June 2025 - Dating and Tactical Shooting

June was a blur—I spent the majority of the month "enjoying" a feverish lethargy courtesy of the flu. That should be the best time to play some video games, locked inside and away from work, and you'd be right! There's only one problem; I spent most of my time replaying Death Stranding—a game that requires no introduction. Some might say I'm shirking my duty, but they underestimate my capacity for distraction. Against all odds, however, I have rounded up the best new-ish indie games I played in June.

Chambers

Release Date: 13.05.2025 [EARLY ACCESS]

I completely missed this when it came out—but I found it eventually thanks to the good, honest work done by Dominic Tarason. In particular, their list of hidden gems from the 2025 Steam Summer Sale. Chambers is a batshit crazy cowboy simulator. To be exact, it's a batshit crazy cowboy immersive sim. It's still in early access—and it shows—but beyond that is the dream.

In Chambers, you can catch bullets with your bare hands, then shoot them back at the bad guys. In that same breath, you can kick too, but only when you're wearing boots. It doesn't make a lot of sense, and that's the point. It's a mechanically complex game that gives back what you put into it. Gears are constantly turning behind the scenes—they all build towards this simulation, which can be manipulated to your whim if you live long enough.

The inscrutability and lack of any real tutorial lend the game some of its charm—but I'd still rather know how to play it. Engaging with the systems in the game is tough, but once you do work it out, you can start to see the vision. Or just visions in general, I ate a revolver, and I think I'm hallucinating.

Date Everything!

Release Date: 18.06.2025

Date Everything! posits a daring thesis: what if you could romance a lamp? Through the lenses of some magical glasses, previously inanimate objects in your house spring to life. Doors, walls, minibars, pedestal fans, even the shadows themselves. It's this kind of forward-thinking game design that keeps voice actors gainfully employed—Date Everything! has 100 characters, which are brought to life by an astonishingly storied cast.

A game like this relies on its writing and the performances of its actors, and in both respects, Date Everything! achieves victory. It's a dense sandbox with unforgettable characters all vying for your attention. Each character has a unique storyline packed with good humour and even the occasional genuine moment. This isn't going to win over anyone who already hates dating sims or visual novels, but it is a light-hearted, well-made and hugely entertaining game.

Dagger Directive

Release Date: 03.06.2025 [EARLY ACCESS]

Tactical shooters are few and far between. Over the years, they evolved into the modern extraction shooter, but what if you just want a simple single-player experience? One that tries to recapture the magic of a mid to long-range engagement you'd find in genre classics like Ghost Recon or Delta Force. Dagger Directive is that game. The best way to play is on hard—mistakes are deadly, enemies go down fast, and so do you.

Each mission so far has been varied and interesting, requiring subtle changes in your approach. Some missions are more scripted, but most have huge open levels to play around in. You choose your loadout before every mission, so if you want to use nothing but a knife and a drone, it's up to you.

I love the freedom that the game gives you to test out different tactics—that being said, many missions start with a long walk to your first objective. It makes replaying to test out new loadouts a bit more of a slog; a few more enemy placements and patrols along the way would spice things up for subsequent runs. Mission modifiers potentially.

This is in early access and still has quite a few issues; I wouldn't recommend it unless you're willing to put up with inconsistent performance and bugs. I was forged in the fires of DayZ, H1Z1 and Rust in the early-mid 2010s—I'm no stranger to early access gaming. For me, the payoff is worth it because I love tactical shooters like this, and it's a sorely under-represented genre in the current market. Dagger Directive needs some time in the oven, but I'm more than happy to support it along the way.

Metro Gravity

Release Date: 20.06.2025

A non-euclidean mind fuck, Metro Gravity is an incredible 3D metroidvania with absurd level design and absurdly good music. You wake up in a world where gravity is a suggestion and not the law. There's an adjustment period where you have to rewrite the neurons in your brain—this is just so your eyes don't turn inside out—but after that, Metro Gravity becomes incredibly fun.

The world is intricately designed around the player's freedom to walk on any surface. Doorways and ledges might be seemingly inaccessible because they're on the ceiling, until you just walk up the walls to reach them. Combat is rhythmic and fun, though it is unexpectedly difficult for an otherwise chill game.

Blessed Burden

Release Date: 19.06.2025

Something I've come to appreciate about indie games is that they are laser-focused on what they want to be. Blessed Burden just wants to be a demonic, first-person platformer with crazy fucking level design. It's like stepping into someone's ayahuasca-fuelled vision—there are these moments that necessitated the development of a whole ass game to go around them.

It becomes clear when you reach the level "Roots," as pictured in the GIF above. The forlorn priest you play as in Blessed Burden can run, jump, double jump (eventually) and slide—which does feel very smooth—but it's the level design that shines brightest. There are collectibles hidden in dark corners and leaderboards to let you know if you're the best. For me, I'm perfectly content with just experiencing these moments in place of readily available hallucinogens.

Star Overdrive

Release Date: 19.06.2025

"Breath of the Wild with a hoverboard"—that was probably written on a whiteboard somewhere during the development of Star Overdrive, and it's an apt description of what it aims to be. Whether or not it accomplishes it, that's a much more complicated situation. What I can say, without a skerrick of a doubt, is that riding a hoverboard across these stunning alien vistas is incredible fun.

It falters in combat and puzzle design—I also didn't find myself overly interested in its story. However, those issues melt away if you take it for what it is: a sci-fi, open-world Tony Hawk game. Skating across the dunes is immensely satisfying, and timing your jumps and tricks for speed boosts is a genius bit of game design. The music fits the vibe perfectly, and its stylised aesthetic is gorgeous too. There's a free demo if you're not convinced, but I sincerely recommend having a go.

That's a wrap on June. This is another in a long line of late entries. I played it off in the intro, but I did get pretty sick there in June. The last thing I wanted to do was sit at my computer and write anything. I'm going to push to get the July article out; thankfully, I've got a pretty good handle on what I'm going to be writing about.

Hint, it's probably going to involve Donkey Kong.