AUGUST RUSH

What a strange month July was. It’s as though the games industry was holding its collective breath in anticipation of the influx of AAA and high profile indies coming throughout the last five months of the year starting early August. With the exception of some esports news and AMD finally unveiling the details on the Vega series of GPUs, July was essentially the quiet before the storm.

I’m writing this on August 2, the day we send to the printers, and starting today the influx of games for the rest of the year really starts and there will be no let up for the next four or five months. In August we have Tacoma, Ark: Survival Evolved, Lawbreakers, Agents of Mayhem, six new acts for Path of Exile, Nidhogg 2, Life is Strange: Before the Storm, Observer, Absolver, The Long Dark, Hello Neighbor, Hellblade and a bunch more. September is just as busy, if not busier, and October sees the release of pretty much every game we’ve had on the cover this year.

With the resignation of Scott Ludlam, the games industry’s most vocal proponent in government, things aren’t looking that great on the home front when it comes to large scale development, but we’re still busy kicking goals on the indie front. Objects in Space, the fantastic indie stealth space trading sim that plays a little like an old-school submarine game, by Flat Earth Games has picked up international publishing and distribution through 505 Games. Former editor and bald Justin Timberlake impersonator, Dan Hindes and his cohorts are still wowing backers with each subsequent build of Wildfire. Defiant Development is working hard on Hand of Fate 2 even while the original game is being turned into a tabletop experience. These are just a few examples. We may not have any big studios left, but in fine Australian tradition, we still manage to punch far above our weight.