February 06, 2023 – LOS ANGELES
MATT CASAMASSINA: This year, Rogue is shipping our biggest, craziest, most polished lineup of games in our short history as a publisher. I’m super proud of the portfolio, of course, but also all the platforms we support, and how we’ve maximized each hardware so that players can enjoy our experiences across a wide variety of choices.
We’ve got some incredible games coming later this year. The Last Case of Benedict Fox won Most Anticipated Xbox Game at Gamescom. It’s drop-dead gorgeous and every new build I play is better than the last. And Cookie Cutter, with its totally unique spin on the Metroidvania genre, is going to blow some minds when we fully pull back the curtains on it.
But right here and now, we’re shipping two completely badass games—two best-in-class titles in my admittedly biased opinion.
The first is Dust & Neon, a twin-stick roguelite shooter that recently nabbed an overall Best of Show award at PAX West.
And Highwater, an atmospheric adventure/strategy hybrid, which you might remember was unveiled by Geoff Keighley in his Summer Game Fest event.
These are completely different games, both robust, both unlike anything else out there, but they do share one trait in common, which is that you’ll be able to play them on the platform of your choice. That means PC. Console. And yes, mobile too.
If you’re a hater—if you automatically discount mobile games—all I can tell you is, give ours a try. In another life, I was a journalist who wrote about games and I remember being every bit as skeptical as some of you might be now. Then I spent a decade running games editorial for Apple’s App Store and my appreciation of the mobile scene grew.
Here’s what you need to know about our approach to mobile games. There’s no in-app purchase and no ads bullshit. We’re not nickel-and-diming you. That’s why we partnered with Netflix to distribute both Dust & Neon and Highwater on iOS and Android devices for anybody with Netflix memberships. They care about games as much as we do. The other thing is, you’re not going to get some farted-out, dumbed-down shell of our PC and console efforts if you choose to play the Netflix versions. They’re all feature complete. We’ve meticulously thought about touchscreen controls—and this is coming from a former Apple Design Award judge obsessed with the way touch-screen games look and play. And if you don’t want to play with touch screens, cool, we get it, which is why all of our games support third-party controllers, too.
So whether you want to sink into the immersive world of Highwater in 4K on your 80-inch TV while you blast the soundtrack in surround sound, or you just wanna throw on a pair of headphones and blast robots on the go in Dust & Neon for iPhone, we got you. No sacrifices. Just choices. See for yourself.
You can experience demos for both Dust & Neon and Highwater now until 2/13 during Steam Next Fest.
Dust & Neon is also available for pre-purchase exclusively on Nintendo Switch.
Dust & Neon is launching on Netflix, PC, and Nintendo Switch on February 16. Highwater will follow soon after.