Nintendo Indie World Showcase August 2025 - Every Announcement, Game Reveal & Trailer

short and sweet! (and better than the Partner's showcase)

A lot of games appealed to me in this presentation, which is more than I can say about the last couple. So no complaints here, other than finishing on a super rushed sizzle reel.

6/10! definitely a more wide variety of titles and more interesting than the partner showcase. neverway, ufo 50, and the bird game look super fun! enjoyed watching on here

I really enjoyed this indie world. They packed a lot of interesting stuff! Some standouts were:
Is This Seat Taken?
Mina the Hollower
Neverway

@SpaceboyScreams its only been four months i would give nintendo a little time 😿🙏🏼

This was great. In line with what I expected for an Indie Showcase. Partner Direct was a disappointment because I expected more AAA games from that one (more games like Cyberpunk 2077 to show off Switch 2 capabilities). So this is a good turnaround.

This was a short one but a really good one.

Mina update + free demo, UFO 50 shadow drop (!) where the main two on my radar.

However I’m now excited to try out: Is this Seat Taken?, Heardling, Neverway, and BallXPit.

And Little Kitty Big City getting a free content update later in the year? Marvellous!

Eh, we already new the mouse game was already coming out. UFO50 was kinda of a given. Nothing really jumped out at me and said "YOU ARE GOING WANT TO PLAY THIS!!!" For me it was kinda poor.

文字遊戯 "Word Game" looks really intriguing, although I’d put the chances of an English localisation at less than one thousandth of a millionth of a billionth of a gnat’s bum.

Neverway and Demonschool are the ones I'm looking forward to the most. Solid showing all around.

I have. UFO50 on Steam, that is a great concept & game! It's like all the games from your childhood in the '80's and '90's, but, even better now with higher standards and better controller layouts.

Highly recommended!

Nothing in there for me. Imma just keep chipping at the backlog.

I really enjoyed this, much better than the Partner Showcase!

"Is This Seat Taken?" has a demo on Steam if anyone's interested. I'm trying it out now and really enjoying it. It's kind of adorable. Relaxing and different.

I thought it was excellent, for what it was.

UFO 50, Opus: Prism Peak and Glaciered all look great.

Not many Indie World presentations grab me, but this one had plenty for me to look forward to!

It was quite a good show. Better than the 3rd party direct, which was quite a letdown. 8/10 for me!

Mina the Hollower finally getting a release date was a great start!

It was pretty decent for an indie direct. Not any earth shaking announcements. But some good stuff.

Honestly just the fact people weren't coming in assuming their dreams would come true probably helped it's perception compared to the partner direct.

Eh, 4/10. There was more for me in the Partner Direct. I give the Indie World points for variety, but nothing screamed "I must play this YESTERDAY!" at me. I will DL the Mina The Hollower demo soon, though that's one we already knew about. It's the only game I genuinely have some excitement for.

The only new announcements I'll keep half an eye on are Herdling and Glaciered. I probably wouldn't necessarily dislike Is This Seat Taken? if I didn't suspect it would quickly annoy me. The rest I can safely pass on.

Im all in on Mina, UFO 50 and Well Dweller. There are a couple of others ive wishlisted too. Definitely a solid 8/10 presentation. Great variety of titles, many that im interested in which is rare for me these days. Better than the partner showcase in my opinion.

Most meh presentation but I still enjoyed it… and UFO 50 is gonna be a must-buy

Mina and UFO 50 so far for me. Maybe also Content Warning.

Haven't checked the western presentation, but the Japanese one had a NS2 Edition upgrade for The Exit 8 (a performance upgrade which should bring it up to par with the Steam version), that's also on my radar. If a small (and I do mean small) indie game can get an NS2 Edition upgrade, what's stopping companies like Square Enix from doing the same (other than greed and their usual bad decisions)?

EDIT: Why at the beginning of the article is the April 17th, 2024 presentation? I got confused when I saw Little Kitty, Big City at the beginning.

EDIT 2: Corrected. Thanks a lot.

Getting over the absence of Hades 2 (which I am now confident will be at Gamescom ONL) this was full of delightful and inspired looking games. I can't see myself picking up Ball x Pit but all the other games they focused on appeal to me.

It was very readily apparent just how much Nintendo's devkit strategy with Switch 2 is holding back indie releases, and so the presentation felt quite slight - but it was also the best actual lineup they've had in a long time, so that's something

I gave it a 6/10. I was not interested in most games shown in the direct except for "Is this seat taken ?" which looks really interesting in concept and even art style.

The fact it releases today is also pretty great !

Decent, not much I'd buy but enough interesting stuff that I gave it a 7.

