The rest of PAX West 2022’s standout indie games: Rhythm madness, bloody combat

SEATTLE—In-person video game conventions are back! Kind of! Nerdy conventions and other physical events began reappearing in public halls late last year, though what a difference a year makes. PAX West 2021 was my first in-person convention since the COVID-19 pandemic began, but the event was a ghost town, full of empty, blacked-out spaces and massive gaps in the cast of showcasing companies. Last week's PAX West 2022, on the other hand, finally felt like the real deal, and it was fortunately met by a vigilant, mask-wearing crowd. Some gaming companies have apparently moved on from local convention participation, with Microsoft and Sony not hosting PAX West booths (though each had a presence at last month's boisterous Gamescom 2022 in Cologne, Germany). Hence, this post-PAX "coolest upcoming games" feature is far from comprehensive, owing as much to missing companies as to specific games not demoing well in packed convention halls. Even so, we played enough diverse fare to feel comfortable shouting out solid PAX West highlights.

Rift of the Necrodancer
Release date TBA; platforms TBA | Official site

The studio behind 2015 indie smash Crypt of the Necrodancer clearly cares about new ideas in the well-worn genre of rhythm gaming. That's proven by PAX West's promising world gameplay premiere of the new spinoff Rift of the Necrodancer, which basically looks like a greatest-hits collection of other popular rhythm game concepts, only beefed up by the genre experts at Brace Yourself Games.

Previously at PAX West 2022

I've already covered a few fun games from PAX West 2022, and each piece included gameplay impressions. Return to Monkey Island is slated to launch on Windows, MacOS, and Nintendo Switch in less than two weeks, and its near-final build showcased handsome storybook-style paper-doll animations that fit well with the sequel's sense of humor and whimsy. Mina the Hollower is maybe my favorite PAX West 2022 game, and its director talked at length with me about its NES and Game Boy Color inspirations. High on Life doubles down on its co-creator Justin Roiland's art stylings and sense of oddball humor, and as he tells Ars Technica, it builds upon lessons learned from prior games he has worked on, particularly Trover Saves the Universe. This week's demo includes three modes, and each directly compares to a previous hit: Guitar Hero, Rhythm Heaven, and Punch-Out!!. The first looks deceptively familiar. Musical notes fall from the top of the screen to a line at the bottom, and when they cross this line, you must tap the corresponding button to the beat to clear the note. But what if the notes were monsters—each with their own personalities and movement patterns, thus jumping or shifting as they approach the clear line? This tweak to the Guitar Hero formula feels appropriate for the Necrodancer series, which originally combined top-down monster battles with rhythm-based taps, and already in the new demo, the spinoff's take on this concept feels incredibly fresh. Each monster has a unique pattern as it descends to the beat of catchy tunes, and the fun kicks into gear when multiple monster types fill the screen. One might need to be tapped twice or thrice to be cleared, shifting to the right or left after each tap. Another might constantly shift between lanes during its descent. Rift's boxing mode combines familiar Punch-Out!! combat with rhythm-based responses, and I'm shocked nobody thought of this before. Punch-Out!!, after all, revolves around memorization and pattern recognition, which is similar to the toughest rhythm-gaming challenges, and I was immediately charmed by the sensation of dodging, blocking, and countering with catchy songs as reference points. If Nintendo isn't going to make a Punch-Out!! sequel any time soon, then this already seems like a good alternative. Meanwhile, the mode that mimics Rhythm Heaven feels a little less unique, but that's not a complaint. The sample level I played looks and feels a lot like Nintendo's niche hit, particularly in terms of upbeat tunes and detailed, adorable animations to tap buttons along to. It's unclear if BYG has other modes or surprises in store for the final version of Rift; the game is apparently early in development, so we're far off from such confirmations, let alone a release date or confirmed platforms beyond Windows. But already, we're excited by this spinoff's possibilities.

Dungeons of Aether
Release date: February 23, 2023; platforms TBA | Official site

Nintendo's Smash Bros. series began as a way to cull characters from a bunch of diverse games into an entirely new series. In the case of one popular Smash Bros. clone, Rivals of Aether, its creators have begun to move in the opposite direction: start with the mascot fighter game, then make traditional games as spinoffs. The latest game in the series combines dungeon dives with a unique spin on Pokemon-style combat. As someone who typically loathes JRPG menu-driven fights, I was blown away by how captivating and tactically meaningful the game's pre-release demo feels in action. Every battle round begins with a roll of six differently colored dice, then you and your opponent take turns drafting these dice. Each die you select must then be placed on one of four stats, and the same goes for your foe. Pretty quickly, you'll be forced into a corner when the dice do not immediately work in your favor. You might invest in your "attack" stat one draft, only to find your opponent, seemingly low on "defense," instead overspends on "accuracy" and "speed," which allows them to activate a special ability and have their ability activate before any of your own (respectively). You can waste high die values if they don't match your ideal stat by turning them into one-pip bonuses for any other stat. But depending on your opponent's monster and its special abilities, you may survive by spending those high rolls on less ideal colors and adapting your strategies accordingly. I found the battle-by-battle tension of this dice-driven system, and the fact that the randomness affects both players equally, relieved my concerns about yet another dice-rolling video game. I'm hopeful that the demo's hints at a robust inventory system lead to even richer adventures when the game launches early next year.

