While many players and media outlets look toward the bigger developers during the Electronic Entertainment Expo (E3), sometimes it’s the indie developers who create some of the most interesting games on show throughout E3. Because of that, many indie games tend to get somewhat overlooked throughout the annual fair. But not here at Pop Geeks! Below, we present you with the five most interesting and promising indie games to come out of E3 2016; although, this is just a small sample of the amazing games to come out of the expo. Be sure to check out other games in our E3 2016 coverage.
5: We Happy Few
We Happy Few is the tale of a plucky bunch of moderately terrible people trying to escape from a lifetime of cheerful denial. Set in a drug-fuelled, retrofuturistic city in an alternative 1960s England, you’ll have to blend in with its other inhabitants, who have their own set of not-so-normal rules. Currently announced for Xbox One, Windows, Mac and Linux, We Happy Few will be released in 2016. However, We Happy Few is set to be released on Microsoft Game Preview / Steam Early Access on July 26, 2016.
The games playable characters are not typical video game heroes – they are flawed and not particularly heroic, warped by the trauma their world has been through. Each character has its own storyline, reacting to the events of the world around them, and their place within it. Our stories are definitely not appropriate for children, but are laced with dark humour, hope, and even a spot of redemption.
4: Styx: Master Of Shadows
Styx: Master of Shadows is an infiltration game with RPG elements from Cyanide Studio. Guide Styx through the winding Tower of Akenash, home to a Treeworld, source of the Amber – a powerful golden sap filled with magical properties – prowling through the shadows with aide of a host of special abilities refined throughout Styx’s 200 years of history.
Within the many hallways and levels of the Tower of Akenash, Styx must avoid the humans who’ve the ability to easily overpower him. With Amber running through his veins, what Styx lacks in might he more than makes up for with stealth, as the golden elixir – often heavily guarded – raises his perception, sharpens his senses, and even offers the ability to turn him invisible for short periods of time.
In the Tower of Akenash, humans and elves jealously guard a strange treasure: a WorldTree from which pours a golden sap, the Amber, source of immense and indomitable powers. The Heart of the Tree, Amber source, is without a doubt of an inestimable value. Well… this is the assumption of our hero, a goblin thief and assassin, who would stop at nothing to accomplish what would be considered the robbery of the century. For this, he has a main advantage: his capacity to create a clone of himself. His plan is simple, he must first discover the secret plans of the tower, hidden by its mysteriously absent architect, then grab the key that gives access to the tree carefully guarded by the Governor Barimen.
3: Absolver
Absolver puts players behind the mask of a Prospect, who has taken a sacred vow and chosen to join the Absolvers, an elite corps of combatants fighting to maintain stability in the world. Monitored by the Guides, the new rulers of the fallen Adal Empire, players will wander these forsaken lands and encounter other Prospects online in order to learn their place in this world and eventually become Absolvers.
Along the way, they will learn new combat styles and attacks, and acquire better weapons, powers and armor. Battles between warriors are an intense real-time flow of attacks, dodges, feints and counters, with all aspects of gameplay customizable, including combat styles, weapons and even individual attack sequences in the player’s Combat Deck. Build a team of warriors to fight side by side with you in the dungeon mines of Adal (PvE) or put your skill on display in dedicated combat arenas (PvP) scattered across the land.