Voted 7, would have been an 8 or even 9 had they simply finished going through the games rather than pull a Woodsy the owl trying to get to the center of a Tootsie Pop going 1, 2 3 crunch. They were already making the Direct, they already gave us 48 hours notice to watch it, they got Erica and Tyler to narrate it, so, why not make it 25 or even 30 minutes and do all the games? Sizzle reels are fine in the middle of a 40 minute long full Direct but I think anyone already watching could spare the 10 extra minutes.

Thought it was better than the Partner Direct, seemed like it had more graphical variety for 1. 3 years from now I will probably have played more of these. I mean it's only like 2 or 3 of these and only 1 or 2 of the other but that's still more and this was only 15 minutes.

I think my kids will certainly play more of these. That Partner Direct wasn't good.

Waiting for a full Direct now, preferably before Gamescon to date all of those games. It's a lot, w/ a few still do this year. The calendar is winding down.

This was a really good presentation with an excellent diversity of fun and unique-looking games. My only gripe is that the ending did not include the "one more thing", but really it's a pacing issue rather than disliking the quality of games shown. Nothing really for me but that's fine.

Also to address the elephants in the room, Hades II and Silksong are too big for this event and would unfairly steal the spotlight from the rest of the games shown. Nintendo already has plans for them both, and will actually be featuring them at their upcoming booths at Gamescom and possibly PAX West.

Short but juicy - easier to say what I didn't wishlist, and even then I still might. Neverway, Well Dweller, Glaciered and Herdling look especially promising.

Mina the Hollower is so my jam it's obscene.

A decent showing. Mina the Hollower looks really interesting to me

This was worse than the partner direct.

A solid 8 for me. There was just a good showing all around in my opinion, absolutely 1-upped the Partner Direct for me. Quite good!

That Herdling game looked promising!

Aside from Hogwarts Legacy and Cyberpunk 2077 (or MKW or DKB that were from Switch 1), there's no reason to own a Switch 2 right now. All of these indies are perfect for those who already had a Switch 1, and if any are exclusive to the 2, it's because of the developer's stubbornness.

Tried the Is this seat taken? demo on Steam, and, yeah, it's quite good. It has lots of personality, despite the simple presentation. While I prefer playing on Switch, I think I'll go for the Steam version. Judging from the demo, the game plays better with a mouse than with a controller. There's no demo on the e-shop to see how it plays on Switch.

Glaciered also looks interesting. Looking forward to Mina the Hollower as well.

So, yeah, overall, a really good Direct.

Overall this was pretty good compared to the snore fest of the partner show case . I'm really excited to try out UFO 50 and also Mina.

I thought it was really good overall with plenty of stuff to enjoy now and in the near future (though I won't be playing anything here because of my tight gaming schedule), I personally gave it an 8/10.

Really enjoyed it. DLed the demo for Mina, and Well Dweller, Ball Pit, Herdling look cool.

I actually bought Is This Seat Taken, got it from Colombia Eshop for $1.50. Excited to give it a shot. Looks like my type of puzzle game.

UFO 50! That’s all I needed to see to make this a winning showcase. I’ve waited so long to play this game! I will double-dip on a physical if it ever comes.

As is often the case in these Indie Directs,, there were a bunch of enticing games on display. I can see myself picking up Mina, Ball Pit, Well Dweller, and maybe Neverway. And Is This Seat Taken looked fun too, very Snipperclips look to it, hmm…

Just checked out that Moji Yūgi (Word Play) trailer above and that looks intriguing, too. I’m not sure my kanji-reading is up to the task, but it would be good Japanese practice! 🤓

I just come here for the Silksong tears 😂😂

@Filthy
Same, nothing for me either. I am at the point where both of us have barely touched our Switch 2's. The wife booted up animal crossings to see if it worked and that was it. I wish I would have bought a PC Handheld and just waited on a Switch 2 and kept my Switch 1. I have seen nothing that makes this system look next gen. Most stuff is still using cartoon graphics. For me this is the first system I have really been disappointed in and had the highest hopes for. I have only tried Mario Kart and Breath of the Wild. There really is a game drought all over though. I might go back and do another Elden Ring run or maybe play Tekken 5. I was hoping stellar blade would come to the Switch 2 but I think I will get it for the PS5 because it certainly does not seem like it is coming to the Switch 2 and if it is, has to be no where near close. I am usually excited about new systems but I see nothing till next year yet. I wonder how many others are starting to feel like they should have waited?

4/10. There weren't that much interesting games.

DEMONSCHOOL LET’S GOOOOOOOOOOOO

@shred5
Not just waited. I should have skipped it altogether.