Wanted Dead
Release date: “February 23” on Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, PS4, Windows | Official site

This new hack-and-slash 3D battler loudly wears its Ninja Gaiden (2004) pedigree on its bloody sleeves, as its development team includes several former Team Ninja staffers (though, notably, it's missing former Team Ninja lead Tomonobu Itagaki, who has since started his own studio). PAX West 2022 hosted Wanted Dead's latest gameplay demo behind closed doors, and so far, the sword-and-gun results fall right in line with the developers' pedigree—though perhaps to a fault. The game's breeziest sales pitch is the slick sword-driven action of Ninja Gaiden but with some guns, a lot more blood and dismemberment, and liberal stylistic lifts from Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill. Run straight ahead through been-there-done-that 3D environs (a nightclub, a museum) and kill every combatant who stands in your way. Though the game supports ducking behind cover and blasting foes with guns, it clearly prioritizes swordplay, along with occasional gun blasts as a Devil May Cry-style interruption. Wanted Dead demands that players use last-second gun blasts as a counter against otherwise "unblockable" attacks, and in my limited time playing the game, that kind of across-the-hall gunfire counter makes the act of building and maintaining combat combos feel all the more satisfying. My biggest concern after sampling the game is that its combat revolves entirely around bipedal foes, which are at least divided between normal humans and Working Joe-like cyborgs; when you kill the latter, they explode in sparks and spill blood, because I guess that's how the devs like their robots. I faced off against one perfectly fine boss, who kept me on my battling toes with invisibility-driven pounces, but otherwise, I am concerned the game's proposed length of five levels will feel a bit hollow if the devs don't beef up the available foes. Slashing this game's waves of redundant baddies—and seeing their limbs and body parts come apart in pretty much every way imaginable, as powered by Unreal Engine 5—has a certain action-movie appeal, and I had a fine time pulling off counters and making a bloody mess for half an hour. But I'm not sure the game's mild additions will propel this beyond satisfying replays of Itagaki's Ninja Gaiden trilogy. In a cool twist, at least, the game will come with a "complete" '80s-style shoot-em-up arcade game tucked into its extras menu that resembles R-Type. This pixellated 16-bit shooter includes a compelling genre twist: When you let go of the game's "auto-fire" button, enemy corpses will explode to harm incoming foes. I wished I could have stayed at my PAX West appointment and played that bonus game longer. The devs at Soleil suggest that this shoot-em-up game will get its own standalone release in the lead-up to Wanted Dead's retail release in February 2023.

Enter the Gungeon: House of the Gundead
Arcade cabinet exclusive, rolling out now to venues | Official site

This modern light-gun version of the Gungeon indie game series was announced in 2019 and is finally beginning to roll out as an arcade cabinet. The new arcade game's apparent world premiere, as hidden in the back of PAX West 2022's "retro" arcade chamber behind much older machines, is a stunner. Many of the series' coolest enemies (all shaped like either guns or ammunition) are blown up to full-screen size with newly redrawn 2D animations, and they look impressive on an apparently 1080p LED monitor, as paired with gun sensors that play nicely with modern screens. Waves of foes must be shot in classic arcade-gun style as players descend further and further into an underground world that, unsurprisingly, looks like Sega's House of the Dead. The game's biggest gimmick compared to other light gun classics is that enemy attacks can only be dodged by shooting limited-time, target-covered boxes, which appear in corners of the screen to correspond with which direction your virtual self would sidestep. For the toughest attacks from big monsters and bosses, players will need to shoot two or three boxes in succession to fully dodge their massive attack waves. It's a cool tweak compared to the foot pedal requirements of older shooters like Time Crisis, and I look forward to testing this at a local arcade near me at some point. (If you'll excuse me, I need to go DM Coindexter's in my hometown of Seattle about this one.)

Other quick PAX West 2022 highlights

System Shock remake: Nightdive Studios was gracious enough to bring this long-awaited project's Gamescom build to PAX West, and the newest content seen here, beyond further refinement of new, gorgeous light-and-shadow systems, is a new real-time introduction. Everything that was previously pre-rendered now plays out from your first-person perspective, and the results benefit hugely from the remastered game's voxel-like aesthetic and haunting light modeling. Otherwise, the game still looks and feels fantastic on keyboard and mouse, while gamepad controls still need a lot of tweaking, particularly in terms of forcing players to aim their tiny reticle directly on whatever they want to pick up or manipulate. (Try a free demo of the game's older build on Steam right now.) It's a Wrap: This clever 2D puzzle platformer combines time manipulation with something that looks like Final Cut Pro. Players must study the timeline of how a sequence in a film will play out, then move triggers on a timeline so that, say, an explosion happens later or a platform falls earlier. With the right sequence of events confirmed, players then take control of an Indiana Jones-like movie star and make him run and jump between each perilous trigger to get the perfect take. The trial-and-error effort to get the scene timed correctly feels like something that Electronic Arts would have produced in its early '80s PC heyday, which is a pretty high compliment on my part. I am concerned, though, that a rep on hand didn't confirm plans to open up the final game to Steam Early Access; this unique puzzle system seems ripe for community contributions. (Try the free demo on Steam right now.)

Beneath Oresa: What if Slay the Spire had a much higher animation and design budget, so much so that every fight played out like something out of a gothic 3D hack-and-slash game? That's the biggest selling point for a deckbuilding adventure that otherwise feels very Spire-like, albeit with a few sprinkles of salt to add more strategic depth. Oresa asks you to enlist helpers, who add new perks to your arsenal when you earn "teamwork" points (even though they don't actually animate or appear during battle). While in battle, you'll also need to keep tabs on battlefield "zones" to more optimally use your arsenal of card-driven attacks. (Try the free demo on Steam right now.) Tinykin: This charming-as-hell 3D platformer is already out on every console family, along with PCs, and each includes a free demo download if you want to see what the hubbub is about. Since Tinykin had a big PAX West booth, I wanted to take a PAX-adjacent moment to strongly recommend that you try it. I currently liken it to "better than Kirby on Switch" as far as accessible, fun 3D platforming is concerned, and it will likely land on my year-end list. It's that good.