With the start of the summer months comes Summer Game Fest (SGF), an event that showcases the most exciting new games that are coming in the rest of 2024 and early 2025. The SGF 2024 happened on June 7th, and it did exactly what everyone expected – introduced and showcases a variety of exciting new games. Despite the excitement surrounding the event, it was completely overshadowed by the current state of the gaming industry which is great for shareholders but terrible for the people who actually work on the games.

Mentioned several times during the broadcast, the gaming industry has experienced a record number of layoffs and studio closures in 2024. Dozens of studios have closed forever and hundreds of thousands of employees have lost their jobs in gaming from small indie studios and employees all the way up to triple A, where the bulk of these issues are occurring.

Despite these layoffs, most of the companies creating this situation in the gaming industry are still hitting record profits in 2024, something that SGF conveniently didn’t mention. However, this state of gaming industry absolutely set the tone for SGF 2024, where more indie developed games than ever were revealed with a minimal amount of double or triple A developed games. In fact, before any games were showcased, an interesting stat was publicized at SGF – 8 out of the 10 most purchased games released in 2024 have been indie developed games. This stat is a prelude to what the future of gaming looks like, in which indie games overtake triple A games.

Enough about the tone of SGF 2024, it’s time to talk about what was actually announced. Overall, there were a lot of game expansions and long-awaited games being showcased. Starting with the new games, here are some of the most notable new releases that will come later this year or early next year:

Newly Announced Games

  • Cuffbust – a single-person developed cartoonish prison break game
  • Sid Meier’s Civilization 7 – a huge announcement that no one was expecting
  • Lego Horizon Adventure – the lego version of the Horizon Zero Dawn series
  • Harry Potter Quidditch Champion – a game fully focused on Quidditch
  • Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero – the long -awaited new Dragon Ball fighting game
  • Dune Awakening – an MMO based on the Dune movies
  • Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess – a turn based monster game
  • Monster Hunter Wilds – the newest game in the Monster Hunter series
  • Black Myth: Wukong – a souls-like based on Journey to the West
  • No More Room in Hell 2 – a zombie survival game
  • The First Descendent – a PvE first person shooter

Some honorable mentions for notable games include Fatal Fury: City of the Wolves; Metaphor: Refantazio; a bundle of six horror games from the movie production company Blumhouse; Slitterhead; Mighty Morphin Power Rangers: Rita’s Rewind; Wanderstop; Sonic x Shadow Generations; Hyper Light Breaker; Neva; Delta Force Hawk Ops; Tears of Metal; and Cairn. Most of these honorable mentions were indie developed and have a lot of potential to be great games.

New Expansions to Existing Games

  • Valorant – the entire game is finally coming to Consoles with a new character
  • Alan Wake 2: Night Springs – a story expansion to Alan Wake 2
  • Street Fighter 6 – a two-year celebration with returning playable characters
  • Palworld: Sakurajima – a free DLC with new pals, islands, and craft-able items
  • The Finals: Season 3 – a refresh on The Finals ranked mode
  • New World: Aeternum – a content expansion of the New World MMO

There were several other games that were not mentioned here, most of which will be re-announced later this year because they are set for release in 2025. The three-hour SGF show was followed by another three-hour SGF extension show called “The Day of the Devs,” which showcased even more new games that were produced exclusively by indie developers. A major theme with the Day of the Devs was an emerging genre called “Cozy games.” Cozy games are generally single player puzzles story games that offer a completely stress-free experience with no enemies to fight, no in-game time limits, and no lost progression. Most cozy games are meant to be artistic and beautiful through visual and audio mediums, a creative divergence from mainstream games today that focus on mechanics and fast-paced gameplay.

To check out all the games announced at Day of the Devs or any titles that are not listed above, check out the recordings of the Summer Game Fest here.