Hello Indie Game Fan Reader!

Two of the studios Xbox cut loose in July have finished walking out the door, and they took their games with them.

Compulsion Games confirmed a completed management buyout on 20 August. They own Contrast, We Happy Few and South of Midnight again. CEO Guillaume Provost on why he did the deal: "I asked the team, 'Do you want to stay together?' The team told me we would rather eat rocks and drink gasoline rather than be split up."

Double Fine followed a day later. Tim Schafer: "The transfer of the IP came back to us. We have the publishing rights back to our games. "when people buy our games, it supports the studio.". Go get Psychonauts 2 if you have not

I want to be careful not to sell this as a happy ending, though. Double Fine cut about a quarter of its staff, and Compulsion lost people too, but at least they have their IP and Microsoft did not do the dick move to retain those and file it away in a filing cabinet somewhere (see Electronics Arts for example)

Double Fine is also running Amnesia Fortnight again, their first game jam since the 2019 acquisition.

The same week, hundreds of union members rallied outside Microsoft studios in nine cities across the US and Canada. The reason is MORE layoffs, the first phase of which is "scheduled to impact 1,600 Xbox workers, including hundreds of union members, in early September."

Those cuts haven't happened yet. John Roberts, an engine programmer laid off from id in July, put it this way: "every developer still employed at an Xbox studio lives in anxious fear, waiting to discover if they are one of the next 1,600 stories."

So: two studios got out with their catalogues and that's good, but it appears to just be the start, and honestly, things don't look that good for the blue brand either (see news below)

Onto some happier news, Gamescom is coming week! I'm not attending but will be keeping an eye on all the news, so tell me, what are you hoping to see get announced? (you can reply directly to this email)

Get the list of 100 upcoming pixel art indie games.

​Upcoming Games of 2026

Indie games of interest

1. ​Carry The Count - Up to four Igors haul a vampire's coffin across 19 regions to reach his lost love. The next friendslop hit?
2. ​Beyond These Stars - Build a city on the back of a living space whale carrying you across the universe. Demo is live and releases on 15th October.
3. ​Verse Project - A multiplayer space exploration title set in a 1:1 scale Solar System with every planet and moon moving according to its real orbit. All in one seamless world with no loading screens, as you mine, trade, fight over territory. Playtest sign-ups are open.
4. ​RetroSpace - This Disco-punk immersive sim is set on a space station swallowed by a sentient black hole. Sneak, hack, lure enemies into traps or just fight, and when you die you clone yourself, recover your gear and deal with what repeated resurrection does to you. Demo is live and release date has been revealed to be 1st October.
5. ​Rerouted - Here's an interesting looking first person survival title where you are stranded in northern wilderness with no GPS. Read an actual map, navigating by landmarks, forage and build camp while fending off bears and wolves.
6. ​Sealbreakers - This stylish 3D top-down rogue-lite brawler looks great, where you're sworn to never to pick up a weapon and have to fight with your fists! Playtest is live.
7. ​Hubert - Play as a working shepherd dog herding sheep across a harsh northern country while wolves close in. Demo is live, releases in October.
8. ​Riot Riders - One of you flies the helicopter, the other hangs underneath it as the gunner. Every turn and dive the pilot makes bends the gunner's line of fire, so aiming is a two-person physics problem in this arcadey run and gun title.
9. ​Stormforge - A Valheim style survival crafting title for up to eight, where the deadly magical storms contain resources and deadly enemies, and might be the next big thing. Demo is live.

​God Tier Indie Games​

My videos this week

1. ​Top 25 BEST Upcoming Co-op Indie Games of 2026 - Everything worth playing with someone else.
2. ​Indie Gaming This Week: 17 – 23 August 2026 - The weekly roundup

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Best Indie Games @clemmygames This action platformer is still one of the best looking games in development, set in the year 2048 where you are part of the Tokyo Police Department’s notorious 9th Mobile Unit, that has to fight high-tech robot crime in Neo Tokyo! The game is The Scramble Vice, interested? 1:0 PM • Aug 21, 2026 82 Retweets 674 Likes Read 13 replies

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News & Articles

1. ​Someone called Cyberleek is leaking real GTA 6 gameplay, and Take-Two is subpoenaing Microsoft and Discord to find them - Eight clips and counting since Tuesday, nine days before Rockstar's own Netflix reveal. One clip has the player shoot "LEEK" into a wall, so they have a playable build. Rockstar has said nothing at all.
2. ​PlayStation is reportedly stripping the live service out of Horizon Hunters Gathering - Bad playtest feedback, so it becomes a smaller co-op game with a story mode instead. Sony's live service run continues to be not so great
3. ​Warren Spector is retiring - Deus Ex, System Shock, Ultima Underworld, Epic Mickey, and a month short of his 44th year in the business. "The game business has changed and it's just not as much fun for me anymore." He still has three games he'd like to make.
4. ​Harvey Smith's new studio is called Black Pony Immersive - Ex-Arkane staff and people who worked on Dishonored and Deus Ex, making immersive sims
5. ​Bain's Gaming Report 2026: only one in five players actively look for new games - 5,300 players surveyed. If you are reading this, you're probably among the 20%
6. ​Arco has sold 100,000 copies and broken even - Two years to the day after launch. Development costs ramp up with more people!
7. ​Godot adoption keeps climbing - 47% of GMTK jam entries this year were on Godot, breaking Unity's nine-year streak at the top. Unsurprising considering what they tried to pull.
8. ​US physical game sales hit their lowest month since 1995 - $85 million in July. Hardware spend down 29%, units down 39%, average price up 16% to $542
9. ​Xbox and EA have stopped sharing US digital sales data with Circana - So the numbers everyone quotes about the market get blurrier from here.
10. ​gamescom will have its largest indie area ever - Over 420 companies, up 16% on last year. All 233,000 square metres sold out back in July.
11. ​Nintendo wiped 401 more emulator repositories off GitHub - Don't mess with the Plumber

Indie Game of the Week

​The Alters - Stranded on a planet where the sunrise will kill you, you clone alternate versions of yourself (the ones who made different choices) and put them to work. Live with them, feed them, schedule them, and listen to them argue about which of you got life right! Currently at 50% off!

Poll!

My name is Clement and I love indie games! As such, I make videos on indie games big and small, highlighting my favorites & supporting developers so that they can make more cool stuff.

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