Author: Flare

Into the Underground The survival horror genre is currently experiencing a renaissance, largely fueled by high-budget remakes of classics like Resident Evil and Silent Hill. But in the shadow of these giants, indie developers are scavenging for their own piece of the pie. Enter ENTITY: THE BLACK DAY, a project developed solo by Ali Al-Abboodi that was released on January 8, 2026. Priced at a modest $17.99, ENTITY promises a return to the golden age of third-person shooters—dark corridors, government conspiracies, and biological horrors. After spending about four hours navigating its subterranean labs, it is clear that while this game…

The Doctor Will See You Now (Again) For fans of the cult classic Pathologic franchise, the wait has been a long, feverish dream. After Pathologic 2 launched in 2019, focusing on the Haruspex (the “Body”), players have been desperate for the promised follow-up focusing on the Bachelor, Daniil Dankovsky (the “Mind”). That wait ended on January 9, 2026, with the release of Pathologic 3. Developed by the avant-garde Russian studio Ice-Pick Lodge, Pathologic 3 is not a sequel in the traditional sense, but a reimagining of the Bachelor’s route, expanding the lore and completely overhauling the gameplay mechanics to fit…

The Metroidvania genre is a crowded galaxy. To stand out amongst the stars—especially in a timeline where we are finally “eating good” with heavy hitters like Hollow Knight: Silksong dominating the conversation—an indie title needs more than just a map and a double jump. It needs a soul. It needs an aesthetic that arrests the senses and a gameplay loop that refuses to let go. Enter MIO: Memories in Orbit, the latest offering from Douze Dixièmes and Focus Entertainment. Released today, January 20, 2026, this sci-fi adventure tasks players with stepping into the metallic shell of MIO, a nimble android…

The “Quota Horror” genre, popularized by the meteoric rise of Lethal Company, has spawned a fascinating sub-genre of co-op survival games. The formula is simple but effective: you are an expendable employee, the environment wants you dead, and the Corporation demands profit. Planet Hoarders, the debut title from indie developer Imago Games, enters this crowded arena with a twisted proposition. What if, instead of scavenging scrap metal, your job were to kidnap adorable alien wildlife with a mallet? Released into Early Access on December 17, 2025, Planet Hoarders mixes the aesthetic of a creature collector with the tension of a…

The survival and automation genres have long run in parallel. On one side, you have the grueling, stick-and-stone survival of games like Green Hell or The Forest. On the other hand, you have the industrial, conveyor-belt sprawl of Satisfactory and Factorio. Rarely do these tracks converge successfully without one mechanic overpowering the other. Enter StarRupture. Developed by Creepy Jar—the same team that threw us into the Amazonian nightmare of Green Hell—this new title attempts to fuse high-stakes survival FPS combat with complex industrial automation. Released into Early Access on January 6, 2026, StarRupture drops players onto a volatile planet governed…

Bowling games have always occupied a strange niche in the sports gaming world. For years, we were stuck between the arcade silliness of Wii Sports and the dry, often janky simulations that littered the bargain bins. Serious bowlers—the kind who know what “oil pattern breakdown” means and carry three different balls in a roller bag—have been starved for a title that treats their sport with the respect it deserves. Enter PBA Pro Bowling 2026. Developed by FarSight Studios, this latest entry in the licensed franchise promises the “most realistic bowling simulation ever made.” Released on December 19, 2025, just in…