Skip to main content

One of the weirdest games of the year will launch this May

Key art for Indika
11 bit Studios

Publisher 11 bit Studios revealed that Indika — a very weird game from Odd Meter Studio that left a strong impression on me during February’s Steam Next Fest — will finally come out on May 8.

This announcement came during GamesRadar’s Future Games Show at PAX East 2024 on Thursday afternoon via a trailer that runs the gamut from being hilarious to frighteningly eerie within just a couple of minutes. Indika has had some of the weirdest video game trailers I’ve ever seen since its reveal in October 2023. Seriously, check out 11 bit Studios’ playlist of trailers for this game if you’re unfamiliar with the game, and you’ll be instantly be intrigued.

For those trying to make sense of what Indika actually is, the game is a narrative-driven third-person adventure game following the titular nun, who is trying to help a man who claims to have spoken to God while dealing with the literal devil trying to speak to her subconsciously. All of this causes Indika to question her own faith as this puzzle-solving adventure continues to devolve into more otherworldly, depraved scenarios. It’s a far cry from all the other games 11 bit Studios has backed, like Frostpunk 2 and The Alters.

“While it might seem like your basic narrative adventure game on the surface, underneath those layers is a very unsettling experience,” I wrote of the game after trying it out during the last Steam Next Fest. “Indika is keen to highlight the inconsistencies and contradictions of religion by gamifying it.”

That demo was only a small 30-minute slice of the game, though, so I definitely can’t wait to see what the full game has in store. Indika launches for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S on May 8.

Editors' Recommendations

Tomas Franzese
Gaming Staff Writer
Tomas Franzese is a Staff Writer at Digital Trends, where he reports on and reviews the latest releases and exciting…
One of the year’s best reviewed games is coming to Xbox Game Pass
Issac Clarke exploring ruins in Dead Space Remake.

Microsoft revealed the next batch of games coming to its Xbox Game Pass subscription service this October. While no Activision Blizzard games are coming to the service just yet following that acquisition, one of 2023's best-reviewed games is: this year's Dead Space remake.

Dead Space came out in January and is a stunning remake of a 2008 horror classic. The game follows an engineer named Issac Clarke as he searches for his girlfriend Nicole on a gigantic spaceship called the USG Ishimura. It's overrun by disgusting creatures called Necromorphs, though, leading to plenty of horrific situations as Issacs looks for answers on the ship. The original was an atmospheric and tense horror game, and developer EA Motive only enhanced all of that with this remake that updates the game's visuals and makes some other tweaks to bring the experience more in line with future games in its series and other modern horror games.
It's a great choice if you're looking for a new horror game to play this month, so we recommend checking it out when it hits Xbox Game Pass on October 26. It's not the only game coming to the service during the back half of this month, though. Here's the full list of games coming to Xbox Game Pass throughout the rest of October.

Read more
The Alters turns Fallout Shelter into an ethically focused management sim
The base players build in The Alters.

If you ever wondered what Fallout Shelter might look like as a full-scale PC and console game rather than a mobile title, 11 bit Studios’ The Alters is the closest you'll come to that idea. That said, the upcoming management sim is so much more than that; it's one of the most distinct and unique video games I’ve previewed in some time.

In The Alters, a character named Jan is trapped on a planet after a mining mission for a resource called Rapidium goes wrong. The company he’s working for forces him to stay there and continue mining, and he soon discovers that Rapidium can be used to create clones. These “Alters” aren’t direct clones of Jan, though; they’re alternate versions of him with different life experiences and skill sets, giving Jan a glimpse into what his life may have been.

Read more
Frostpunk 2 takes notes from Cities: Skylines with its grander scope
A frozen man with Liar written on his chest sits in front of oil rigs in Frostpunk 2.

In the original Frostpunk, the main goal is to survive an icy apocalypse and reestablish civilization around a powerful generator while slowly gathering resources, building structures with them, and dealing with a plethora of ethical questions along the way. It’s a challenging game, but after dozens of hours and several decisions, players have a solid city center that can withstand the apocalypse.
In Frostpunk 2, that’s just the starting point.
Frostpunk 2 | The City Must Not Fall Trailer
Developer 11 Bit Studios recently gave me a presentation of the sandbox “Utopia Builder” mode in Frostpunk 2. During this hands-off demo, I saw how Frostpunk 2 has grown much larger in scale, with players primarily dealing with building entire districts and influencing council votes rather than concerning themselves with gathering tiny amounts of resources and the minutiae of building a small city. That’s a bold approach for a city builder sequel, as they don’t usually change the gameplay this much, but 11 Bit Studios is confident with its large-scale swing. Frostpunk 2 may expand on the original, but it's not throwing away what made the 2018 gem so special.
A true postapocalyptic game
The developer believes Frostpunk 2 is postapocalyptic in the truest sense. While that term was often applied to the original, its developers pointed out in my hands-off preview that the original game technically occurred during an apocalypse and was mainly about surviving it. Meanwhile, this sequel takes place 30 years later and is more interested in challenging players by having them manage a society that’s saved itself and is trying to evolve following an apocalyptic event.

In practice, that means Frostpunk 2’s gameplay lies somewhere between the original’s and that of Cities: Skylines. The hands-off Utopia Builder demo began with a city the size of what players would have built by the end of the first game; this isn’t the entire city, though, just the starting central district. The developers quickly built housing districts on one side of that central hub, pointing out that time in Frostpunk 2 now progresses in weekly increments instead of daily.
They explained how resource management is still a part of the game, but that it also takes place on a more macro level. It’s tied to supply and demand for specific resources that districts can provide. Ultimately, the goal is to create synergies between districts so there’s a constant flow of the resources required to keep your city growing and people happy. That’s easier said than done, though. Frostpunk 2 is still a difficult game that will present complex decisions for players to deal with.
Choices, choices
Challenges were mostly centered around two communities of peoples that populated this “utopia”: the industrial and technical-focused Engineers and the survivalist and adaptive Foragers. As players grow their city, they’ll need to improve it by completing research in the Idea Tree. Each community will present solutions for the player to choose from.
In this demo’s case, the question of “How do we produce more food?” was proposed. The developers chose to side with the Foragers, who wanted to use human waste to create more fertilizer. This one decision had clear consequences throughout the rest of the demo. The Engineers eventually asked if they could chemically treat the sewage to prevent disease, which the developers agreed to, and then learned that children were being used to obtain the biowaste.

Read more