EngadgetModify

2026-04-18 19:00:00

Welcome to our latest roundup of what's going on in the indie game space. Once again, there are some neat new games for you to check out this weekend. We've got a bunch of updates and announcements for upcoming titles to tell you about too.

There have been a bunch of solid indie showcases lately (and highlights from another one to tell you about below). If you want to learn about a ton of other games ASAP, you might want to set your alarm pretty early on April 25.

Starting at 5AM ET that day, the latest edition of Indie Life Expo takes place on YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, Bilibili and elsewhere. This one will feature more than 200 games! A rapid-fire Indie Waves segment will power through 160 of them. Organizers received 1,100 submissions for this installment, so hats off to them for featuring a sizable percentage of those.

Before that, you can check out another showcase on April 21. Top Hat Studios Presents: Spring Showcase 2026 will start at noon ET on the publisher's YouTube and Twitch channels.

The stream will feature Motorslice, Well Dweller and survival horror game Becrowned, as well premieres and other Top Hat games. I've been looking forward to Motorslice, which has a May release window. I wager we'll get a precise release date for that during this stream.

Meanwhile, there's an interesting Steam event taking place soon. InterfaceX26 will run from April 27 until May 4. This one is focused on games that deal with made-up operating systems and other custom interfaces. Organizers have brought together more than 150 developers and publishers, who are asking Valve to introduce an official "Fake OS" tag for games on Steam. 

Some neat games will be included in a sale and a showcase on May 2, including Blippo+, TR-49 and The Roottrees are Dead. Expect demos and relevant new releases too. Speaking of which...

New releases

We've been waiting a very long time for Replaced. This cyberpunk adventure from Sad Cat Studios and publisher Thunderful finally landed this week on Steam, GOG, Xbox on PC and Xbox Series X/S. It's on Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass. Otherwise, the base game costs $20. A supporter edition that includes the soundtrack is $25. It'll hit the Epic Games Store at a later date.

The game was initially supposed to arrive in 2022. It certainly didn't help that Sad Cat Studios was forced to relocate from Belarus to Cyprus after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. But the game is finally here and it debuted to generally positive reviews.

Replaced is a 2.5D action platformer set in an alternate version of 1980s America, in which you play as an AI trapped in a human body that may or may not dream of electric sheep. I haven't yet had a chance to properly jump into this gorgeous-looking game, but I'm hoping to do so this weekend.

Speaking of games I've long had on my wishlist, Gecko Gods arrived this week. I think I first clapped eyes on this around 2022. Various trailers charmed me with the idea of a puzzle exploration platformer that casts you in the role of a gecko that's able to run along walls and ceilings. 

I've played around 90 minutes of this one so far. I dig the look and the gecko is very cute (being able to customize its appearance is a nice touch). I love that you "collect" different types of bugs by eating them. It's a fairly relaxing game, which is broadly what I need at the minute.

I think there are some issues here, though. I've explored two of the main five islands in the open world and it feels a bit sparse so far. The joy of being able to clamber up and around any object complicates things when it comes to more precise platforming sections. While the sailing sections are pretty, the boat is clunky to control on the choppy water. I ran into some mild technical issues as well on PS5 with occasional framerate dips and objects popping in. Hopefully, that's something the developers at Inresin are able to address.

Gecko Gods — from publishers Super Rare Originals and Gamersky Games — is available now on Steam, PS5 and Nintendo Switch. It's normally $20, but there's a 10 percent launch discount until April 30 (on PS5, this only applies to PlayStation Plus members)

Another highly anticipated game landed this week in the form of Mouse: PI for Hire. We've had our eyes on this first-person shooter/detective game with sumptuous rubberhose-style animation for quite some time. Reviews have been generally positive so far, and it seems that there's enough substance here to live up to those stellar visuals. 

Mouse: PI for Hire — from Fumi Games and publisher PlaySide — is out now for $30. It's available on PC, Nintendo Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X/S.

Thirsty Suitors developer Outerloop Games and co-publisher Outersloth served up the cooking-themed Dosa Divas this week. It tells the story of two sisters who set out on a journey with their mech to take down a fast food empire and reconnect communities through cooking. 

