Not-E3 2024 Part 3: Wholesome Direct and Future Games Show

Table of Contents

Guerilla Collective
Summer Game Fest
Devolver Direct
Wholesome Direct
Future Games Show
Xbox Games Showcase
PC Gaming Show
Ubisoft Forward

Wholesome Direct

Our look at Not-E3 2024 continues today with the Wholesome Direct. Now they always go through a huge number of indie games, so once again, I’ll be pointing out some highlights and you can check out the full showcase to see the rest.

There were a lot that didn’t especially stand out to me this year (lots of building games), but I did find the montage of games for the miniature Playdate handheld console interesting.

And sometimes, even if you aren’t planning to play a game, you still have to give it a shout-out. That’s the case with Squeakross: Home Squeak Home, which is such a great title that I just have to mention it.

Ila: A Frosty Glide looks neat, and the blocky art style especially made it stand out to me.

Kamaeru: A Frog Refuge and Usagi Shima both are cute games that I believe we’ve discussed before, and Moonstone Island also looks great even though I don’t know if I’d enjoy it (open world).

It feels strange to end there, like I should be highlighting a lot more games, but those were the main ones that caught my attention this year.

Future Games Show

Now, there were a few smaller showcases in between (and ironically I saw several interesting games there that I’ll mention in the miscellaneous segment at the end of Not-E3), and then it was time for the Future Games Show. I’ll be covering highlights for this one as well, so check out the full showcase to see the rest.

I’ve gotten to see a few detective games to add to my list, including two from this showcase: Nobody Wants to Die and Detective Dotson. These two couldn’t be more different in terms of style, but I’ll be keeping my eye on them both.

Sword of the Necromancer: Resurrection seems interesting, and there was also a Souls-like action RPG called The Relic: First Guardian that looks cool.

We also got to see another detective game called The Operator, so I’ll add that to the list to keep in mind.

I was also very surprised to see Deliver Us Home, from the creators of Deliver Us the Moon and Deliver Us Mars. Now I enjoyed Deliver Us the Moon a lot, but I haven’t gotten around to Deliver Us Mars, but the main reason it startled me is because I thought I remembered that developer going under. It turns out that what I remembered was them laying off the entire studio, with the founders staying on to fund the third game via Kickstarter.

Which… seems a little odd to me. Is that just me?

Anyway, SacriFire got another trailer, and it looks so good. I really hope it lives up to how good its trailers are.

I was also intrigued by Eternal Strands, an impressive-looking action-adventure game, and The Casting of Frank Stone. (While I have no interest in Dead By Daylight, this being more of an Until Dawn style narrative game has my interest.)

That’s it for today, but we have another big showcase coming up tomorrow with the Xbox Game Show and then the PC Gaming Show as well after that. Stay tuned!