Author: Flare

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…

Visiting your grandmother is usually a wholesome experience: free food, unconditional love, maybe a $20 bill slipped into your pocket. But in Grandma, Is That You?, the latest psychological horror from Montee Games, that visit turns into a nightmare of human stew, haunted wind chimes, and a dog named Bobo who loves chewing on “suspiciously long” bones. Released earlier this month, this indie title asks a simple question: What happens when the person you trust most starts serving you “meat sandwiches” that taste a little too homemade? Welcome to the Family The premise is classic horror fodder. Your mother calls…

There are co-op games that bring you closer, and then there are co-op games that force you to reconsider every life choice that led you to be tethered to your friend by a virtual rope. Stuck Together, the latest release from Hugecalf Studios, falls squarely into the latter category—and it’s absolutely brilliant for it. Released on November 17, 2025, this physics-based climbing adventure tasks two players (or one audacious soul in the newly added single-player mode) with escaping the home of a sadistic, toy-mutilating teenager. The catch? You are quite literally stuck together, forcing a level of coordination that will…