Embracing the ROGUE Spirit: Outersloth’s Ambitious Leap into Indie Game Publishing

They too are leaving their developer life behind as Innersloth morphs into Outersloth, a new indie publishing house that we can only hope will keep saving the world from impostors for years to come.

The Dawn of Outersloth: A New Era for Indie Games

Earlier this month at Summer Game Fest, Innersloth’s own Victoria Tran and Forest Willard announced their new indie publishing label: Outersloth. Expected to shepherd ‘the brightest new indies’ to life, Outersloth appears well-poised to become the OG of the next big wave of gaming. The announcement was made during the Summer Game Fest, a gala industry event organised by Geoff Keighley that remains one of the most exciting ways to experience gaming reveals.

The ROGUE Gallery of Outersloth's Indie Lineup

Every one of Outersloth’s launch titles sounds awesome – Mars First Logistics, Battle Suit Aces, Mossfield Archives – but Rogue Eclipse and Project Dosa are the stars here: an Arabesque Futurism-inspired spacefighter roguelike and an adventure RPG where you explore a wild world through food and turn-based narrative combat.

ROGUE Eclipse: A Beacon of Indie Innovation

But, as we will see with Rogue Eclipse – a game in Outersloth’s roster made by Huskrafts, an indie powerhouse, and pitched as not only a fast-paced space-combat game but also a ‘culturally interesting’ counterculture narrative in a market of lookalikes – Outersloth’s roster is a great entry point into the diverse, yet groundbreaking, experiences in games.

Project Dosa: A Culinary Adventure through Bonding and Battles

At the other extreme, Project Dosa combines food discovery and story-driven combat, set in a fantastical realm and told from the perspective of two sisters, Samara and Amani. Outersloth has long had a commitment to games that offer more than just play: they open portals into imagined worlds with stories that speak to our personal lives.

A New Frontier: Outersloth's Role in Shaping the Future of Indie Gaming

The Outersloth initiative is symbolic of how indie games can be found, funded and birthed into the gaming world. The team is experimenting on itself by allowing itself to get swallowed by its own part of the Internet full of indie developers. Outersloth is not just publishing games for the future; it’s building an environment for the flowers of indie to bloom. Ultimately, this move by Innersloth could be a germ that starts another cycle of creation and innovation, a rise of indie games that are challenging the norm, expanding the limits of what new genre can evolve.

The Essence of Going ROGUE

But at its core lies the elusive essence of ‘going rogue’. The word ‘rogue’ is associated with the adventurousness or transcendence of going off the beaten path. This is where Outersloth – and the company’s lineup with titles such as Rogue Eclipse – want to be. Rogue EclipseDeveloped by Outersloth Inc.In fostering outsider thinkers and providing a home for indie developers, Outersloth is going rogue, and carving out a new direction for what it means to be a modern game publisher.

Explaining ROGUE: Sailing the Uncharted Waters of Indie Gaming

‘Rogue’ is a common word in many gaming vocabularies, often synonymous with randomness and random exploration – and, indeed, ‘going rogue’ seems to be a way of talking for Outersloth about their approach to indie game publishing as unconventional, bold and exploratory. They’re hoping that both Rogue Eclipse and their growing line of games can cut a trail that leads to the new ‘world’ where creativity is unrestricted and big thinking can flourish among indie developers. It’s about changing course from traditional game development and publishing towards the grow-your-own indie game scene – and finding a little rogue spirit as your compass.

To summarise, Outersloth’s launch, and its mouth-watering collection of games, is a watershed moment for indie publishing. Building on the rogue ethos, Innersloth’s risky enterprise has the potential not only to bring exciting and varied games to more players than ever before, but also to transform the narrative of indie publishing itself. As this starry story unfolds, the sky for indie gaming looks clearer and brighter than ever before – cast with the light of Outersloth’s rogue stars.