The Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2024 aired last week with a range of high profile names attached, and plenty of news for fresh and upcoming video games. While you may have spotted titles like Blockbuster Inc. and Harold Halibut being heaped with well-deserved attention, there were also a number of other eye-catching games that appeared during the Spring Showcase.
From a sequel to the classic Simon the Sorcerer point-and-click adventure games to a RollerCoaster Tycoon-like featuring a Cthluhu cult, there were plenty of potential gems hiding in plain sight. For a catch-up in case you missed them – or really, just another excuse to shower them with attention – read on.
Here’s all the standout games from the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2024 that you might’ve missed.
Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2024 – Highlights
Worshippers of Cthulhu
Worshippers of Cthulhu is the aforementioned RollerCoaster Tycoon-like where you’re building a “theme park” dedicated to the praise and worship of Eldritch god-being Cthulhu. In this upcoming 2024 title from Crazy Goat Games, you are a city builder with nefarious attentions, creating your cult to be attractive and exciting for your flock of mindless Cthulhu worshippers.
You’ll need to build well to attract new members to your flock, while also performing rituals to satisfy Cthulhu, and “endure the horrors” to maintain a grip on your sanity. While we’ve had Cthulhu-starring games before, Worshippers of Cthluhu has such a neat city-building hook. It’s a very novel expansion of the gameplay genre, and one that looks incredibly cool.
You can now wishlist Worshippers of Cthluhu on Steam.
Hauntii
Hauntii is an artistic adventure that takes place in a dark world filled with neon scenery, and deep questions about life and death. You travel through its various painterly environs as a young ghost on a quest for answers, charting a course through strange planes as you attempt to discover the mysteries of Eternity.
While its deep subject matter is compelling in its own right, Hauntii is standout for its unique and lovely art style, which represents the journey of Hauntii with minimalist touches – locations with light dot artwork, shadowy realms with tiny puzzles, and some lands which are illuminated only by the glow of overhead lights. In a word, it looks gorgeous.
You can wishlist Hauntii on Steam ahead of its release on 23 May 2024.
The Heirloom
A brief teaser during the Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2024 revealed a slice of The Heirloom, an upcoming thriller adventure starring a young woman uncovering the secrets of her family, and their connection to a strange lighthouse. While only brief, this trailer revealed a lovely cartoon-inspired art style, and a horror-tinged mystery that will likely define the entire adventure.
There appears to be shades of Oxenfree in the upcoming journey, with similar supernatural tones and strange happenings being set on its protagonists. If you’re in the mood for another journey “around the twist” then The Heirloom looks like it’ll be a uniquely creepy, spooky adventure, with plenty of style to boot.
The Heirloom is targeting launch in October 2024. You can learn more on its Kickstarter page.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins
Simon the Sorcerer Origins is a prequel for a franchise that’s now three decades old – and while it’s unexpected, its arrival is most anticipated. This game follows the titular Simon in his younger days as a sorcerer, before the events of the original point-and-click series. Gameplay is inspired by the past and present, with the new game rocking an illustrative, colourful art style and two modes of adventuring: classic point-and-click interfacing, and a more modern exploration style for those unfamiliar.
In either mode, Simon the Sorcerer Origins looks like a lovely little adventure, with sleek cutscenes and a real sense of expressiveness to characters. Based on the trailer, it also appears to be packed with cute little in-jokes and callbacks to the history of point-and-click adventuring – so if you’ve got the nostalgia, this prequel will likely satisfy it.
Simon the Sorcerer Origins is set to launch later in 2024, and you can now wishlist it on Steam.
Dustborn
Dustborn is a very snazzy-looking road adventure starring a young crew of misfits making their way across the Divided States of America, where lawlessness and weirdness prevail. There’s a touch of Borderlands about this adventure, with its over-the-top art style and irreverence, and that’s what makes it look so enticing. Road trips are always high chaos in video games, and this looks like it’ll be incredibly high chaos.
In combat, you’ll shout words to fight (and use a bat) and also “craft new words” to take down enemies, charting a course across a US filled with strange dangers. In your crew, you’ll have a bunch of your closest friends – which includes an android, and a tiny cute robot. Bring this game on.
Dustborn launches on 21 August 2024, and you can now wishlist it on Steam.
Tenebris Somnia
Fair warning – Tenebris Somnia is not for the faint-hearted. This upcoming horror adventure is notable for its devotion to unique art, and for crossing the boundary between horror films and games. It combines live action segments with very scary practical effects, and a classic pixel art style, to tell its tale of a young woman uncovering disturbing mysteries.
Of all the horror games shown off during the Future Games Show (and there were quite a few), Tenebris Somnia is the one that stuck with me most, thanks to its unsettling designs and storytelling, and its devotion to trying something new. If you’re in the mood to be genuinely frightened – to the point where you may question your life choices – then consider keeping Tenebris Somnia on your radar.
Tenebris Somnia does not currently have a release date, but you can wishlist it on Steam.
Zoochosis
Ever wanted to know what a full-scale spider-giraffe-mutant looks like skittering up the walls of a cliff, as you scramble desperately for escape? I sure haven’t – but the developers of Zoochosis have. In this upcoming first-person bodycam horror adventure, you are a zoo keeper attempting to save infected mutant animals before they eat you, by administering a life-saving vaccine.
If you wait too long or you put a foot wrong, your beloved zoo animals will mutate into hideous flesh creatures, and attack from all corners – keeping you constantly on your toes, and searching every corner of your zoo for escape. Zoochosis looks positively ghoulish, but it’s filled with very neat horror survival ideas, and looks like it’ll provide plenty of scares for those who enjoy a horrifying time.
Zoochosis does not have a release date yet, but is available to wishlist on Steam.
Holstin
Keeping with the horror theme, Holstin is another game to watch from the Future Games Showcase. This adventure boasts two unique gameplay styles: top-down ARPG-style exploration through creepy post-apocalyptic wastelands, and first-person shooting and driving through strange terrains. In the adventure, you are exploring an “eerie, isolated 90s Polish town consumed by an ominous presence.”
There’s some Resident Evil flavour in this game, with players working towards solving the mysteries of this town, fighting “ungodly manifestations”, and working a way towards the truth at the heart of the matter. Beyond this hook, what is most compelling about Holstin is its gorgeous dual art styles, and the way in which its gameplay shifts as your situation grows more dire.
Holstin does not currently have a release date, but is available to wishlist on Steam.
You can catch up with the entire Future Games Show: Spring Showcase 2024 on YouTube.