It caught my eye when I saw it during a showcase a while back and it has a great concept, though I don't exactly love turn-based combat. I've read a few lukewarm reviews of the game, and the consensus seems to be that the cooking mechanics and combat perhaps needed some more time to simmer. 

If you'd like to try Dosa Divas yourself, you can pick it up on Steam, Xbox Series X/S, PS5, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2. It'll usually run you $20, but there's a 10 percent launch discount until April 28.

If you're looking for a puzzle game that can be relaxing or rather dark, depending on your mood, it might be worth checking out A Storied Life: Tabitha. As you pack up the home of a late loved one, you'll need to decide which items to keep in the limited storage space you have and discard the rest. You'll need to wrap fragile items in bubble wrap and vacuum pack soft items to save room in the boxes.

As you save items, you'll unlock words that you can use to fill in the blanks of your loved one's life and tell their story, Mad Libs-style. Given that you'll find items like a blackmail letter and a shirt with lipstick on the collar, it seems like there's a lot of variety to the kinds of stories you can tell.

A Storied Life: Tabitha is available on Steam now. It'll normally run you $15, but you can save 10 percent if you buy it before April 28.

To round out this section, I’ll quickly note that Hades 2 is out now on PS5 and Xbox Series X/S for  $30, with a 20 percent launch discount. It's on Game Pass Ultimate, Game Pass Premium and PC Game Pass too.

I bought Hades 2 when Supergiant Games brought it to Steam early access two years ago, telling myself I'd wait until the full game was out. But I still haven't gotten around to it yet. There are always too many games tugging at my fragile attention span and Hades 2 faded into the background for me. I really ought to play it, I know!

Upcoming 

I'm keeping an eye out for Agefield High: Rock the School from Refugium Games. This spiritual successor to Rockstar's Bully is set to arrive this summer on Steam. It emerged this week that it will hit PS5 and Xbox Series X/S later in the year.

It's a coming-of-age adventure in which you play as Sam, a young lad who has moved to a new school in the early 2000s. He wants to make his last few months of high school a time to remember.

There's a branching narrative with multiple endings here — you can opt to go to classes and be a good student, or skip school and cause trouble. As a mostly rule-abiding student way back when, I'd be tempted to go for the latter. This seems like a bit of a life sim with a broad array of activities and ways to get into bother. I’m looking forward to it.

The latest edition of the Galaxies Showcase — yet another indie spotlight event — took place this week and The Backworld caught my attention. This is a Mother-inspired RPG from Numor Games and publisher Top Hat with charming art direction (yes, I did see that one character doing a Naruto run), an intriguing mix of characters and... 

Oh no, why did the music stop? Why did it get so dark all of a sudden? What are these horrifying beasts that are chasing my character? Yup, there's a heavy horror element here. Numor took inspiration from The Backrooms as well.

The Backworld will be released later this year. A demo just hit Steam.

A Study in Blue, from Relate Games, was another highlight of the Galaxies Showcase, thanks in large part to that impressive animation. This is a point-and-click adventure in which you play as two characters with complex pasts: private detective Kenneth and runaway Blue. 

You'll explore a semi-open world and solve crimes by collecting clues and calling out characters' lies. There are three intertwined story acts and multiple endings. A Steam demo featuring a side quest from the main game that'll take around two hours to complete is available now.

I'm always going to be interested in any game that riffs on The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past. On the face of this trailer, Elementallis developer AnKae Games seems to borrow quite a bit of the design language and other ideas from the SNES classic. Still, if you're going to crib from anything, it may as well be the best game of all time.

This 2D action RPG, which is also published by Top Hat and has a heavier focus on elemental powers than A Link to the Past, looks very much like my kind of jam. It's coming to Steam, GOG, Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S and Xbox One on April 28. Per the eShop listing, it'll cost $18.

2026-04-18 06:19:25

The James Bond franchise has a long history of getting pop stars to record its theme songs (perhaps most memorably with Live and Let Die), and it looks like that tradition will now extend to video game adaptations about the fictional spy. IO Interactive has announced that Lana Del Rey co-wrote and performed the theme for 007 First Light, the developer's playable James Bond origin story.