Neverway and Is This Seat Taken were the stand outs for me. I was already sold on Mina the Hollower and Demonschool

Is This Seat Taken was the most interesting title for me. But those characters’ faces and shoes look so much like the Snipperclips characters I had to see if it was the same artist and it’s not, they’ve just copied their style which has sort of tainted it for me a bit.

It was decent, but I won't lie I expected it to be longer. Heck, some games could really use the mouse feature and Herdling looked like it was running on Switch 2!
It's interesting to think about just how many indie devs have Switch 2 development kits, and how many games could be announced in the near future..

I didn't watch Indie Direct but judging from the games announced here, nothing I like because most of the games announced were horror themed games except for the new update of Little Kitty Big City and Wobbly Life that caught my interest.
But since Wobbly Life already went multi platform and will have physical release according to play-asia, so.... 😏

Btw, I voted 1 from 10 because I hate all the horror games announced and the other cozy games announced are uninteresting 2D style games. Only two games that I have interest about and both of them have physical release (Little Kitty Big City, Wobbly Life)

The big N should rename this the Shovelware Showcase.

Is This Seat Taken needs a Switch 2 version with mouse support. Little Kitty needs a S2 version for improved frame rates, same for Herdling.

Ultimate Sheep Raccoon got me excited. I love Chicken Horse, however, this looks quite a bit more challenging and I now have less friends to play with.
Glaciered could be cool and that Opus game too.

Overall, a pretty average Indie direct to me. Wanted more Switch 2 specific stuff. But that's Nintendo's fault for not getting dev kits into more third parties and indies hands sooner.

Some of the games look right up my alley and I got „Is this Seat Taken“ right away. Great little logic game and the whole vibe reminds me of one of my favorite 3DS games, Brunch Panic.

That limbo state between Switch 1 and Switch 2 feels a little weird right now, though. I think Herdling could benefit from a Switch 2 upgrade, even if it‘s just higher resolution on the handheld screen.

Really, really bad. Not a single game caught my attention. Probably the first time since Indie Directs air.

Better than the last but not by a lot. It was way too short, and not totally for lack of content either, the sizzle reel games that were bafflingly on the sizzle reel all had full trailers released afterward. Does someone at Nintendo like have it out for UFO 50?

I was going to give it a lower score but then realized I wanted to play more than 3. Mina, Ball x Pit, Ultimate Sheep Raccoon, Glaciered, Winter Burrow, Caves of Qud, UFO 50 all look good, so I gave it a 9. They could have put out more games but with regular 3rd party games, and Nintendo 1st party games, I wouldn't have time to play any more so there's nothing to complain about really.

I could have used some Enter the Gungeon 2 or the arcade game, or I've been wanting to play Half Life 3 forever and would love another sequel to Guacamelee (felt Hollow Knight was just okay so don't care about Silk Song) but doesn't really matter as I can only play so many games. And it's up to the devs if they want to release their games, can't blame Nintendo for that.

Sorry silksong fans. This is becoming a joke

@Cronodoug MKW and DKB are Switch 2 games, not available on Switch 1. And there's a huge reason to own a Switch 2 right now, it makes nearly every Switch game better on a system level, without requiring individual updates for each game. Games people said looked like crap on Switch, are suddenly running at a solid 60fps and upscaled to 4k. Switch has over 12,000 games, so lots of reasons to upgrade.

With the partners and indies taken care of, the table is cleared and ready for 1st party announcements. 😊

@shred5 I’m not too bothered yet. If it hadn’t been for Mario Kart World and Rune Factory (I assume it barely runs on Switch 1), I don’t think anything would’ve been interesting to me yet. The Zelda upgrades are substantial, but yeah — it’s hard to say what’ll come. However, it is still very early.

Apart from Breath of the Wild, I don’t think OG Switch has anything for quite some time either.

And it’ll be a hot minute before OG Switch support is dropped, due to the sheer volume of them.

I'm interested in learning more about Herdling and Winter Burrow. I'm pretty sure that I will get Tiny Bookshop eventually, though I'm not in a hurry at the moment.

Overall I thought it was an okay direct.

Too many games that are either already out on other platforms or were previously announced, so having them also release on Switch 2 is not really a surprise, nor anything I really get excited about.

OPUS: Prism Peak and Tiny Bookshop both look like they're up my alley. I'm excited to play the Mina The Hollower demo, since I missed that on steam, and I'm glad UFO 50 is making the jump--absolutely excellent game.
It was a nice, brisk 15 minutes, so no complaints from me.

Idk if it's lowered expectations due to the last showcase or not but I thought this one was excellent. Not everything was my cup of tea but there were a bunch of games that are and I think most gamers would have at least had a game or two to look forward to from the line-up. Really great stuff.

