Devolver Digital has ended 2023 with a final showcase, the Public Access Holiday Special, revealing new looks at its upcoming slate of published games. As you’d expect from Devolver, this year’s show combined wholesome reveals with an unhinged sense of humour, in a variety of silly sketches celebrating the festive season.
Here’s every bit of news hiding between segments in the Devolver Digital Public Access Holiday Special for 2023.
Anger Foot
A new trailer for Anger Foot literally kicked off the showcase, with new footage showing off some new locales to kick through, accompanied by some overblown live action footage. The game is still coming soon, but remains undated.
The Plucky Squire
This was followed by a new story trailer for The Plucky Squire, coming from All Possible Futures. The showcase revealed new explorable terrains, and cool gameplay mechanics for the upcoming, highly-anticipated title, and also re-introduced Jot – the game’s hero. As described, Jot is a tiny, very enthusiastic and noble hero who explores a living storybook world with his friends by his side.
The game’s creators Jonathan Biddle and James Turner appeared during this showcase to talk about the difficulties of bringing The Plucky Squire to life, and why storybooks have such universal appeal for those of all ages.
Read: The Plucky Squire is pure delight – Preview
To conclude the showcase, Turner and Biddle reaffirmed The Plucky Squire will release in 2024.
Stick it to the Stickman
The Plucky Squire was followed by a new showcase for Stick it to the Stickman, a combat game about guiding a Stickman through a workplace, and fighting against malevolent forces (coworkers and otherwise). The game’s latest trailer focused on the fictional company of ‘StickedIn’ and very chaotic 2D and 3D action gameplay. Stick it to the Stickman remains undated, but is also expected in 2024.
Pepper Grinder
Pepper Grinder was up next, with the game’s creators (and one cameo guest) talking about the game while making and baking cookies. This segment was wonderfully loosey-goosey, and revealed new action segments for Pepper Grinder, which tasks players with traversing a wild fantasy world armed with a giant drill weapon that carves through water, ice, and rock. The game is confirmed to launch in 2024.
Baby Steps
Up next was Baby Steps, the surreal walking simulator where players will control an adventurer who has a wild, loping gait and flailing limbs. In this adventurer’s quest, they’ll need to overcome an array of challenges like walking up rocks and mountains, while being controlled QWOP-style. The game looks very wild, and looks like it’ll be very difficult – but in a silly, rewarding way. It’s coming out in “one of the years after 2023” according to its developers. It could be 2024, or far beyond.
Cricket Through The Ages
Following this, Devolver Digital and Free Lives announced that Cricket Through the Ages, the silly physics game that tells the “intertwined histories of humankind and cricket,” will be coming to PC and Nintendo Switch in early 2024 after a period of Apple Arcade exclusivity.
That was it for the major announcements, but there were also a variety of concluding trailers tacked onto the end of the Holiday Special – for games including Disc Room, OmniBus, The Talos Principle 2, and more.
You can catch up with the Devolver Digital Public Access Holiday Special 2023 on YouTube.
