place at the right time based on the clues you have uncovered during your investigation if you want to get to the bottom of this mess and saved the disappeared woman before it’s too late. To increase immersion The Seance of Blake Manor features engaging cutscenes and a soundtrack that reacts to the environment around you.
The Seance of Blake Manor is being developed by Spooky Doorway, the 12 person indie team behind the 2017 award winning and critically acclaimed title The Darkside Detective. Coverage might be minimal on The Seance of Blake Manor, but based on what has been shown so far, as well as the pedigree of the Spooky Doorway and Raw Fury, there is enough to warrant a wishlist.
SWORD OF THE SEA
The elevator pitch for Sword of The Sea is that it’s Journey, but you surf on your BladeBoard. This isn’t a lazy comparison, because the lineage is easily traceable from thatgamecompay to Giant Squid Games as many of the senior members left to begin their own studio. Giant Squid is clearly great at one thing and instead of reinventing the wheel, the studio continues to evolve and hone what it does best, which is Atmospheric Adventure games. After founding Giant Squid, the studio released Abzu in 2016 and The Pathless in 2021.
In Sword of The Sea The atmospheric adventure has you exploring the remnants of an ancient culture as you try to restore the ocean beneath the desert. The studio is trying to emulate that outer-body spiritual experience that you get when fully connected with the world as you see it at speeds and heights that aren’t traditional. Giant Squid is trying to capture that transcendent experience that you get when you are able to harmonize with the environment. In the words of the studio director “you get to understand nature that you wouldn’t be able to otherwise and connect with the world in a deeper way”
Sword of The Sea is heavily inspired by the skateboard and snowboard classics like Tony Hawk, 1080 and SSX. The gameplay inspriation is full of jumps, carving and half pipes, but completely reimagined in a different context.
Just like Giant Squids previous titles, the score is being composed by Austin Wintory, who has become infamous for his scores of games like Journey, Abzu and The Pathless as higher profile games like Assasins’s Creed Syndicate. Sword of the Sea follows in the studios history with its unique art style that immediately captures your attention with other worldly vistas and bold contrasting colors. The end goal for the studio is to have all of the elements in place to try and create a spiritual experience for the player. It also just got a release date of August 19th at Summer Game Fest.
GAMES YOU NEED TO ADD TO YOUR WISHLIST FOR WEDNESDAY JUNE 18
FELT THAT BOXING
Felt That Boxing was probably the strangest thing from Summer Game Fest as it combined Sesame Street with Punch-Out!!, two things that the world needs more of.
You play as unlikely hero Fuzz-E, who must step into the shoes of his father, who was a boxing legend. A greedy developer is threatening to bulldoze the puppet orphanage and now he needs to win the tournament of a million punches to stop the puppet orphanage from being demolished. Felt That Boxing looks to go beyond a simple arcade boxer with loads of mini games in between matches, secret moves to unlock, a story mode that lasts 8-12 hours, and soundtrack by Flying Lotus that evolves as fights and training escalate.
Felt That Boxing is the Punch-Out!! I didn’t know I needed.
END OF ABYSS
End of Abyss was easily the best thing I played at Summer Game Fest with its dark, atmospheric tone, paired with unique perspective and twin stick controls. End of Abyss felt as much like survival horror, as it did twin stick shooter as it did a metroidvania, which ultimately meant that it felt like nothing I have experienced before and why it’s my most anticipated game of 2026.
End of Abyss is deeply inspired by the early NES classics The Legend of Zelda and Metroid, two games that strongly embrace the less is more approach. Worlds that were vast, full of mystery, danger and begged to be explored. The focus was on exploration, non linearity and atmosphere. There was something so intriguing about never knowing whats around the next corner and that is echoed in End of Abyss.
The list of inspiration for End of Abyss is long. From outside the gaming medium, End of Abyss is inspired from Alien, Akira, The Thing and Ghost in The Shell.
The most prominent inspiration is easily Ridley Scott’s 1979 horror film Alien. Obviously the female protagonist, and the retro futuristic tech, but also just like the crew of the Nostromo who followed a distress signal in the deep reaches of space that fated most of the people aboard, End of Abyss follows a similar structure by investigating a distress signal that says “to the one that hears this, we are waiting for you” although investigating distress signals has become a sci fi trope, that’s because the device works perfectly as it taps into the core of humanity and our innate desire to help.
INFINITESIMALS
Gaming, movies, and books can sometimes have that magical ability to transport you to a magical place. Infinitesimals possess that ability and it transports you to…Earth. However, it’s from a very different perspective and a very different time as we don’t know when the game takes place, but it’s safe to assume it’s a long time in the future. The perspective is basically from ground as you play as an extra terrestrial Captain Awkney, who looks very similar to a grasshopper and happens to be of similar size as well, which means that in addition to mechanical sentinels who occupy planet earth, you also have to deal with the wildlife. Things like ants, spiders and birds are very big threats, but for the most part, you have the option to avoid them.
Movement felt incredible as you can traverse huge distances with your jetpack, the visuals are stunning thanks to some talented artists, Unreal Engine 5 and the world has a very epic feel all the way down to the John Williams inspired score.
After a catastrophic crash, Captain Awkney and the rest of his elite squadron have been split up. You need to regroup and survive this hostile planet. What was very impressive was how much freedom was offered to the player to approach each situation as they wanted to like Dues Ex or Dishonored. You have plenty of tools and if you want to fully operate in stealth you have those options, but you are also heavily armed and can go in blasting. The mini bosses at the end of my demo looked to pose a rather large threat, however, I had recently found a handful of RPG rounds. Remembering this, I made very quick work of the enemy forces, only to discover the real boss was coming in behind them.
