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Xbox is starting up a new program to support and promote the best indie games on the platform, and it sounds like a delightful throwback to the Xbox 360 era and its regular Summers of Arcade promotions.
Indie Selects is a new ID@Xbox initiative which aims to regularly highlight a curated selection of top indie titles. If you hit up the store page on your Xbox right now, you'll find an indie highlight section with a few themed categories, including titles from international studios and games with playable cats. These categories will rotate on a weekly basis and exist alongside the Featured Indies category, which simply highlights notable recent releases. The first Featured Indies group includes the likes of Laika: Aged Through Blood and The Talos Principle 2, so the bangers are already among us.
But it's the titular Indie Selects that really intrigue me. Once a month, the ID@Xbox team will choose six indie games to give a full stamp of approval complete with an Indie Select badge and special promotion across Xbox's social media channels. "We know there are a lot of games out there right now, and it can be difficult for unique titles to find an audience in crowded marketplaces," as an Xbox blog post explains. "With a dedicated, permanent, curated collection in the Xbox Store, we’ll be able to bring more attention to games that we feel are particularly special."
This whole initiative is making me nostalgic for the Summer of Arcade, an annual promotion that ran from 2008 to 2013 on the Xbox 360. The event would highlight weekly releases of five indie games every year, and helped bring attention to genuine indie classics like Braid, Limbo, Bastion, and more. Indie Selects seems a bit less formal than all that, but it does give us curation - something that's real tough to find in digital games stores these days. Here's hoping that this whole initiative helps good indies get some more attention, and connects players with some games they'll love.
We can also help with that whole curation business: here are 10 indies that might have gone under your radar in 2023.
