“No ads, no hosts, no sponsors, just games.” The Triple-i Initiative‘s pitch for its now-annual showcase of games, crafted by studios working somewhere between “Solo dev or very small team” and “Investor-minded conglomerate with international offices,” promises a lot of peeks at games without a lot of chatter, and once again it delivered.

Last year’s showcase debuted titles like Norland, Slay the Spire 2, and The Rogue Prince of Persia, along with updates from Darkest Dungeon 2, Palworld, and Vampire Survivors. This year featured looks at titles from the Deep Rock universe, the cloning-yourself-to-survive curiosity The Alters, an Endless Legend 2 that continues tweaking the 4X formula, and more.

Below are five selected highlights for the Ars crowd, along with some notable other announcements. The full list is not yet up on the Triple-i site, but you can see what jumped out from the full showcase.

Deep Rock Galactic: Rogue Core

Ghost Ship Games and its publishing arm advanced two of its Deep Rock Galactic (DRG) spinoffs at the showcase, one of them with real gameplay. DRG: Rogue Core, the run-based, shoot-ier game set in the same dwarven universe as DRG, showed off a new trailer with actual play and announced a closed alpha test, accessible on the game’s Steam page. DRG: Survivor, a fine entry into the burgeoning “Survivor-like” genre (it still needs a name), now has a 1.0 date set for September 17. The trailer shows off some of the new content updates, biomes, systems, and quirky little “overclocks” and artifacts that make the number of run variations nearly incalculable.

Endless Legend 2

The sequel to the game that expertly incorporated randomness into a 4X strategy framework is getting a sequel, and it hits early access this summer. The game will add more factions as the summer approaches, and the sequel promises more disasters and strategy options to come. You can sign up for early access through Amplitude Studios’ Insider Program.

Heroes of Might & Magic: Olden Era

It’s been a minute since a turn-based game set in the Might & Magic world of Enroth came around—about 10 years, actually, not counting spiritual successors. Olden Era takes players to the continent of Jadame, never before explored in the game universe. Woodland spirits fight medieval armies, zombies spawn from the battlefield, demons get into the mix—there’s a lot going on. You can sign up for a playtest at the game’s Steam page, and it’s due out in early access in Q2 2025.