So, some friends of mine tried “Fragpunk” last night and dragged me into trying it. Short version - don’t bother, I didn’t last 2 hours. It’s insanely jam packed with currencies and predatory micro-transactions, the most boring character designs I’ve ever seen in the genre, AI Slop art, insanely ugly weapon models, and it’s published by NetEase. That’s like a hundred red flags for what is, at best, a competent 5v5 hero shooter.
But one of the ways they talked me into at least giving it a shot was one friend was convinced (by AI lying to him) that Bad Guitar Studios was Canadian. Upon scrutiny that wasn’t even a little true but it DID get me thinking, are we making any cool games up here in the North?
I found some stuff with basic Googling. Compulsion games just released South of Midnight and that looks pretty good, though it’s owned by Microsoft. Pheonix Labs made Dauntless, I didn’t know they were Canadian. There’s a bunch of tiny mobile developers. But I thought maybe other people might have more insight. Does anybody have an awesome game made by Canadians that they can point me towards?
Nobody has mentioned Blue Isle Studios yet. I played Valley, which is a single player, story/mystery driven game played in a wilderness setting with some cool movement mechanics. I can certainly recommend it if that sounds interesting to you. Their newer games are horror (slender man) or multiplayer pvp games that don’t get great reviews and aren’t my jam so I haven’t tried them but Valley was great.
Old bioware. Pretty much baldrs gate through mass effect
There are a lot of studios, diverse size and genres. What is missing in the website is their pubishers.
The Long Dark still remains one of my favourite experiences of all time. If you haven’t tried it yet, do so.
And Rimworld is…well…Rimworld; a fun war-crime simulator with cute characters.
The guy who made Balatro is Canadian
Yes, but buying that game a 4th time seems excessive.
Vancouver and Alberta (for graphics) are world leader communities for game development. Unfortunately, most of the second and third stage development money is from America, so even if the game was designed and created in Canada, it is usually marketed in America. It’s all about who distributes the game, not who first develops it, that determines ‘country of origin’.
Main Sequence is coming soon from a Canadian indie developer!
https://store.steampowered.com/sale/quebec2025?tab=3
There was a Québec games celebration event on Steam. I have a friend who makes games as both a hobby and also a living (freelancing contracts from a larger developer).
More mainstream and big budget, so everyone probably already knows this one. But if you like puzzles and wish your gameplay was narrated by Prometheus gentle-parenting manbaby Zeus through your hero’s journey, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is fluffy fun. It’s an ubisoft game, and they’re still a Quebec company so it absolutely counts.
Warframe by Digital Extremes.
They’ve managed to keep Tencent out of the pot so far, I’d say. Just disclosing that the big red is involved first.
Sea of Stars was made in Québec city I think.
It is inspired from Chrono Trigger, so if you liked that, give it a try.Sea of Stars is the prequel to The Messenger. I haven’t played Sea of Stars yet, different game style.
The Messenger
Great game, just beat it recently, playing the bonus levels. 2D platformer
Klei is in Vancouver. Oxygen not included is one of my most played games.
Me but with Don’t Starve. Klei is awesome.
Bruh. There are TONS.
I’m going to try to create a list and publish it here.
I started a thread a few months back in the Buy Canadian community: https://lemmy.ca/post/39687422
I think you’ll find a lot of nice recommendations!
Thank you for this link! It’s very helpful.
Terrific somebody already did the work. I only got to Lemmy last month. This kind of thing might happen to me a lot…
No harm there :) Lemmy has been great.