Thank goodness for independents.

I came away from this with two things.

• I get to slot my RPG group's cats into Little Kitty Big City at some indiscriminate point in the future. Still just an OG title though.
• Pure Pool Pro isn't coming to either Switch because (a) there's no way the OG can handle 4K, never mind 8K - and (b) Nintendo, still being stingy with NS2 devkits, haven't sent VooFoo one.

Very little here for me - even the retro-looking stuff didn't scratch much of an itch. But if Nintendo keeps being that tight with the gear necessary to turn stuff out for the NS2, the next Indie World is gonna wind up ten minutes long.

4/10 - to quote a recent teardown of the NS2 Pro Controller, ‘piss-poor’. And I'm being kind.

Oh, and for the record - STILL getting a ton of eSlop and so-called 'hentAI' sh1te turning up in the eShop. Plus ça change...

@dartmonkey The link for the whole direct video is incorrect; it links to an old one.

Of course I have wildly different expectations for an Indie Direct, but I'm way more satisfied with this presentation. Some games I was following that i was excited for, some really interesting ones not on my radar but they are now, and some that aren't for me. And that's great! This seemed to have games for a really diverse set of gamers, and it seems like if you have a niche someone is making a game for it.

I could nitpick, but I think this was a very good swaths of what's available, and Mina the Hollower is more or less the title you'd be seeing unless you haven't been hurt enough and really believed this was going to be the S******g announcement.

Not.my thing but the stars are aligning for my prediction of a full.Nintendo direct next week. Check my previous post my prediction a week before gamescim. My evidence Nintendo have done a presentation a week before gamescom before.

something for everyone, really love the rapid fire speed then there's full trailers on the Nintendo channel.

Besides Mina the Hollower nothing really interested me. The game looks great, love the old school Zelda look.

The highlight for me was Moji Yugi. A game that only uses kanji, hiragana and katakana for graphics.

Anyone studying Japanese might want to give it a try

I didn't even watch, so rate the Indie Showcase a 5. Reading through the list, UFO 50 is definitely exciting and I can see why Mina was a popular option in the poll.

Genuinely one of the best Indie Worlds in years. Just the opening four games alone were more interesting than anything in the Partners showcase: Mina the Hollower, Well Dweller, Neverway and Herdling all looked great or at least really interesting. Is This Seat Taken? looks like a cute puzzler. Throw in Caves of Qud and UFO 50 for the hardcore, and this was easily a 9/10 for me. Demon School sneaking in on the Japanese presentation is the cherry on top.

Already can’t remember anything from the July showcase. Had to go refresh my memory. Adventures of Elliot was the only new maybe on that list. Star Wars I might get, but we already knew about. Prefer P3P to Reload. Sigh…

Herdling is the only one im even vaguely imterested....so this has been a nothingburger for me. Yeah it's indie games but man all big console launches have been....underwhelming.... imo.

@dartmonkey Thanks! Appreciate you putting together all of this info!

Better than the Partner Direct but it felt a bit slapped together and ended abruptly. The grating, over-enthusiastic voiceovers were toned down a bit but could be reduced a bit more (like, completely gone would be nice)

6/10, I was expecting more new announcements instead of ports.

@JJtheTexan Word game, together with UFO 50, looks the most interesting of the bunch and we’re not getting it, seems a very hard endeavor indeed to localize it. Dang. Looks super creative, original, out there… deffo my cup of tea, except I don’t speak a lick of Japanese

Also a bummer that Herdlings (or whatever is called) doesn’t have an Switch 2 version. Onto my wishlist it goes until/if it makes NS2.

I wanted more new announcements and even for ports I really wanted YELLOW TAXI GOES VROOM but nope

Didn't watch, reading article late.

Other then Seat Taken (as into these weird puzzle games lately even if prefer obstacle course ones more).

Or Mina the Hollower.

Or Ball Pit I guess.

Opus maybe.

Yeah a lot of bland, a lot of copy garbage with no depth.

Other trends doing nothing interesting with them.

Indies to me are like AAA, safe, decent surprise or nostalgic and too inspired to branch out.

Tell me how low budget, building their skills/businesses (totally fine) and lack of anything past their narrow gaming experiences, lack of random ideas to apply, doesn't make them any more bland?

Cozy ones are just bland. Not as in for no combat or such stereotyping, but just anything.

Wow boring mudane tasks that offer nothing but as much as an activity pack with no relevanceof consequence, there is a reason I enjoy puzzle games, not tasks that offer story or nothing but boring emotional garbage.

Others lack depth or decent ideas.

If they can't do gameplay complexity that fine but cover it in good pacing or worlds or other ideas.

None do so I refuse to buy such garbage.