In the big world of video games, Japan remains the top producer in Asia, but the region is evolving, with more developers springing up and delivering quality titles. Xbox is taking notice of that emerging talent, which is why they are bringing five exciting titles made by studios across Asia.
Proudly representing Asia’s game development scene, studios from Indonesia (Toge Productions and Separuh Interactive), Singapore (Mixed Realms), Thailand (Fairplay Studio), and South Korea (ALIVE Inc) have partnered with Xbox to bring their games onto the Xbox platform.
At Xbox Asia Developer Sessions, Xbox gave us the exclusive opportunity not only to see brand-new trailers and gameplay of all five titles, but the developers were also there to speak more about their games, giving greater insight into what gamers can expect when they are released.
13Z: The Zodiac Trials
First up is a studio from our very own Singapore. Mixed Realms was founded in 2016, and since then, they’ve produced VR titles in Sairento VR and Hellsweeper VR as well as Gordian Quest—a deckbuilding turn-based RPG with roguelite elements—but their newest game is their most ambitious yet, incorporating co-op into the mix.
Based on the Chinese Zodiac lore, 13Z: The Zodiac Trials focuses on you vying to become the 13th Zodiac, with four animal characters that players can choose to go through the gamut of trials ahead of them. Inspired by games like Hades and Risk of Rain, 13Z features roguelike elements. Players will go through different rooms of varying sizes as part of the trials, with each level containing a different challenge to complete. Like many roguelike games, failure is not the end. Every attempt will net you Jade, which allows players to purchase upgrades to make themselves stronger for the next try.
Just like Hades, successfully finishing a room grants abilities that help players get stronger as they work their way through. This can either be new skills that change up your attack or elemental seals that augment attacks with elemental traits, like adding burn damage for each sword hit. Not all the animals from the Zodiac gauntlet are antagonists though; some Zodiac guardians provide help in their own ways. The monkey gives challenges to complete for rooms, giving bonus rewards if you succeed. The rooster, meanwhile, acts as the merchant of the game and has items like health and skills available for purchase.
Mixed Realms also mentioned that they were big fans of action games, and that shows when it comes to 13Z. The game features fluid and frenetic hack-and-slash gameplay, with mobility and speed a main focus—air dashes were frequently featured during our gameplay preview. It’s all about overwhelming your foes through chaining attacks. Speaking of chaining things together, players are encouraged to combine elements together from seals for cool synergy effects. For instance, fire and mountain create Meteor Crash, which calls down a giant explosion onto enemies.
Additionally, characters get their own distinct moves to traverse the world. The fox can dash up walls, while the raven is able to glide for a set period of time. That plays into co-op as well; the raven is more adept at tackling enemies perched on floating platforms, while the fox can handle threats on the ground at close range. When playing with friends, all of you need to work together to balance your approach with the different playstyles, especially for boss levels.
That’s about it for what Mixed Realms was able to divulge for 13Z: The Zodiac Trials at the Xbox preview. But if the game has piqued your interest, the developers are having an upcoming PC playtest on 12 April 2025. You can find details about the game and the playtest on Mixed Realms’ official website, or 13Z’s Steam page.
Agni: Village of Calamity
For Indonesia, we have Separuh Interactive who are bringing an intriguing horror title – Agni: Village of Calamity. The game pays tribute to horror icons like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, though it offers a different kind of fright experience for players.
The game follows Agni, an investigator from an elite Indonesian police unit that handles supernatural cases. Despite ominous warnings, Agni defies orders and enters a secluded Javanese village to investigate the area after her sister Lila becomes involved. It becomes clear that there is something sinister within the village and Agni must fight to survive its psychological nightmares in order to uncover the truth.
Southeast Asian horror may be something we are familiar with in films, but for video games, you might struggle to think of a name—which is why Agni: Village of Calamity stands out. It’s distinctly Southeast Asian, with Agni a rare main character that dons a hijab and much of the game’s dialogue spoken in Bahasa Indonesia. At the same time, despite Southeast Asian horror being the poster child when talking about independent films, I’m quietly surprised by how un-indie the game seems because of how high production it looks. Characters are mocapped, so you can see the distinct nuances in the facial expressions that especially stand out during cutscenes.