"First Light" is written and performed by Lana Del Rey and composer David Arnold, and like the moody and abstract opening credits released alongside the song, could vaguely gesture at the themes of the game. IO Interactive has previously said that its game focuses on a young, inexperienced and more reckless Bond, before he developed his trademark cool. The developer is also integrating the stealth mechanics it perfected in Hitman into the upcoming game.

Del Rey's personal gaming experience may begin and end with her hit "Video Games," which was apparently written about a former boyfriend's love of World of Warcraft, but the artist does know how to write a song with Bond in mind. Lana Del Rey shared in 2024 that her song "24" from the album Honeymoon was originally written for 2017's Spectre, one of several songs that were cast aside in favor of Sam Smith's "Writing's on the Wall."

007 First Light is coming to Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and PC on May 27, 2026. A Nintendo Switch 2 version of the game is now coming out this summer.

2026-04-18 05:03:47

The crew of NASA's Artemis II mission have safely returned to Earth, but if your Moon fever has yet to break, or you're curious to get a big picture view of how the second of a planned five Moon missions was pulled off, PBS has a new documentary you'll want to watch. The hour-long Return to the Moon was produced for PBS' NOVA and aired on TV on April 15, but you can view the episode in its entirety on YouTube right now.

Return to the Moon covers the history of NASA's Artemis program, and specifically the planning and preparation that went into Artemis II. Per the documentary's official description:

Follow the four members of the Artemis II crew as they embark on a perilous 10-day journey to orbit the Moon, venturing beyond Earth orbit for the first time since Apollo and farther into the Solar System than any humans have gone before. And get an inside look at the preparations needed to overcome the extreme engineering challenges of human-crewed spaceflight, all the way from launch to splashdown.

The last Apollo mission was in 1972, so Artemis II getting a group of four astronauts anywhere near the Moon has naturally generated a lot of excitement. The crew flew further away from Earth than anyone has gone so far, captured some stunning photos of both the Moon and our home planet and managed to make everyone feel better about their dislike of Microsoft Outlook. Few Moon missions have been as well-documented or relatable.

2026-04-18 04:02:37

The specter of price hikes caused by the current AI-driven demand for memory and storage appears to have convinced a fair share of people to buy a new computer. According to data analyzed by Counterpoint Research, global PC shipments grew around 3.2 percent year-over-year in Q1 2026, "driven by pre-emptive buying before memory-led price increases hit the retail level" and Microsoft forcing some customers to upgrade by ending support for Windows 10 last year.

Sales hit 63.3 million units during the first quarter, Counterpoint says, and were particularly concentrated in five high-end PC makers: Lenovo, ASUS, Apple, HP and Dell. Of the five, Lenovo commands the most PC market share at 26 percent, but sales increased for almost all of the companies, save for HP, whose year-over-year sales technically declined by 5 percent. Of particular note, Apple's PC sales grew by 11 percent, likely on the strength of the M5 updates it made to the MacBook Pro and MacBook Air, and the introduction of the affordable $600 MacBook Neo. Counterpoint suggests the updates could drive even further sales growth next quarter. 

Even with positive sales, the PC industry as a whole is by no means out of the woods. "The aggressive expansion in AI infrastructure investment is driving up overall component costs, which will likely impact the pricing of CPUs and other key components in [PCs]," Counterpoint Senior Analyst Minsoo Kang says. "Ultimately, the sustained upward pressure on costs and the resulting hike in retail prices are expected to have a significant negative impact on the PC market’s growth in 2026."

A general sense that the worst is yet to come is consistent with what other analysts have warned about the current shortages of RAM and storage. In December 2025, IDC predicted that PC shipments could drop as much as 8.9 percent in 2026 in response to the price of RAM, and later revised its prediction to 11.6 percent this past March. Even if consumers aren't feeling the worst of these price hikes just yet, new announcements of price increases seem to arrive like clockwork every few weeks — for example, this week, Meta raised the price of its Quest headsets — which means if they aren't feeling them now, they will soon.

2026-04-18 01:15:00

Sam Altman's cryptocurrency turned identity verification startup Tools for Humanity is offering a new set of perks to people who scan their eyes at one of the company's orbs. Among them, is a new tool called Concert Kit that could help bands and artists fight back against ticket scalping bots. 

