I thought Summer Game Fest was cool and there were some awesome games there. But I couldn’t wait for Day of the Devs to start up because I just knew there was gonna be a serious drop of elite games. And I prefer the feel of their digital events. It comes off as more personal than the corporate lean of SGF. There are multiple games that caught my eye, I’ll be highlighting a few of them here. Day of the Devs didn’t disappoint in the slightest as it came right out of the gate with a game that screams my name.
‘Snap and grab’
It’s not that I expected the first game of the event to be something to ease me into it. I just didn’t expect to immediately fall in love with the first thing I saw. And that’s exactly what happened when Snap and Grab popped up. A heist game with a unique twist, Snap and Grab sees you as Nifty Nevada, known in game as the world’s greatest photographer. She also doubles as an incredible criminal mastermind. But no one knows because her crew does the work.
This is where the hook of the game comes in. You take pictures of the items you want to steal, and potential hazards and things that will help aid in the theft. After you’re done, you use the pictures to plan out the heist for your crew to carry out. It’s an interesting take on the heist genre and one that very clearly is going to require a different type of focus and ingenuity from other games in the genre. Snap and Grab will come out in 2026.
‘blighted’
DrinkBox Studios, the minds behind Guacamelee are back with Blighted. Described as a “hardcore Action-Metroidvania set in a psychedelic western nightmare” that is very obviously going to put gamers through their paces. The game boasts a dynamic difficulty system that changes almost everything about the game including the player character.
Your character is infected by the blight that has affected the world. It causes enemies to be more aggressive towards you. The gameplay elements of Blighted are cool, but most important of all is that there is a giant spider horse monster as a boss fight. I don’t even really know why I consider that most important other than the fact that it just looks awesome, this may have been my favorite game to have come out of Day of the Devs. Blighted comes out in 2026.
Relooted
Relooted‘s concept is based in something that definitely needs more attention. The artifacts of a culture belong with that culture. In this game, made by South African studio Nyamakop, you play as Nomali. She has made it her mission to retrieve the artifacts of her people from Western museums and return them home. The name of the game is speed and precision as the parkour style gameplay allows you to move as fast as possible to escape from the museums once the task is done.
The gameplay and story both look incredible and seem to be a perfect match for each other. I’m interested to see how the team dynamics play out and how much involvement there will be from other members of your crew. I’d guess cooldowns will be the main factor here, but it would be awesome to be able to control the hacker in the team and complete puzzles to disable security systems. We’ll have to wait a bit to see how it plays out. Relooted doesn’t have a release date, but you can wishlist it on Steam.
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