Just like Resident Evil and Silent Hill, Agni: Village of Calamity is played with a fixed-camera perspective. Initially, it was developed as an over-the-shoulder game, but Creative Director Leo Avero really wanted to lean into the horror aspect and use fixed cameras to limit control for players and ratchet up the tension by framing shots a certain way. That being said, there will be moments where the perspective is more accessible, such as combat encounters.
Like most survival horror games though, combat is highly discouraged. Weapons like axes and guns are available to defend yourself against the village’s mysterious creatures, but going aggressive attracts even more dangerous enemies like the Algojo (The Executioner), a grotesque monster that can eerily mimic Lila’s voice. Algojo is very much like Mr. X and Nemesis in that it is an unkillable foe that pursues Agni throughout the game, particularly when she acts too loudly or recklessly. It kills in one shot, so avoiding or finding ways to stun it are your only options.
Besides the fixed-camera perspective, Agni: Village of Calamity also utilises inventory management within the game. It plays into the puzzle elements found throughout the game, with players needing to balance the items they need to progress against things they find while exploring.
Southeast Asian horror in video games is definitely something that needs more representation, so I hope that Agni: Village of Calamity is able to pave the way for future games in the same vein.
Nightmare Circus
From survival horror, we move on to something much more jolly. Contrary to the name, Nightmare Circus features a more cutesy aesthetic that aims to put a smile on players’ faces, not just through its visuals but also with its gameplay.
The game follows the journey of a puppeteer who is part of a wandering circus troupe. However, on their travels, they become trapped within the Nightmare Realm and must fight their way out to make it back to the real world. Joyful was a word used many times by Thai developers Fairplay Studio during our preview of the game, and that shows in how the cartoon-like characters and world are designed.
Action in the game revolves around the “Puppet String” mechanic, which basically involves utilising the puppeteer’s two puppet sticks as well as a string to fend off enemies. The sticks act as weapons for your basic attack, but the string is where things get interesting. Referring to it as “Collision Combat”, the strings can do various things when facing foes. For one, players can use it to lasso a group of monsters together to stun them. There’s also another ability called Slingshot, which hooks onto enemies and propels players towards them to knock them out. It works on objects too, with the devs showcasing a boss fight where our hero propels itself into a dumbbell to hurt the boss.
The string isn’t just for combat. As you navigate through the game, players will see debris with cracks which they can slingshot into to open up pathways. Speaking of which, the entire world of Nightmare Circus is interconnected and features a fast-travel system to revisit previously explored places, indicating that it is likely that players will unlock new abilities that will help unlock new areas. Co-founder and CEO Kachain Puttiwarawut encourages players to sink their teeth deeply into the game, as he remarks, “Take your time and enjoy the exploration… it’s not an empty world in (Nightmare Circus)!”.
Nightmare Circus is currently under full production, with the aim to make the game playable for at least 30 hours. Kachain teases at our Xbox preview that a public demo showcasing one chapter will be coming very soon for gamers to experience the gameplay and pacing, and Fairplay Studio will utilise the feedback to improve the game. For now, the estimate is for a release in 2026 or early 2027, so there’s still time to wait. But I look forward to seeing more of the game as it inches nearer to launch.
Vapor World: Over The Mind
Given the success of FromSoftware’s Soulslike games, it is no surprise that we are seeing more studios tackle the genre. But South Korea’s ALIVE Inc is doing their interpretation in a very different way.
Vapor World: Over The Mind is billed as a 2D Soulslike game, which isn’t the first time we’ve seen a game in that form (Salt and Sanctuary comes to mind), but it differentiates itself through its combat. The game pulls heavily from Sekiro and focuses much on deflection as part of its combat system. Players can break foes by deflecting their attacks, allowing them the opportunity to deal massive damage back. However, while most attacks can be blocked or deflected, some can’t, and that is something that players have to be aware of.
