If reading the words “Titanfall-likes”made you frown, I hear you, but with the Titanfall series on indefinite hold, my guess is there are a lot of people out there who have a giant robot shaped hole in their videogame hopes and dreams right now. So while I could have led this post with something about “Blaster Master-likes” or “Metal Warriors-likes” or “Kirby Planet Robobot-likes”, that might have caused the sad Titanfall fans in the audience to pass this post by, which would have been a shame, because this post is just as much for them as anyone else.
It’s hard to say why trends in indie games happen. Unlike in the AAA space, where there are marketing think tanks and corporate psychologists engaging in competing analysis to see exactly what is likely to make the most money at any given moment, indies tend to work more from the bottom up. If they get excited enough about a game idea to see it through to completion, then it gets made. If they don’t, it doesn’t. It’s a lot more simple than the calculated AAA way, but it’s also a lot harder to predict which way the wind will blow.
For whatever reason, hopping in and out of mechs seem to be one of the ideas that has a lot of indies excited right now. There are the puppies in mechs in Explosionauts, a pilot who gets in a mech that gets in a mech in Death Chron, the giant 32-bit death metal mechs in Valfaris, the massive mech-on-mech action in Mind Seize, and the interesting new “mech as a step-stool” mechanic in this yet-unnamed game from T3nshi. This new wave of new mech-lead indies is being led by Gato Roboto and Panzer Paladin, the two most high profile titles in the trend. They both feel familiar but fresh at the same time, which is exactly the move you want to make in today’s intensely crowded market.
Source: Destructoid Panzer Palidin and Gato Roboto lead a new wave of indie Titanfall-likes