The new feature relies on the revamped World ID, the orb-based verification system that scans users eyeballs and faces to create a "proof of human" signature that lives on users' mobile devices. "It's basically like a little human passport for the internet that lets you prove on apps and websites that you are a real and unique human without revealing anything about yourself," Tools for Humanity Chief Product Officer Tiago Sada tells Engadget. 

Now, as more apps and services are starting to support World ID, that "human passport" can unlock some new abilities. Coupled with Concert Kit, it allows artists to designate a specific pool of tickets for "verified" humans only. The concept is a bit like how pre-sales currently work, with artists (or their teams) setting aside a specific number of tickets for people who have set up a World ID. Those folks can then use their World ID to get ticket codes for Ticketmaster, Eventbrite, AXS or other major ticketing platforms. 

Because World ID is limited to actual, "verified," humans the system won't be susceptible to the same tactics that have enabled bots to ruin the ticket-buying process for so many, Tools for Humanity says. Artists are also in control of what level of verification they want to require from their fans. (The new World ID app will also allow people to set up an account with a selfie check if they don't have ready access to an orb.) 

Just how much of a dent Concert Kit will be able to make in the massive scalping bot problem that plagues the concert industry is less clear. So far, Bruno Mars is slated to use the solution on his upcoming world tour — no word on just how many of his tickets will be reserved for World ID-verified humans, though — and Concert Kit is available to other artists starting today.

Concert Kit is one of several new integrations and updates to World ID that Tools for Humanity announced at an event in San Francisco Friday. Tinder, which earlier this year started testing World ID as an age verification solution in Japan, will be rolling out support worldwide. In the US, Tinder's integration won't be for age verification, though. Instead, it will indicate whether there is an actual "verified" human behind a given profile.

Tools for Humanity

On the enterprise side, Zoom and DocuSign are also adding support for World ID to help businesses verify that there is an actual person (and not a deepfake or bot) joining their video calls or signing important documents. Tools for Humanity is also introducing a standalone app for World ID that separates its identity verification tools from its existing crypto wallet app.

The updates are Tools for Humanity's latest attempt to make their orb-based verification system, which has been widely mocked, more mainstream and perhaps a little less dystopian. (Elsewhere, orbs have begun appearing in some new places like a San Francisco Gap.) 

On their part, Tools for Humanity seems aware that a lot of people aren't ready to scan their faces at a bunch of orbs controlled by Altman just to "prove" they are humans. I asked Sada, Tools for Humanity's Chief Product Officer, what he would say to people who think that the company is solving for the wrong problem: that really it should be up to ticketing platforms and dating apps and other services to strengthen their security and bot-fighting tools, rather than rely on their users to "prove" their humanness. 

He said it was a "completely understandable question" and compared it to some people's initial discomfort with things like Apple's TouchID or FaceID. "Not everyone has to do it upfront, and that's important," he said. "It's optional. If you want to have a World ID, you get access to that enhanced experience."

2026-04-18 00:47:12

Bluesky is once again having a wobble. The platform said some of its systems are down and that it’s “investigating an incident with service in one of our reginos” (that’s Bluesky’s typo, not mine). The issue appears to have started at 1:42AM ET and was still persisting as of 11AM when this story was originally published. Since then, the site has been experiencing intermitent interuptions, including at times to its status page where users should be able to monitor outages.

At 7:47PM ET, the platform explained that it’s been attempting to mitigate “a sophisticated Distributed Denial-of-Service (DDoS) attack, which intensified throughout the day.” It said the attack had caused interruptions to users’ feeds, notifications, threads and search, all of which the Engadget team experienced first-hand at various points through the day. While DDoS attacks are frequently used as virtual smokescreens for hacks, Bluesky says it has “not seen any evidence of unauthorized access to private user data.” The social media service had another brief outage earlier this month.

In a later update on April 17, Bluesky noted that the DDoS attacks are “ongoing” but that the service has been stable since about 9PM PT last night. The company also reaffirmed that it hasn’t seen any evidence of access to user data. The next update is set to arrive by end of day Friday.

Update, April 17, 12:47PM ET: This story was updated with Bluesky’s latest outage update.

Update, April 16, 8PM ET: This story was updated after publish with an of the outage from Bluesky.