ALIVE Inc says that there are over 60 dangerous entities that players can confront, each with unique patterns of attacks. Players can additionally absorb energy emitted by these enemies to use a feature called Projection, which grants new abilities and passive buffs. It isn’t as simple as collecting the energy and powering up in the menus though. Projection is performed through a process called Inception, and you’ll need to collect things called Symbols (gathered through enemy drops or events) to unlock these abilities. From the brief gameplay clip that was showcased, it seems to work similarly to bonfires, but we’ll have to play the game to find out.
There is another aspect that makes Vapor World: Over The Mind stand out: its visuals. The game takes a lot from another Soulslike game, Bloodborne, but the bleak gothic atmosphere is realised in beautiful handpainted 2D art, which gives off an almost dream-like quality to it. In fact, ALIVE Inc painstakingly layered countless elements in actual space and redrew every scene from scratch to ensure that players are fully immersed in its unique setting. To further hammer the point of immersion, every scene in the game is fully loaded from the start, seamlessly expanding as players roam around.
On the story front, the game remains mysterious. The only details we know are that we play as a boy with amnesia who journeys through dreams to seek his lost memories, along the way coming face to face with his and other people’s trauma that manifests as monstrous creatures. The developers mention that every character players meet will have a unique story and past, so it is safe to assume that the narrative will expand as you explore more of the game.
As they ended their presentation, ALIVE Inc mentions that there is more to share soon. For now, they are prepping Vapor World: Over The Mind for early access, where it will feature half the content of the whole game and are aiming for over seven hours of playtime—the devs expect the full release to have at least 20 hours of gameplay. If you are a fan of Soulslike games, then Vapor World is well worth putting on your radar.
Kriegsfront Tactics
Last on the list from the Xbox showcase, we travel back to Indonesia with our next studio, Toge Productions, whom some of you may know are behind Coffee Talk—a relaxing visual novel about a barista working in a coffee shop who listens to patrons’ troubles. Their newest game, however, couldn’t be any more different.
Inspired by their love of the Front Mission games, Toge Productions proudly showed off Kriegsfront Tactics, a procedural turn-based mecha RPG. Set in an alternate version of 1970s Southeast Asian, gamers play as a squad commander of a Kriegernech special forces squad deep behind enemy lines, all of them in the midst of navigating through an era of conflict.
Kriegsfront Tactics plays as a grid-based tactics game that emphasises careful strategic planning when players make their assault. Because bullets are physically simulated and do not rely on hit chance, positioning and the environment play an even more crucial role. Flanking gives you a better vantage point to shoot certain parts off of enemy mechs. However, enemies can also take advantage of the environment to do the same to you. Luckily, the game lets you even the odds. If a mech is hiding under the cover of trees, you can lay waste to the jungle area to expose the machine.
Outside of active combat, there is the Base. Here, players oversee their pilots and manage their available Krieger mechs by swapping different parts (such as the legs, arms, etc.) and weapons in order to ready themselves going forward. Mechs themselves come in different forms; some are better suited for close combat, others are great for rear support, and there are hybrid units as well. There are also free exploration sections within the area map that give players an opportunity to resupply and repair their mech before moving to the next battle.
Here is where it gets compelling. Toge Productions has included a sanity mechanic in the game, with pilots reaching a breaking point during prolonged deployment. So, in addition to strategising the battlefield, players need to balance that with ensuring their pilots stay sane. There are consequences if both are not managed properly. When I asked about permadeath, Project Manager Ivander Emlingga did confirm that it is indeed a feature and that the multiple pilots you can play as have a risk of being permanently gone, though he declined to give further details.
I’m very excited to see how the game turns out when it finally gets released on Xbox and luckily, if you’re like me, there is a demo called Kriegsfront Tactics – Prologue that acts as a taster for the game. You’ll be able to download it for free on Steam.
And that was it for our preview of these five titles over at Xbox Asia Developer Sessions! I came away excited and also encouraged by the games showcased, particularly because these were all created by talent in the region. There’s certainly more to look out for in Southeast Asia!
In the meantime, you can expect all five games to be arriving onto Xbox platforms, so check out Xbox’s socials on X (formally Twitter), Instagram, and Facebook to be alerted when their release dates are announced.
Visuals courtesy of Xbox Asia and Separuh Interactive.
