Australians make incredible games. That’s not patriotic bias talking — it’s just the track record. Hollow Knight, Untitled Goose Game, Cult of the Lamb, Hand of Fate, Fruit Ninja. For a country with a relatively small games industry, we’ve produced an outsized share of globally successful, critically acclaimed titles. The past twelve months have been no exception.

Here’s my rundown of the best Australian-developed games from the past year, plus some thoughts on what makes the local dev scene so consistently good.

The Standouts

Silksong (Team Cherry, Adelaide)

Look, I know. We’ve been waiting forever. But Silksong finally delivered, and it delivered spectacularly. Team Cherry took everything that made Hollow Knight one of the best metroidvanias ever made and refined it. The movement is faster, the combat more varied, the world design somehow even more intricate. Hornet’s toolkit — silk, needle, and speed — creates a fundamentally different rhythm from the original game’s more measured pace.

What impresses me most is the restraint. Team Cherry could have made Hollow Knight 2 and everyone would’ve been happy. Instead, they built something that feels like its own game with its own identity. The new healing mechanics, the tool system, the way verticality is woven into exploration — it’s fresh while still feeling like home. A masterclass in sequel design from a tiny Adelaide studio.

Wayward Strand (Ghost Pattern, Melbourne)

This game didn’t get the attention it deserved at launch, but it’s steadily found its audience. You play a teenage journalist visiting an airborne hospital in 1970s Australia, and the game unfolds in real-time — characters move through their own storylines simultaneously whether you’re watching or not. You can’t see everything in a single playthrough. You have to choose who to follow, whose story to witness.

It’s quiet, gentle, and deeply Australian in a way that’s hard to articulate. The writing captures something about Australian speech patterns and social dynamics that feels true. If you haven’t played it, give it a weekend. Bring tissues.

Tempest Rising (Slipstream Studios, Melbourne)

The RTS genre has been essentially dead for years, so an Australian studio making a genuinely good classic-style real-time strategy game is both surprising and welcome. Tempest Rising wears its Command & Conquer influence openly — three factions, base building, resource harvesting, full-motion video campaign briefings — but it’s not just nostalgia bait. The faction asymmetry is meaningful, the multiplayer balance is solid, and the campaign has some legitimately clever mission design.

It won’t convert anyone who hates RTS games, but for those of us who’ve been starved for a quality entry in the genre, this hit the spot.

Broken Roads (Drop Bear Bytes, regional WA)

An isometric RPG set in post-apocalyptic outback Australia. The setting alone would be worth a look, but Broken Roads also introduced a “moral compass” system that tracks your philosophical alignment across four quadrants — utilitarian, nihilist, humanist, and Machiavellian — rather than the simplistic good/evil binaries most RPGs use.

The game had a rough launch and needed several patches, which hurt its initial reception. But the patched version is genuinely compelling. The writing is strong, the Australian setting is more than surface-level flavour, and some of the moral dilemmas are properly thought-provoking. It’s not Fallout, but it’s doing something Fallout never tried, and I respect that.

Crab God (Firesquid, Melbourne)

A city-builder where you’re a god guiding crab civilisation. Yes, really. And it’s brilliant. The ocean-floor setting means resource management, expansion, and defence all work differently from typical city-builders. Tidal currents affect your crab migration paths. Predators come from above. The visual design is gorgeous — bioluminescent cities on the sea floor that genuinely make you stop and stare.

It’s the kind of game that could only come from an indie studio willing to commit fully to a weird idea. AAA publishers would have killed this in the pitch meeting. Thank god for indie dev.

Honourable Mentions

Innchanted (Dragonbear Studios, Melbourne) — A co-op tavern management game with RPG elements. Great fun with friends, charming art style, and a surprisingly deep crafting system.

The Artful Escape follow-up content (Beethoven & Dinosaur, Melbourne) — Not a new game, but the expanded content for this psychedelic musical platformer deserves recognition. It’s a sensory experience more than a traditional game, and the new levels are stunning.

Untitled wrestling game from League of Geeks — Still in early access, but Melbourne’s League of Geeks (Armello developers) building a narrative wrestling RPG is exactly the kind of unexpected pivot that makes Australian development interesting.

Why Does Australia Punch Above Its Weight?

I think about this a lot, and I don’t think there’s a single answer. But a few factors stand out.

Geographic isolation breeds originality. Australian studios aren’t embedded in the same echo chambers as studios in LA, Tokyo, or Stockholm. We consume the same games, but we’re making them from a distance — culturally, physically, and sometimes philosophically. That distance seems to produce games that feel distinct. Untitled Goose Game couldn’t have come from anywhere else. Neither could Cult of the Lamb’s specific blend of cute and sinister.

Small teams, strong visions. Australia’s indie scene is dominated by small studios — often under 10 people. Small teams mean fewer compromises, stronger creative visions, and faster decision-making. When three people in a room agree on what the game should be, you don’t get the design-by-committee blandness that plagues larger studios.

Government support, when it works. Screen Australia and state-based film and games funds have provided critical early funding for Australian studios. The federal government’s Digital Games Tax Offset — a 30% refundable tax offset for qualifying game development expenditure — has made Australia more competitive for both local studios and international companies setting up Australian offices. This support isn’t perfect or universal, but it’s meaningful.

A culture of mutual support. The Australian game dev community is remarkably collaborative. Studios share knowledge, mentor each other, and celebrate each other’s successes in ways that feel genuine rather than performative. Events like GCAP (Game Connect Asia Pacific) and local meetups in Melbourne, Sydney, and Brisbane create real community bonds. When a game from a rival studio does well, the reaction is usually pride rather than jealousy. That culture matters.

Melbourne as a hub. Let’s be honest — Melbourne carries a huge share of Australia’s game development output. The city has a critical mass of talent, studios, and infrastructure that creates a self-reinforcing ecosystem. Game developers move to Melbourne because that’s where the studios are. Studios are in Melbourne because that’s where the developers are. It’s the same dynamic you see with tech in San Francisco or film in Los Angeles, just at a smaller scale.

What’s Coming

The pipeline for 2026-2027 looks strong. Several Australian studios have unannounced projects in various stages of development, and the ones I’ve heard whispers about are ambitious. The combination of the tax offset, growing international publisher interest in Australian studios, and a generation of developers raised on the success stories of their predecessors suggests the best is still ahead.

If you’re not paying attention to Australian game development, start. We’re making some of the most interesting, distinctive, and genuinely fun games in the world right now. And we’re not slowing down.