Microsoft has some great indie partners. Why don’t we hear more about them?

There are a bunch of really great games in the ID@Xbox E3 2016 sizzle reel

Microsoft’s E3 2016 briefing was rather more varied than the guns, guns, guns we cynically expect, but even so a number of wonderful gems coming to its platforms via the ID@Xbox platform were overlooked.

The sizzle reel above is all the limelight they get, apparently. There’s Cuphead, the glorious tribute to old-school animation, which seems to be taking forever because it’s gone from being a boss-rush game to a full platformer. Horror sequel Outlast 2 gets a quick look in, and there’s something called Shadow Tactics: Blades of the Shogun from Blackguards and Deponia developer Deadalic.

Hunger Games style multiplayer game The Culling is mentioned, although that got a mention elsewhere in the conference, and runaway hit Stardew Valley is on the way to Xbox, apparently. I’m pretty excited for Hand of Fate 2 as the first one was super interesting. It’s a shame Capybara’s Below didn’t get a proper showcase.

A new action game called Raiders from Castlevania developer MercurySteam was fittingly shown just before Koji Igarashi’s Castlevania spiritual successor Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night. Also in crowdfunded games from veteran teams we got a glimpse of Yooka-Laylee.

Elsewhere there were a bunch of intriguing things called Deliver Us The Moon, Far, Flinthook, Slime Rancher, Figment, For the King, Beacon and Everspace. Hopefully we’ll get more information soon; if only Xbox Newswire was as prolific as the PlayStation Blog.

I have to say, it is a bit disappointing that some of these games were among our most anticipated at last year’s show, and we’ve had so few updates since then. Hopefully we’ll get a round of release dates on these projects in the wake of E3 2016, once all the sound and fury dies down and indies get a bit of breathing room.

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Catch up with everything E3 2016.